What Hasn't Been Painted Before

While driving, I sometimes look and think: that could be the subject for a painting, or a study. Maybe it is a landscape, with the light in just a certain way. The hope is, that as a painter, one's ability to discern was is worth painting and what is not worth painting has progressed, and is developed,or is developing. The hope is that either the scene is unique, and underpainted, or that one's rendering of it will be. This relates to the idea of originality, and that it is worth the effort to bring something new into the world, that might widen our perspective on our experience. Not that it is not worth doing if it is not original- just that it is a driving undercurrent for my experience.
As I look at more painting, I see that the world has caught up and surpassed me, that my "special" subjects that i thought were underpainted, are now overpainted. Like low light on fields. or the snake of a river of shine of a pond in twilight, things that i took for my own (another topic and arguable- what would one's "own" be). Still, there is the fact, that we can tell what era a painting was painted in, at least for the most part. i cannot say this is true for the current one, I don't have that knowledge. But by participating, we somehow become part of the ethos just by that action.