One of the earliest records of human activity that we can find is related to art. Even the prehistoric people felt the need to paint what was going on around them. We can see that human beings have always felt a special connection with it and that they drew their inspiration from it. This is not exclusively tied to painting; many poets sang of nature, like Wordsworth, who practically worshipped it. This relationship of artistic people continues even today and can be seen in the work of various artists who feel nature as if it were their own home.
Why this relationship with nature?
For as long as the human species exists as such, there has been the notion of going back to nature, “our original home”. However, many anthropologists argue that this longing for home only exists as the counterweight in the human psyche, to balance out the burden of civilization that we all carry. Nevertheless, this lost beauty has maintained its status as the source of inspiration for many artists.
Where can this be noticed?
Precisely because this phenomenon is so widespread in the world of art, no single example comes to mind, but some of them can be listed. For example, Vincent Van Gogh managed to express the movement and the unsteadiness of the nature he saw in such a way, that the viewer feels as if they are standing right alongside the famous painter and watching the scene. Also, both he and Claude Monet drew great inspiration from flowers, which make up a significant portion of their work.
Nature and art today
Technology has transformed the world we live in, and it bears very little resemblance to the one where the aforementioned artists made their work. However, this has not stopped nature from exerting its influence onto every subsequent generation of artists, including those who work today. Strongly motivated by the desire to return to a more natural state of things, they work on recreating the ideal symbiosis between nature and art, whose popularity is starting to grow in recent years.
Land art
This type of art has originated in the previous century and is still very popular today. It refers to the utmost integration of nature and art, to the point that artists use nature to create art, by manipulating it and modeling it into appealing visual images. This type of art also seeks to take the audience out of art galleries, and into a more natural environment, where they can both enjoy the artwork, as well as the nature surrounding it. The works that fit into this category are usually very big, and require more than handworks to be made; the artists often have to use more people to complete their projects.
