Unit 4: Natural Forms Notes

“How can you use nature to make new designs without permanently

disrupting the natural world?”

environmental photographyenvironmental photography

– In a general sense, it is art that helps improve our relationship with the natural world by involving a spectator in the piece. This living worldwide movement is growing and changing as you read this.

– Much environmental art is ephemeral (made to disappear or transform), designed for a particular place (installation) or involves collaborations between artists and others, such as scientists and educators (cross-disciplinary). Cross-disciplinary can also include a photography and a sculptor working together or a single artist working as both a photographer and sculptor.

environmental photographyenvironmental photography

– Born in 1956 in Cheshire, England– Raised in Yorkshire, England – Uses natural materials: snow, ice, leaves, bark,

feathers, petals, twigs etc. to create outdoor sculptures of simplistic design and balanced aesthetic.

– Goldsworthy records his work using color film – so for Goldsworthy photography creates a different artistic experience as well as being a method of documentation (in a sense fine art photography + photojournalism).

– Deliberately works on location and work with the landscape instinctively.

andy goldsworthyandy goldsworthy

– “For me looking, touching, material, place and form are all inseparable from the resulting work. It is difficult to say where one stops and another begins.”

– “Movement, change, light growth and decay are the lifeblood of nature, the energies that I try to tap through my work.”

– “My approach to photography is kept simple, almost routine. All work, good and bad, is documented. I use standard film, a standard lens and no filters. There is an intensity about a work at its peak that I hope is expresses in the image. Process and decay are implicit.”

goldsworthy’s philosophygoldsworthy’s philosophy

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– Karl Blossfeldt (1865-1932) was a German instructor of sculpture who used his remarkable photographs of plant studies to educate his students about design elements in nature.

– Blossfeldt's photographs were made with a homemade camera that could magnify the subject up to thirty times its actual size. By doing so he revealed extraordinary details within the natural structure of the plants.

– In the process he created some of the most innovative photographic work of his time. The simple yet expressive forms captured on film affirmed his boundless artistic and intellectual ability.

karl blossfeldtkarl blossfeldt

karl blossfeldtkarl blossfeldt

karl blossfeldtkarl blossfeldt

karl blossfeldtkarl blossfeldt

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karl blossfeldtkarl blossfeldt