Essay On Earth Art

684 Words2 Pages

Earth art is the art of using nature and natural materials, like water, soil, rocks…etc. With this you can create anything from sculptures to landscape art in the open. The genre originally started in late 1960’s in the US. Artists were starting to protest against artificial and commercialized art. They want to do something that was big and unmovable; art that couldn’t be placed in museums. (Lanz, C.K) However, sometimes this would be contradicting, as people would pay a lot of money to buy the materials for the art, and make the art in rich areas. Some common features include large-scale works of curtains, islands full of different colors, patterns on the earth etc. (Land art) Some famous artists in this genre are: Robert Smithson, Andy Goldsworthy, Andrew Rogers, Nancy Holt, James Turrell, Chris Drurry and many more (Lanz, C.K)

One of the famous earth artists I would like to further discuss is Andy Goldsworthy. Goldsworthy was born in Cheshire, England on July 26, 1956. As a child he worked on a farm- this partially influenced his earth art: “ 'A lot of my work is like picking potatoes,' he says. 'You have to get into the rhythm of it.'” For example, in one of his videos he is using icicles to create a circle. He must use his spit and the same routine to get to his goal, just like in farming. (Adams, Tim). He went to the Bradford School of Art. He first started earth art (both in city and country areas) in the 1970’s. Currently he lives in Scotland. (Andy Goldsworthy)

To make the art he uses snow, stone, wood, water, mud, flower petals and his spit. (Andy Goldsworthy Biography). He makes pieces ranging from very small to big all around the world. Some of his works are permanent while others not. Naturally there are environmen...

... middle of paper ...

...e (“Andy Goldsworthy and the limits”). Last, something I thought was really interesting about him, is that he doesn’t want to leave the impression that he put a lot of effort into his art work. (Adams Time) Perhaps he wants us to show his art just like nature itself- it comes naturally, and there’s no effort from us humans in it.

Although I haven’t researched him thoroughly enough, here are some of art pieces that caught my attention. It amazes me how nice these pieces are to like at, and to think they’re made from pure nature. It looks like this is simple to make, but after creating a own earth art piece, I know it must have been very difficult to find the right colors and work with the weather environment. I also like the bright colors he chooses; he uses a dark background and finds natural bright items which make the contrast look really good, in my opinion.

More about Essay On Earth Art

Open Document