AHT 1100 - Art and the Natural Environment

Since the beginning of humanity, artists have engaged with nature and responded to its bounty and breadth, cycles and diversity, and its potential to nourish or destroy human life. Art from cultures across the world has looked to nature as a source of meaning, mystery, and metaphor. By investigating visual production from many different periods and contexts, this course considers art as a reflection of changing attitudes about the natural world as a point of origin and a fundamental aspect of religious and spiritual beliefs. The course presents artworks in a variety of media that communicate how nature has been celebrated, studied, managed, and exploited by humankind. Students will learn about various ways that modern and contemporary art interrogates the age of the Anthropocene and expresses the destructive impact of humanity on the natural world, particularly since the Industrial Revolution. A selection of works to be explored includes art from ancient religions and cultures (Hindu, Greco-Roman, Jewish, Christian and Islamic), African classical art, Japanese woodblock prints in the Ukiyo-e style, Indigenous art, European and American modern art movements, and global contemporary art. Credits: 4