Picking up where we left off in Part I of our Art and the Environment series, art reflects humanity’s changing perception of nature’s relationship with God and living beings here on Earth. For centuries, European artists drew and sculpted humans and religious figures in indoor settings. Nature was often painted as a mere afterthought. Then, during the high renaissance period in Italy, artists such as Giovanni Bellini began to portray human figures in subordination to landscape. In Bellini’s Saint Francis in Ecstacy (circa 1485), Saint Francis is enveloped in nature, reflecting his belief that God’s presence resides in nature. Bellini painted more detail in the craggy rocks and diminutive leaves than in the lone human figure.
Saint Francis in Ecstacy (1485) by Giovanni Bellini
Dutch artist Pieter Brueggel the Elder believed that nature was the source of all life, and his paintings reflected that vision. When he visited Italy, Brueggel sketched the Alps and the southern seacoast rather than the Roman sculptures that appealed to earlier Renaissance artists. In Landscape with the Fall of Icarus (1554-1555), Brueggel depicts humanity’s intimate connection with nature. Laurie Schneider Adams writes in her book Art Across Time: “The folds of the peasant’s tunic repeat the furrows of the plowed earth beneath him, formally uniting him with the land. Below the peasant, a shepherd tends his flock, and a peasant sits by the edge of the sea.”
Landscape with the Fall of Icarus (1554-1555) by Pieter Brueggel
Another Dutch painter, Jacob van Ruisdael, extended the vistas even farther out towards the horizon. In the painting Extensive Landscape with Ruins, Ruisdael contrasts rumbling clouds with calm fields, lending the painting an atmospheric intensity that speaks to the ever-changing quality of nature. Although Ruisdael’s works are often devoid of people, his paintings do not lack human personality traits, which Ruisdael expresses through his lively depictions of nature. In Extensive Landscape with Ruins, nature is both menacing—depicted in the sky—and soothing—depicted on land, in the fields.
An Extensive Landscape with Ruins (1670) by Jacob van Ruisdael
The eighteenth century brought with it the Age of Enlightenment and a style of painting called rococco, which was ornate, light, and casual, with irregular design. Nature began to look more cheerful during this era. The French painter Jean-Honore Fragonard depicted a lighthearted—and some say erotic—scene in the painting The Swing. In the painting, the human figures reflect their natural setting, hearkening back to Brueggel’s technique. In her book Art Across Time, Laurie Schneider Adams writes: “The lacy ruffles in the dress of the girl swinging are repeated in the illuminated leaves, the twisting branches, and the scalloped edges of the fluffy clouds.”
The Swing (1766) by Jean-Honore Fragonard
Across the pond, the expansive natural beauty of the United States inspired American artists to create landscape works that “were often monumental in size and breathtaking in effect.” In The Oxbow, Thomas Cole depicts a bend in the Connecticut River. The painting presents a stark contrast: a dark wilderness to the right and a sunny agricultural community to the left. The artwork reflects the prevalent attitude of the times—namely, that nature is better when controlled. Cole often journeyed by foot through the northeastern states, making pencil sketches along the way of the nature he experienced and transformed into art through his paintings.
The Oxbow (1836) by Thomas Cole
The United States also displayed its dominance over nature with the construction of massive high-rise buildings, monuments, and suspension bridges. In 1869, construction began on the Brooklyn Bridge. Two massive towers were linked by four parallel cables, each containing over 5,000 strands of steel wire. Bridges provided better systems of transportation, which advanced communications and commerce and distanced Americans from the dark wilderness depicted in The Oxbow.
Brooklyn Bridge (circa 1982)
Nineteenth-century folk art presents another view of nature in America at that time. In Peaceable Kingdom, folk artist Edward Hicks depicts wild animals peacefully coexisting with humans. Hicks, who during his lifetime was best known as a Quaker preacher, “merges the natural landscape with a utopian ideal related to the notion of the Garden of Eden.” The animal shapes look two-dimensional and static—thus the painting freezes nature, deeming it permanent.
Peacable Kingdom (1834) by Edward Hicks
As the industrial revolution transformed the world, many artists created art in opposition to the changes. The French painter Jean-Francois Millet “painted directly from nature, producing landscapes tinged with nostalgia for the countryside, which was receding before the advance of the industrial revolution.” In the painting Gleaners, Millet depicts three peasants interacting with their environment. The colors of the land represent the countryside’s economic disparity. The peasants are cast in shadow while the farm is bathed in sunlight.
Gleaners (1857) by Jean-Francois Millet
Meanwhile, many artists in the East depicted nature in an altogether different style. The Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai created a series of woodblock prints that showed the same place at different times of the day or seasons. Hokusai’s Great Wave of Kanagawa is from a series entitled Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji. The wave is drawn flatly, almost like a pattern, yet its dramatic rise and nearness to the viewer lend it a sense of immediacy. Hokusai’s work later influenced artists in the West, including Claude Monet, who painted a 250 oil painting series of water lilies, in an effort to understand how light plays with flora. Monet was a plein air painter, meaning that he did most of his painting outdoors rather than in the studio.
Great Wave of Kanagawa (1831) by Katsushika Hokusai
Water Lilies (1919) by Claude Monet
The twentieth century celebrated many different art styles, some which revered nature and others that didn’t even give it a nod. Pop artists abandoned nature and instead gathered inspiration from man-made objects. Claes Oldenburg erected Clothespin, a 14-meter high steel sculpture in Philadelphia that simply depicts an everyday object—a clothespin.
Clothespin (1976) by Claes Oldenburg
Meanwhile, some of Oldenburg’s contemporaries pioneered environmental art, which is art that is created outdoors and often subject to degradation by natural elements. Robert Smithson erected the Spiral Jetty on Utah’s Great Salt Lake’s shore. The work is a coil 1,500 feet long and 15 feet wide made of rock, salt crystals, earth, and algae. The algae inside the spiral changes the water’s color to red. Paradoxically, environmental art isn’t always environmentally friendly. To create Spiral Jetty, Smithson hired a contractor to bulldoze some 6,000 tons of earth! That’s why environmental art often begs the question: “Was it worth it?”
Spiral Jetty (1970) by Robert Smithson
Within the last century, new technologies including photography and videography have changed art forever. In Plastic Bags—part of the series Running the Numbers: An American Self-Portrait—Chris Jordan utilizes photography and digital image manipulation to depict 60,000 plastic bags, which is the number used in the United States every five seconds. The piece is hypnotically beautiful in its composition, yet frightening in its message. Likewise, Bill Viola’s video installation, The Crossing, uses new media to emphasize nature’s value. In the video, two sequences, one on either side of the screen, depict a man who is both created and consumed by the elemental powers of nature—fire and water. The artwork speaks of man’s impermanence and of nature’s unyielding power, even in this age of technology.
Plastic Bags (2005) by Chris Jordan
A slide from The Crossing (1996) by Bill Viola
The future of environmental art is yet to be seen, but hopefully art can find a way to be sustainable, thought-provoking, and inspiring of environmental preservation.
