Nature and Art

<p>Is nature and art the same thing?</p>

 

<p>No. Art is a human-centered concept. Nature is what it is, regardless of whether anyone is there to appreciate it or not. It just exists, and sometimes it's downright ugly...</p>

<p>I think there's an interesting and fruitful line of thought here, in fact. I would ask a slightly weaker question, can nature be art?</p>

<p>If you take the position that art requires artistic intent, then "no". Nothing can be art that was not made by an intelligent being, with the intention of it being "art" whatever that means. If you DO take this position, things get a little dicey quickly, and you get some rather weird consequences (cf. Conceptual Art, Found Objects, that sort of thing).</p>

<p>If you take the position that art-ness, whatever that is, lies entirely in the piece itself, then nature could in theory generate art.</p>

<p>I pick up a stone with a pattern in its surface which is powerfully evocative of some emotion, a stone which causes many people to feel a strong sense of something when they view it. I place this stone in a gallery, on a little stand. It powerfully moves the viewers as they pass by it and examine it. It seems that this is art, surely. Nature made the stone, I found it. Is the art in the stone? Or, is the art in my intentional act of picking it up and displaying it?</p>

<p>Neither position is entirely comfortable, is it? Nontheless, the stone moves the people who see it.</p>

 

<p>Further developing a bit on Andrew's response, and to answer a question with a question: I picked up a rather unspectacular stone on the beach in 1967 and carried it in my pocket until 2011. Over those years the wear of fabric polished it to a beautiful finish, and the colors seemed deepened. When I picked it out of my pocket with change for a purchase in 2011, the clerk said, "What a beautiful stone!" Because I altered the stone by wearing it in my pocket and someone else saw it as beautiful, is it a piece of art, or only a piece of nature? </p>

<p>It is a stone that at least two people think is beautiful.</p>

<p>Art is something more than that, though a beautiful stone can be art.</p>

<p>My answer to the OP: No. Nature and art are not the same thing. A natural object can be art, though it will take more than a store clerk thinking it's beautiful. It will likely take a village and some art experts . . . among other things.</p>

<p>As William said above, nature can be ugly. So can art.</p>

<p>Art is not necessarily in the intent to make art and art doesn't need the maker's intent, though it very often has it. Plenty of artworks have come about without the maker's intention for it to be art.</p>

<p>Art has an aspect of art-ificial. I'd begin an inquiry into the subject of nature being art by looking for artificial impositions (whether by a maker, a finder, or in viewers' minds) on natural things.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>All of nature contains art, but it takes an artist to see it and present it to others as art.</p>

<p>David, now that I made a fool of myself, I should at least contribute something to this thread. :-) </p>

<p>I'm assuming the association of art and nature is based on the premise that nature is beautiful, but beneath its grandeur is filled with violence, blood, death and the struggle to survive happening every minute at every level of living things in it. Living to struggle another day is an everyday reality in nature. </p>

<p>I think everyone will agree there is art in nature, but the two are probably not interchangeable. </p>

<p>I will elaborate a little on my thoughts.<br>

If we go back to some of the original art ie cave paintings, the "artists" gathered ochre and other materials and decorated the walls of their caves or rock faces. we now use modified elements to do the same, the canvases are different and the materials vary. Animals can do the same. the bower bird gather items that are blue in colour and decorated its nest with them. there are other examples of animals using natural elements to decorate, so therefore art may not be exclusive to humans. we don't fully understand the intent of the animals who are doing this and we are presumptuous that we are the only creature capable of creativity.<br>

If the presumption is that art is man made because it has will and intent behind it, then some would argue that nature has will and intent behind it as well. this is of course if you believe in the devine, in the creator! It could be argued that the beauty in the universe is an artistic creation made by the creator. It could be argued that humans are simply recreating / copying / interpreting on canvas, film, rock, dance etc what was the original art. ie nature.<br>

Nature in itself is constantly creating, from the changes to living fauna / flora and even sedimentary items as rocks. Is the energy in the universe that drives these changes not then the artist? Just as the energy that lives within us the driving force behind our creativity?after all it is the heat, wind, waves and light that give us the forms we try to interpret and copy in what we call art.</p>

<p>The rock argument above is part of this story.</p>

 

<p><<<<em>If the presumption is that art is man made because it has will</em>>>></p>

<p>I don't think anyone presumed that. I'm certainly an advocate of art being accidental rather than intentional, as I said above.</p>

<p><<<<em>we are presumptuous that we are the only creature capable of creativity.</em>>>></p>

<p>I don't think anyone presumed that either. I'm open to the possibility that other animals can produce art.</p>

<p>___________________________</p>

<p>Using natural substances to create art is different from a natural thing or substance <em>being</em> art and different from, as you said in your OP, nature being the <em>same thing</em> as art.</p>

<p> </p>

<p><em>Using natural substances to create art is different from a natural thing or substance being art and different from, as you said in your OP, nature being the same thing as art.</em><br>

<em><br /></em>Fred, If one considers a natural thing being art, then one needs to consider that a natuarl substance made that art in one way or another.</p>

<p><<<<em>if one considers a natural thing being art, then one needs to consider that a natuarl substance made that art</em>>>></p>

<p>Richard, I'm not sure I'm following you, though the discussion you've started intrigues me. IMO, if a natural substance such as a rock or a tree or a river is art, it's art because someone points to it as art and people agree that it's art and it has certain effects on us that art has or it's part of a greater concept or performance. I don't quite understand your suggestion of a natural substance making a natural substance art. Doesn't that just lead to an endless loop? Even if not an endless loop of natural substance making natural substance art, I'm still not getting it. Can you explain or give an example of a natural thing that's art because a natural substance made that other natural substance art? If it's the natural substance itself that makes itself art, I'm not sure how that occurs either.</p>

<p>Might art depend as much or more on <em>how</em> we look as it does on <em>what*</em> the thing is? Art may be as much or more a way of looking and appreciating as it is something inherent in an object, natural or otherwise. That's, in part, what I meant above by artificial imposition on a natural object. The river is the river. The artifice is the "persona" we give the river when we look at it. Do we see "beauty"? Do we see a place to spill our toxic chemicals? Do we see a stage on which to set a modern dance? Do we see something to be at one with when we go rafting on its pounding currents?</p>

<p>* Maybe the oft-asked question "What is art?" is simply a bad question to ask or at least a bad way to approach questions about art. "Why" and "how" might give us more clues.</p>

<p>Fred, I am not the best at verbal or written communication, Sorry for that.</p>

<p>What i am trying to say is, if we photograph the rock and we say and agree that the image produced is art. Then can we not say that the rock itself is art? (Nature is art)<br>

What i mean by nature creating the art is, the rock was not always there, it started life out as something else, and over the years developed form, texture or whatever, that made us want to photograph it. Over the years the elements carves away at it changing its form, the rain belted down on it washing away the softer elements of the rock to leave it in its current state. So what i am saying is that the rock being a natural artwork was in fact created by the elements of nature. <br>

2 things at play, the physical element of nature and the forces of nature.</p>

<p>I feel that it is the same with us as humans, we create art (whatever we deem that to be) by using our energy (life forces) to change the physical (canvas, or whatever)<br>

Is it a coincidence that we find all of our emotions in nature? the good the bad the ugly? all of the things that we depict in art, are we just copying the art that was created in nature?</p>

<p>I think this is doing my head in :)</p>

<p>Thanks. A great and thoughtful explanation. I understand much better and I love where you're headed. The evolving of nature as a creative force or at least analogous to the creative force. Makes sense and gives me pause for more thought.</p>

<p>A couple of things come to mind. I'm going to be a bit contrary here but only to further the discussion along and by way of wondering out loud more than asserting any kind of certainty. There may be more to art than just creativity, though creativity is certainly a prime mover in art. By having intercourse, a very natural thing to do, we, like the wind and rain in the story of rock formation, change things and create children. I'm not sure that's an act of art. It is an act of creation, however. The rock could be similar. It could be more in the way we attend to the rock than in the way the rock was created that art happens. Four previously dull walls in a house get painted a bright yellow color, livening up the room. Act of creation of sorts. Art? Not so much. Some house painters are artists, not just because they create a new look for the walls but because of how they do it, what the result is, how it's looked at, what it makes the viewers feel.</p>

<p>A photo of a rock could be art without the rock being art, though the rock could be art given some sets of circumstances. A photo is different from its subject.</p>

<p>I'm not sure that we find all our emotions in nature. Good, bad, and ugly aren't emotions. Sadness, joy, love, fear, for example, are emotions. We may experience those because of natural occurrences or experiences we have in nature but I don't think we find them IN nature <em>per se</em>.</p>

<p>Art imitates life and that would include nature, so, sure, we may be in part copying the art that was created in nature. But art is also a product of human imagination, both on the creating and on the viewing/listening/appreciating side. Art is as unnatural as it is natural and there may be some keys in just that paradox. Art can be truth through lying (making stuff up, fabricating). </p>

<p>Oh, and about good, bad, and ugly. I don't think they're found in nature. I think they're judgments we make (and maybe, loosely considered, some animals might make). Volcanoes might seem bad when they spew ash on cities or when people get caught in and killed by sudden lava flows. They can seem good in their role in forming land masses, etc. But in and of themselves they are neither good nor bad. It is our judging that sees them that way. Good, bad, and ugly are man-made concepts. We may apply them to a rock but a rock is neither good nor bad. If it hits you in the head, it's bad. If it helps you get your clothes clean because you can whack your wet shirt against it, it's good.</p>

<p>Now, an interesting twist is this. Someone in a recent thread pointed out that we often forget people are part of nature, so "man-made" may be very natural. Why not? Nevertheless, I think we can separate the idea of plastic from the idea of soil.</p>

<p>Poor choices of words form me again, I totally agree, there is no good or bad, there is a relative perspective only. And yes we are part of nature, so is it the artist who is in tune with nature and its forces, and because he / she is in tune is that why they create, choose to emulate? Musician do it all the time, Vivaldi and his four season, Ansel Adams and his connection with the nature of Yosemite. Cartier Bresson and his connection with human life! Many a people wonder at the creations we have made that hang in Galleries, many people who never visit Galleries wonder at the marvels of nature.<br>

As per your previous comment. The act of intercourse that is part of the creative process (creation of life) some may view that act as an act of art? maybe </p>

<p>The ART of Karma Sutra!</p>

<p>I worry about declaring any and every act art. It neuters the concept, IMO.</p>

<p>Sure, Adams photographed Yosemite and Vivaldi wrote The Four Seasons. But there are many composers who didn't model their music after natural occurrences, though various people might hear strains of nature even in works that weren't necessarily intended to mirror it.</p>

<p>And Andy Warhol painted soup cans, very different from the pastoral scenes of Monet. </p>

<p>That people wonder at creations of art and at natural occurrences doesn't mean that natural occurrences are (always or necessarily) art or vice versa. It just means they both inspire wonder and, in that, they are similar (but not identical).</p>

<p>Adams or anyone else bringing a camera into nature instead of just hiking and breathing in the air (or at least in addition to doing those things) is in some sense a very unnatural thing to do, or at least could be seen that way. Sometimes, the imposition of a camera between me and the goings on or people around me seems like a very unnatural and artificial thing to do . . . and that's an aspect of it that I love and explore. Sometime, on the other hand, it seems like second nature to me to take a picture.</p>

<p><em>"Anything more than 500 yards from the car just isn’t photogenic.”</em> --Edward Weston</p>

<p>Now, I don't know the context in which he said this. I'm sure on some level he was being sarcastic. But knowing his work, I also think Weston made things photogenic and saw things photographically and photogenically. He didn't necessarily need nature or Yosemite or thoughts of the seasons to do it. A <a href="http://www.macobo.com/essays/eimages/Excusado.jpg">porcelain bowl</a> did just fine.</p>

<p>When Prometheus gave fire to man, what did he "give" us?</p>

<p>Freedom from so much chewing? Forest fires? Central heat? A way to keep the beasties at bay at night? He probably gave us a smouldering tree.</p>

<p>One of the core issues in this question is the separation of man from nature. Where can we draw that line? With Lucy? Or is she too ape-ish? With our ancestors before they began doing art? When they began marking long bones with marks tallying something?</p>

<p>Can we separate ourselves and what we do from nature? Or are we, our culture and art a part of it? </p>

<p>I doubt stones in the desert murmur to each other "look at <em>that! </em>Now, there's a work of art".</p>

<p>By my definition, art is stored human psychic energy. It was the first method of storage outside our brains, one that could stand independent of the creator. </p>

 

<p>Art is one of the ways (others are science and religion, which both to me are the same) humans use to respond to their surroundings; nature is the human's very surroundings. Art is releasing the human hidden inside a piece of rock (nature), as Michelangelo did. </p>

<p>I think that merely observing nature in a way that brings out the beauty is art. Yes, surely, Michelangelo was an artist, but so was Ansel Adams. Ansel selected the perfect subject and then the perspective and exposed and processed to emphasize the dramatic and let us see nature's beauty more clearly.</p>

<p>I always felt Adams was more a supreme technician than an artist. But, my opinion about Adams aside, I understand what you're saying, David, and I think Adams did pay attention in a certain way to his surroundings that's significant. Art, though, IMO, is more than merely observing. Adams took action. He photographed and, as you say, he selected, chose perspective and processed. I don't know if Adams is showing us nature's beauty as much as he is showing us a kind of photographic beauty, even a kind of idealism. I've been to Yosemite many times, and it has a very different kind of beauty than Adams's photos which, to me, don't bring out what I see or feel when I'm there. True, that's the thing about a lot of photographs: though they are often OF something, they just as often transform that something and don't strike me in the same way that the things they are pictures of strike me. The certainly can, but they often don't. And I find Adams particularly distanced from his subject. </p>

<p>____________________________</p>

<p><<<<em>science and religion, which both to me are the same</em>>>></p>

<p>Reminds me of a TV comedian's joke upon hearing right-wingers claim that atheism is just another religion. "Atheism is a religion," he sarcastically jokes, "like abstinence is a sex position."</p>