MICROSTORY OF ART

MICROSTORY OF ART
ONLINE JOURNAL FOR ART, CONNOISSEURSHIP AND CULTURAL JOURNALISM

Dedicated to Renaturalization

(Picture: nzz.ch ; Nightnurse Images AG)

(12.-13.11.2022) Snapshots from Switzerland in 2022: a renaturalization project from the Zurich region, with a visualization that seems to promise a gain in urban lifestyle. While at roughly the same time the comeback of the wolf results in a tense atmosphere in the Canton of Grisons. With a visualization of wolves’ eyes lurking and lighting in the dark.
If sustainability means to secure a future (as we have defined it broadly), various strategies might lead to that goal, going along with various iconographies: there is the iconography of a smart management of resources, according to the classic idea of sustainability, which is: do live on the interests, not on the capital (do cut some wood, but not the forest; do shear the sheep, but do not skin it). But this classic core strategy goes along with other strategies: be prepared for dire conditions (the emergeny stock in households has become an issue in 2022, in view of possible energy shortcomings during the winter of 2022/23), and: do, perhaps, also build back structures that actually prevent a living according to the principle of sustainability. Since it is the bad conscience of people, a collective, socially constructed bad conscience, that seems to think: here and there we, our civilisation, has gone too far, progress has exaggerated progressing, and now it might be about repenting – building back, and about (partial) renaturalization. And this is what links the aforementioned snapshots: renaturalization does mean to think of a past state of things, and about, partially, replacing current states, according to a vision of past states. This is renaturalization, and also renaturalization does have a history (we think back of Rousseau, perhaps), as well as it has an iconography. And this is what this presentation is about: the present iconography of renaturalization.

One) Renaturalization of Landscape

I have briefly thought about if there might be a link between the one obsession of Paul Cézanne, his bathers, with the above shown picture. Which is a visualization of a renaturalization project at the Limmat, near Zurich, with – also some bathers. And if there is link, what might be it?
What I am thinking is that Cézanne had seen representations of the idea of a Golden Age in painting (for example such by Ingres), and his obsession had to do with his personal vision of such Golden Age. Which I would define as: being relieved from inner tensions in life that have to do with one’s relation to one’s body, which, again, has to do with bodily norms in society as well as with the demands of gender roles, as well as with the order of gender in general. And while attempting to envision his personal Golden Age (which had also to do with reminiscences of his own childhood and youth at Aix), his inner life does show to be partly relieved from tensions, but partly these tensions seem also to come through – while attempting to envision a more harmonious life of people – men and women – in nature, with nature, and with inner nature (while being individuals within social groups).
The link between the bathers series done by Cézanne and the above picture seems to be that it is about being relieved from something: a collective bad conscience, leading to partial corrections, for example, as here, renaturalization projects of communities, and, as far as Cézanne is concerned, inner tensions that might be more something of a personal issue, but have a social dimension as well, as far as the general relation of people with nature, and inner nature, is concerned. We see something that links the bathers by Cézanne with the above picture, but obvious are also some differences: a visualization study, linked to a renaturalization project, is not meant to do what art can do and be: to be researching into one’s individual relations with the world, with nature, with other individuals. But in both cases it is about thinking about how better states of things might look like in the end, about how more harmonious relations between humans and nature might look like, and about how better relations among people might look like. It is about partially building back and about renaturalization, but such projects involve – as the paintings by Cézanne do – a thinking about how to organize people’s life, in nature, in landscape, which includes also a thinking about how people might use natural resources such as landscape, such as a river. And we see little (except the rubber raft), in the above picture, that actually reminds of modern civilization (obsessed with tech; currently also obsessed with the idea, or at least the language of sustainability); and also the paintings of bathers by Cézanne simply spare everything that could disturb a harmonious state, as to the mere being of people in nature and among themselves. The bathers actually do very little, and also the above visualization is restrained as to what people usually do in nature, and as to how they actually live with and behave in nature.

Two) Reservoirs

Reservoirs are interesting, because they have become a symbol for smart resources management, for the use of renewable energies. But from a different angle, reservoirs can also be seen as a problem, as an obstacle to, perhaps, renaturalization or, at least, getting at a steady state of things, as to humans placing buildings into alpine landscapes.
And from again another angle one might say that, while bathers might be an embodiment of a harmonious relation beween humans and nature, with cyclopic reservoir walls we see humans commanding over humongous amounts of water (as Jahveh, in the Biblical account, commanded the Red Sea to divide), and although we might see walls without humans being present, we see the homo faber, the engineer, the Leonardo world (if one does like so, with humans creating the world anew, according to their purposes) behind these walls. – And still reservoir walls can be seen as an embodiment of sustainability and be included into a review of the imagery of sustainability, if perhaps with a note as to their ambiguity.
What has been a surprise to me, is that a Swiss Sunday paper has also declared reservoir walls to be a symbol of Switzerland per se, perhaps rather referring to checks and balances in the political system, perhaps also referring to the sort of resources management which is possible in countries such as Norway and Switzerland, with many reservoirs to gain electric power (the example shown here is the Grimselsee.

(Picture: Schölla Schwarz)

(Picture: painting by Luca Giordano)

I am thinking that, perhaps, in the year of 2022, we may have seen, or at least sensed, a shift in collective mentalities. The question of energy supply has been, in the past, perhaps rather a question debated within expert circles. The majority of people, I am including myself here, could take it simply for granted. Now that we have, at least theoretically, been confronted with facing shortcomings in power supply, and with the question of storing an emergency supply in our households, we might have won more of an awareness as to the rudiments of modern civilisation, the problems linked to our energy supply, and the patterns of our consumption of energy. I have looked at reservoir walls with new eyes, as well as I have looked with new eyes at Cézanne (using a viaduct near Aix as a constant motif in his landscape paintings). And if we will not experience shortcomings in the coming winter, it will also be due to an energy mix that includes a rather large amount of renewable energies. No building back here, but rather on the contrary: with the current trend being to progress with numerous projects that, also, will be affecting alpine landscapes, but aiming, in principle, to extend the amount of energy won by hydropower as well as solar energy.

Three) The Comeback of the Wolf

The comeback of the wolf, perhaps it is necessary to say, has nothing to do with urban lifestyles, although, not long ago a wild animal paid also a visit to the city where I am living myself: not a wolf, but at least a lynx, and virtually everybody, at least from my generation, might have been reminded of a famous story by Franz Hohler, named Die Rückeroberung (›The Reconquest‹).
Renaturalization, of course might make sense in urban areas. It is usually praised for improving the chances for a more diverse population of animals and plants. And people might also be relieved from a certain bad conscious as to the relation of humans with nature, if seeing the coming back of the wolf in certain areas. But history reminds us that humans had once been relieved to see the wolf disappearing, and now, today, it is about the question of how to manage this relation: between humans and the wolf.
This question we will not discuss here, but perhaps it might be useful to see renaturalization as a more broad phenomena with the needs of an more urban population on the one hand, and the needs of rural civilization on the other. There is a sociology of renaturalization, and then there is the imagery. And this is why we are opposing images here, images of the Limmat, partially renaturalized (I recall also having heard not only the aforementioned story by Franz Hohler at school, but also the more heroic tale as to the Linth-correction, which, again belongs to the Leonardo world, with engineers fulfilling spectacular promises of what men can do), and images of the wolf. And it is about the eyes of the wolf, because it is about the question: how close do humans want to live next to the wolf? And because the journalist who reported on the situation in the Canton of Grisons in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (Simon Tanner), did the illustration to his reportage himself: with many pairs of eyes, eyes of the wolf, lurking and lighting in the dark.

(Picture: nzz.ch ; Nightnurse Images AG)


(Picture: nzz.ch ; Simon Tanner)

(Picture: Martin Mecnarowski)

MICROSTORY OF ART
ONLINE JOURNAL FOR ART, CONNOISSEURSHIP AND CULTURAL JOURNALISM
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