Nature in contemporary art - Essay Example

Concepts and Representation of Nature in Contemporary Art In one approach or another, nature has always been the honored theme of original art. Sometimes, it is treated in a mythical or animist guide, or else stated as the very structure of existence. This structure is often very isolated and challenging to capture. Captured in a quaint form, nature has also been a foundation of joy and pleasure.1 It is worth noting that nature is the measure of the whole when viewed as the typical inspiring object.2 However, there is something inspiring in the fact that each person is part of the world and goes beyond his triviality through the sense of belonging. In situations where the form of the earth as life's foundation is laid onto nature, it personalizes truth and validity endangered by technology. As a result, many philosophers have incorporated this firm earthly groundwork as a signal of the roots with which the individual continuously seems to demand.3 When a polemical analysis was made by Heidegger (already a classic) of the shoes painted by Van Gogh, he was focused to the path below the shoes worn.4 This is because he thought, the path was taken by a peasant woman in relation to the actual shoes. This translated to the fact that it was a trail of compressed earth, of steadiness with solidity, a path which was not misleading or artificial.5 Nature as Raw Material A representation of nature exists from where once changes it to a situation where one “shapes” it. As a result, nature exists as the "raw material" for the land art. This is as illustrated in the works of Richard Long, Walter De Maria, and Robert Smithson.6 In Smithson's work titled “Spiral Jetty," nature, the world, the lake and the gravels coupled with the sky are the fashioned material. Smithson's Spiral Jetty7 This can be explained by the fact that it is as if man wanted to channel himself against nature. This circumstances resulted to a change thus realize a beautifulness that appears to be renounced to him in daily life. When Walter De Maria made his “Lightning Field” statue in the desert, he appeared to be convincing nature to act in a given way.8 He fails to take an inactive attitude in the company of the elements, resulting to failure to signify. This is because he slightly seeks to feel what is ordinary and lively in them and to make an artistic experience of it. It is important to note that the “land art” of the 1960s and 1970s seemed to make a new attempt to come to an understanding with nature in a way similar to or at least associated with the approach of prehistoric artists.9 Artistic obligation does not always go the way of the outstanding. Smithson's quay, Long's lines and circles pegged with De Maria's lightning are considerable to the individual expecting them. Turrell's spaces appear to be homes for anybody encircled in them.10 Furthermore, they appear as vantage areas from which one might effectively take ownership of the sky. On the contrary, the wax and coal dust utilized by Eva Lootz, or Adolfo Schlosser's rod branches and skins, are natural and forms the "raw material" for their creative activity.11 As a result, they give a convinced and minimal measure of nature. For example, the breeze that sets in motion a Calder mobile, the paraffin, coal dust or wax lightly gathering on the object or on a flat surface, and the tautness of the frail determined branch constructed into one of Schlosser's pieces.12 It was noted that, in the work of all these artists in the example stated above, apart from underlining itself by its glory and seriousness, nature announces its self-effacing delicateness. With the lapse of time, the relationship between art and nature has determined creative art. This is because the beginning of nature entertained by the numerous human communities strengthened or altered this relationship. Primitive man utilized the natural elements, whereas the romantics fanatically desired to capture a nature that escaped their grasp. Friedrich's traveler staring from patronizing altitudes upon the depths of clouds spread out at his far end can only grasp what he has before him.13 As a result, this has raised up the theme of romantic deterrence and nostalgia to a new level. The visual artist constable, viewing the orchard through his studio window, glees in the pleasant picturesqueness of the landscape. An artist like Pissarro traveling a tree-lined path can appreciate the play of light shaped by the air and atmosphere, the glancing sunshine and shade, the wave of the leaves and branches, all mixed into a distinct retinal image.14 Nature as Dialogue There seems to be no discoverable shared meaning or motivation to encourage different artistic objectives. Example, those artists "signifying" nature and those "using" it. As a result, they cannot be distinguished with the same measure. The Cuban artist taught with a culture that minds a magical wholeness through daily signs appearing in the monte (may be a garden, a square of land with vegetation) fails to function in the same way as a different artist fed on a diet of Neo-Platonism, whether his tag is Raphael or Michelangelo.15 It is important to state that the energetic force shown by Michelangelo in his statues differs with the calmness, and the ideal amounts as a result of Raphael in his paintings. They each appeal nature in very diverse ways.16 The best perfection, which they find out in it, is quite different to the magical greatness established in everyday things.17 On that foundation, it would be pointless and overstated to look for an overall rule and a master key to such conflicting works and unrelated periods. Indeed, this great mixture of tactics and productions proves that nature is not so much what essentially exists, rather our own hypothesis of what occurs. Nature is "utilized" when twigs are used to create an object, in the sprinkling of coal dust, and in taking gain of currents to activate a mobile. It is applied in painting or sketching a landscape, whether attractive in the style of Constable or inspiring in Turner's.18 Similar happenings occur in situations where nature is "reduced" to a system or a law, or equally when artists compete with Michelangelo and illustrate the very hopelessness of exposing it to any law. It is worth noting that nature is treated as a vigorous force through the power of Michelangelo's Slaves as well as in breathtaking images like Grunewald's Crucifixion. Furthermore, glorious ones like Turner's locomotive combine its excessive violence with the cosmic control of the elements resulting to the portraying of this fact.19 Moreover, natural violence can be extreme as characterized in Goya's Disasters of War drawing. It illustrates a guy speared on a tree which passes through the disfigured body and projects at the back of the neck. Therefore, the tree is a tool of torment, not pleasure. Nature as Experience More often than not, nature is "what is there". This is either within our grasp or before us, to be anticipated, utilized, characterized, enjoyed and valued, to be ours or to express our helplessness, to create a vital force whether as an amused dawn or a miserable night, or in its pure violence. These different images have a common rareness. This is because their property of denoting something which is the advantage of its presence, can be regarded with a sense of "proportion".20 It is to some degree different each time, perceived through diverse eyes, and maintaining a meaning which cuts off or succeeds all others. Nature is nothing if it is not the object of knowledge that gains a material outline in experience. It does so in the understanding of Friedrich's monk staring at the sea, Goya's giant under the starry sky or Runge's ideal morning combined with the ruthless and impossible experience of Christo struggling to wrap nature up and correct it.21 This is an agonizing airs, for nature still exists. Christo's huge set does not turn it into an item. As a result, all remnants of an excessive yet discouraged act will be the snapshot. It is worth noting that the packaging, however strong, "destructs" in nature's own good period. The salt lake eventually conquer over Smithson's jetty, which will completely merge with the water at the end.22 Marguerite Yourcenar once engraved this about ruins: "Those artificial structures of which nature finally takes control." It is worth noting that this theory is valid to many other works that are "not yet" in fragments. Each artistic understanding of nature is comprehensive and supreme, but at the same time restricted. It is complete, perfect and terrible in Goya's impalement scene, beautiful for Friedrich's traveler, and disastrous for Gericault’s stranded mariners in Le Radeau de la Meduse. The heavens which we view from Turrell's site and the dock along which Smithson shows us are perfect and memorable experiences.23 However, it is possible for us to undergo other experiences. This is because nature resembles a new Medusa with a thousand expressions and, like her, can change us to stone if we persevere in our will to control. Still, take-over nature is the whole determination of this understanding, and therein lies the irony from which art draws nourishment.24 Bibliography Alberro, Alexander and Blake, Stimson. Conceptual art: a critical anthology. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 1999 Bann, Stephen and William, Allen. Interpreting contemporary art. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1990 Chung, Chang-Sup. Working with nature: traditional thought in contemporary art from Korea. Liverpool, Tate Gallery Liverpool, 1992 Neill, Alex and Aaron, Ridley. Arguing about art: contemporary philosophical debates. London: Routledge Publishers, 2002 O'Reilly, Sally. The body in contemporary art. New York: Thames & Hudson Publishers, 2009 R. Smithson. Spiral Jetty, earth, black rock, salt, water, = 1500' long x 15' wide, Great Salt Lake, Utah, USA © Adagp, Paris 2000 © photo G. Gorgoni/Courtesy James Cohan Gallery, New York, Collection: DIA Center for the Arts, New York, USA. (1970-73) (accessed October 9, 2013) Robertson, Jean and Craig, McDaniel. Themes of contemporary art: visual art after 1980. New York: Oxford University Press, 2013 Followed the attached pdf downloaded from https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/717/11/ as a sample paper. Read More