The Role of Nature through American Art

THE ROLE OF NATURE THROUGH AMERICAN ART
Name:
Grade Course:
Tutor`s Name:
(25 September 2010)
The Role of Nature through American Art
Nature in broader sense can be equated to the natural world, material world or physical world. It can be defined to refer to the phenomena of physical life and to life in general. The American art refers to the physical painting and the visual art in the U.S. in the late 18th century and early 19th century artists mainly painted landscapes and portraits in a realistic style. The poet Dante said that "nature is the art of God." Though Dante was European, his insights can also be applied to art of the Americas. This essay discuses the role of nature in American art.
Nature gave birth to the American character. The character of the Americans did not spring from the mayflowers but out of forests and gains new strength every time it touches a frontier. The geography and ecology of the American continent has been under debate for long time among the Americans. The two primary wildernesses were contested. Either the wilderness contained savagery and the temptations that threatened the authority of the community or was a representation of a new garden that could flourish with European settlers proper cultivation. Though these views of the wilderness that contrast shared the objective of civilization establishment, by the removal of the barriers that were presented by the natural environment, the wilderness state that originally characterized the nation that is young has become the source of national pride and the identity for America, (Roderick, 158)
It is notes that early new world settlers were at all not the Americans but the transplanted Europeans who viewed the land as spiritual and physical void that had to be conquered and in the name of Christianity and progress civilized. Since it was the entity that was unknown having bizarre animals, topography that was unusual, inhabitants that were strange and indigenous; the wilderness was a representation of a place where the community and consensus that would be put in danger by absent Europeans law, civilization and religion, (Roderick, 236). In early colonies like Virginia, the wilderness was a representation of the garden, a place to be domesticated and cleared for human community establishment. In this view, soil provided raw materials for building a society and nature was to be used but not feared. in spite of different views, the objective was to destroy the savage wilderness and make it bloom with the civilizati...