Art Or Nature?

A look at the age-old question

Imagine that you’re arriving for the first time in a new city, let’s say Prague. All you have is one day. Where do you go to be inspired: the art museum, or the market square?

Ernest Meissonier, Connoisseur and Artist

Where should we look for inspiration? Art or nature? By “nature,” of course, I don’t just mean the wild woods, but all of it, the real world around us with all its crazy chaos.

Above left: by Giovanni Boldini, 1842–1931), above right: by Adolph Menzel, 1815-1905

It’s an old question, one that passes through my mind sometimes when I’m making a pilgrimage to a museum to study paintings of a favorite artist. Such journeys take me past scenes of foggy streets or quiet streams that beckon me to paint them. Hurrying to enter the gallery, I ignore the inspiration of reality in favor of the product of another artist’s hand. 

The appeal of Art is strong. Those who have gone before provide a stimulus, a high example. 

Facing nature can be bewildering. On its own, reality is overwhelming and infinite. Seeing what others have painted provides a way through the maze of appearances. The example of great art provides new ways to interpret Nature. Nature has already been translated, made comprehensible, achievable. The greatest artists of the past have blazed trails into the wilderness that we can use as a guide for our own personal exploration, just as the mountain climber is lifted up by knowing which routes have been scaled before, by whom, and with what equipment.

What happens if we turn exclusively to Art for inspiration? Those who base their work only on other Art often find that their productions eventually become sterile, mannered and derivative. Even the most able artist risks falling back on safe habits, familiar methods, and trite motifs.

Sometimes while looking at a painting by an artist I admire, I can imagine his or her voice from beyond the grave, whispering to me:

“Don’t bother looking at my paintings. Go outside, where I received my inspiration, and find your own art there!”

Other times I find myself filling folders on my computer with more and more digital images, and I feel like the diner who keeps eating out of habit, past the point of satiation, savoring the taste less with each bite.

But wait a minute. You might object that Art and Nature are fundamentally dissimilar and can't be compared. Art is an artificial creation of the human mind, and Nature is unknowable except through human culture. So how do we resolve this paradox?