Earth, Water, Air, Fire: Art, Ecology, and the Environment

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

Building on recent ecocritical approaches to the discipline of art history, this course will explore human-environmental relations and changing ideas about the natural world from the industrial revolution to the present. Structured around four elemental modules and drawing on a diverse range of visual media including scientific ‘specimen’ prints, Romantic landscape paintings, contemporary photography, and installation art (with works by J.M.W. Turner, Thomas Cole, and Edward Burtynsky), we will discuss natural history, landscape gardening, and land art (earth), global maritime trade, colonial expansion, and its visual culture (water), climate and disease (air), and the impacts of industrialisation and the burning of fossil fuels (fire). Major themes will include interactions between science and art, the global movement of people, ideas, flora, and fauna through colonial networks, developments in environmental theory, indigenous perspectives, materiality (especially as it relates to natural resources), and art as a form of critical intervention. This course will include visits to the Raclin Murphy Museum of Art, the Museum of Biodiversity, and Rare Books and Special Collections. Finally, the course will introduce students to the discipline of art history and its knowledge-making techniques.