The Relationship between Nature and Art.pdf (original) (raw)

The mid-eighteenth century was a defining moment in the tradition of aesthetic reflection in the visual arts. The relationship between nature and art was influenced by aesthetic thought expounded by various philosophers. Landscape painting became the model for the appreciation of nature, which was encouraged by aesthetic theory, at a time when the urban inhabitants of England’s major cities were longing to be reconnected with nature. The canonical idea of art’s function as imitation of nature was questioned in the artistic developments of English landscape painting in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and the emphasis on ‘imitation of nature’ was the subject of much debate.