Art and Culture
Consider the following examples of developments in art that have contributed to cultural quality and experience:
New knowledge in environmental art contributes to a richer experience of nature
In the early 1840s a number of painters interested in recording the landscape were working in the small village of Barbizon, on the edge of the Forest of Fontainebleau, near Paris. Although not a formal group they are often collectively called the Barbizon painters, due to the similar themes their work conveys in the celebrating of nature and recording the beauty of the landscape. Different artists produced work that fluctuated between realism and romanticism, but each was inspired by working directly from nature. One of the foremost artists associated with Barbizon was Theadore Rousseau, whose painting fell at the more realistic end of the scale. He recognized that the expansion of industry in Paris, the growth of the city beyond its walls and the popular indifference to nature, was devastating the forest. He sucessfully petitioned the Emperor of France, Napoleon III to establish a protected park in the forest and in 1863, 1,097 hectares of the Fontainebleau forest was set aside as a réserve artistique, which could not be exploited commercially. This was the first protected nature reserve and began a world wide movement to preserve the environment, still gaining momentum today. Rousseau and the Barbizon painters had considerable impact in the USA, reflecting the impact of the Hudson River Painters. This celebration of the land contributed, in 1864, to Abraham Lincoln signing a declaration of protection for the Yosemite Valley. In 1872 the American Congress established Yosemite National Park - the world’s first protected wild life reserve and forest. The Barbizon and Hudson River artists succeeded in awakening cultural sensibilities to the pleasures of nature (Chagnon-Burke, 2004).
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