Our ancestors had a magical-mythical relationship with nature; they knew how to coexist and listen to its voice. The stones, the trees, the forests, the mountains, the sun, and the moon represented sacred entities for them, for which they were considered a reason for rites and cults. It is worth noting that in the Christian religious worldview communion or encounter with God is also conceived through the contemplation of his Creation, that is, of nature.
The idea of the sacredness of nature has been present in the visual poetics of some contemporary artists committed to the environment, we refer to those belonging to Environmental Art or Land Art (1), tendencies of ecological concerns that emerged between the 60s and 70, whose creators usually go to the most remote and uninhabited places on the planet to make use of natural materials such as wood, stones, rocks, sand, water, among others, thus generating, on a specific place, an articulation between sculpture and landscape architecture, transforming natural spaces into true artworks.
The artists linked to those tendencies establish a dialogue with nature in order to become attuned to it and, respecting its order, its own laws, imprinting its traces on it, like God, thus conceiving a new landscape of a sculptural and architectural nature in a specific place.
Through art we can feel and experience our connection with nature, either as a creator or as a spectator, and understand that we are all part of the same cycle that must be protected and preserved. Many artists, as can be seen in the history of contemporary art, have used different media to express their empathy, concern and raise awareness in human beings about the risks that nature suffers, which is increasingly affected by the effect of global warming.
At Arte Original, you can see some paintings, photographs, and sculptures, through which the artists express their particular vision, sensibility, and concern (2) (3) for nature (4).
Written by José Gregorio Noroño
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