ABSTRACT
In this chapter I consider one aesthetic issue that arises between nature and art in the sense of arising from an intimate relationship between the two. There are, of course, many such relationships between nature and art in the history of humankind’s domination of the earth. However, to investigate this aesthetic issue I here take as my example a quite recent and essentially artistic phenomenon-what is typically called environmental art. Within this category I focus mainly on works such as the earthworks and earthmarks of artists such as Robert Smithson, Michael Heizer, and Dennis Oppenheim and certain structures on the land such as those of Robert Morris, Michael Singer, and Christo. Some paradigm cases are Smithson’s Spiral Jetty (1970), Heizer’s Double Negative (1969-70), Singer’s Lily Pond Ritual Series (1975), and Christo’s Running Fence (1972-76).
