ABSTRACT
This chapter takes up the photographs of Edward Burtynsky, the ephemeral art of Andy Goldsworthy, and the novel The Road by Cormac McCarthy in relation to the concerns, with particular attention to how these artists interpret and frame notions of collapse, what refer to as ecological apocalypse. While the media and modes these artists engage with are diverse, their works are inevitably about human relationships with non-human nature. The word apocalypse itself derives from the Greek apokalupsis, to uncover or reveal (the root is kalupto, to cover or conceal). Apocalypse as the title of its well-known classical manifestation – the Book of Revelation – makes clear is an uncovering a revelation. As have seen, apocalypse as a narrative genre casts a retrospective, ordering glance over all of creation, rendering visible the ‘final’ fulfillment of time, and imposing an absolute, teleological order and meaning over all that has gone before.
