When Nature Calls

I recently had a 'conversation' with Claude AI, asking it what art trends are on the horizon for 2025. I'm well aware that having such a 'conversation' with AI is tricky; after all the internet is deluged with both good and not so good examples of ai 'art', and I've discussed some of those examples on this very platform before.

Yet, searching anything on the 'net these days is almost guaranteed to get Ai involved on some level anyway, so I took the chance to ask Claude.

One of the handful of growing trends (besides of course the never-ending swamp of ai produced art) seems to be nature-infused art.

Nature infused art makes me think of Springtime; and while I realize that much of the country is at this time in mid-January, experiencing deep arctic chill and there's no groundhogs yet in sight, it's still not too early to think about Spring and the renewal of nature.

Is it Spring yet?

To be sure, nature inspired art and nature infused art aren't synonymous. When I look up nature infused art, the internet gives me what it wants to, bringing up nature inspired art instead. So I have to be clever and ask for the difference between the two.

Nature inspired art is just what it says on the tin; the artist draws inspiration from nature and art in this way can be abstract or realistic, created with a broad spectrum of media. Nature infused art is biophilic design; it may include actual material from the natural world such as rocks, leaves, grass, etc. in its creation.

And it seems that the internet is still confused as to what the difference between these two are; again when I started a search for examples of nature infused art, Google came back with this painting , The Oxbow by Thomas Cole.

The Oxbow, oil on canvas by Thomas Cole 1836

To be sure, it's a beautiful painting, but it's clearly not an example of nature infused art. As a side-note, this is something to be wary of when getting information from AI; sometimes it will experience what is called hallucinations and give you conflicting data.

A far better example of nature infused art would be Spiral Jetty, a massive example of land art constructed in 1970 by Robert Smithson.

Spiral Jetty 1970 by Robert Smithson Photo by Rufina Rusakova: Pexels

The Spiral Jetty, located in Salt Lake City Utah is a spiral causeway constructed with basalt rock, crystal salt and mud ('red water') is considered an important contribution to the land art movement. The spiral's total length is 1,500 feet, 15 feet wide, and was built on the northeastern shore of Utah's Great Salt Lake.

Another great example of nature infused art would be the Stick Sculptures of Patrick Dougherty. Dougherty born in 1945, is a prime example of an environmental artist and his primary work consists of twisted saplings and sticks. It sounds simplistic, but these structures designed by Dougherty are quite complex.

Patrick Dougherty (artist). (2023, September 27). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Dougherty_(artist)

For instance consider this above image, called O Say Can You See. I can't imagine the time and effort it may have taken to twist these branches into this complex design.

Now you've had your crash course on nature infused art. It's supposed to be one of latest art trends of 2025, but it looks like it's been around for quite a while. I'm probably not gonna go out and do any land or environmental art any time soon; it's not in my wheelhouse so to speak. But I have to say, it's nice to look at and have around.

See you guys next time for something completely different.