2.1 The american conservation movement  (Page 4/6)

Here Emerson makes clear that his connection to the “Universal Being” is made possible through communion with Nature, a creation so much greater than he that he sees his physical reality as “nothing,” but his true nature (i.e. his soul) becomes visible in the “tranquil landscape,” and the “distant line of the horizon.” Such metaphorical language was and remains a powerful reminder that our existence is dependent on the natural world, and that we mismanage the environment at our peril.

Yet, it is difficult to fully appreciate Emerson’s vision of humans and nature through language alone. As might be expected, the counter-reaction to the state of society and its attitudes toward the environment found expression in other media as well, in particular the rise of a cadre of American landscape artists. The camera had not yet been perfected, and of course there was no electronic media to compete for people’s attention, thus artists’ renditions of various scenes, especially landscapes, were quite popular. Figure Kindred Spirits , a rendering by A.B. Durand (1796-1886) of an artist and a poet out for a hike amid a lush forest scene captures much of the essence of transcendental thought, which had strongly influenced Durand’s style. The offset of the human subjects, to left-of-center, is purposeful: the main subject is nature, with humans merely a component. This theme carried through many of the landscapes of the period, and helped to define what became known, among others, as the “ Hudson River School ,” whose artists depicted nature as an otherwise inexpressible manifestation of God. This is further expressed in the painting, In the Heart of the Andes , by Frederic Church (Figure In the Heart of the Andes ). Here, the seemingly sole theme is the landscape itself, but closer inspection (see detail in red square) reveals a small party of people, perhaps engaged in worship, again offset and virtually invisible amid the majesty of the mountains.

Other notable contributors to the transcendental movement were Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), abolitionist and author of Walden and Civil Disobedience, Margaret Fuller (1810-1850), who edited the transcendental journal “The Dial” and wrote Woman in the Nineteenth Century, widely considered the first American feminist work, and Walt Whitman (1819-1892) whose volume of poetry Leaves of Grass celebrates both the human form and the human mind as worthy of praise.

It is important to recognize that the transcendental redefinition of our social contract with the environment was holistic. Within it can be found not only a new appreciation of nature, but also the liberation of the human mind from convention and formalism, attacks on slavery, the need for racial equality, concern for universal suffrage and women’s rights, and gender equity. In many ways it was a repositioning of the ideals of the enlightenment that had figured so prominently in the founding documents of the republic. These social concerns are represented today within the sustainability paradigm in the form of such issues as environmental justice , consumer behavior, and labor relations.