Nature, Art, & the Environment

This course studies attitudes toward nature in Western Europe and North America from the Middle Ages through the 20th century. We will be examining cultural and artistic ideas related to the natural world, noting both continuity and change. In keeping with the interdisciplinary nature of the course, we will be examining such diverse sources as religion, literature and the printed book, gardens and landscape art, painting and printmaking, the history of botany, botanical art and scientific illustration, exploration and travel, climate and geography, agriculture and industrialization, and the development of ecology.