kristin hatland

Friedrich Schelling proposed and argued a philosophy of nature. His philosophy stemmed from a philosophical question central to the human condition: does God exist? Atheism can partly be attributed to the advance of science and the scientific method, an offshoot of Rationalism. The philosophy of nature argued that nature is a development towards self-awareness achieved through creativity. What is the fundamental Romantic viewpoint towards art? Art was held to be a medium that would, or could, elicit an emotional response in the viewer. An emotional response is a response to a stimuli, in this case the art work, filtered through a value system. To speak of values, we speak of morality. This body of work challenges the values held by the viewer and thereby seeks to challenge morality itself. Nature according to Schelling strove through endless evolution towards self-awareness. This idea pre-dated Darwin and his ‘Evolution of the Species’ treatise. The increasing industrilisation of Europe had created a Romantic yearning for the romanticised simpler life of the agricultural lifestyle. This philosophy of Schelling’s was in conflict with the orthodox religions that espoused the concept of ‘God’. The central tenet proposed by Schelling was that nature strove to create and that man, nature’s highest iteration, ought to to be held by man. While working on my art, a number of wars are currently raging throughout the world. War is the very antithesis of creation. War is unmitigated destruction. As such, within Schelling’s philosophy, war cannot be held as a value or a moral position universally. A question that is raised from this position is: can there ever be a just war? If nature, as in Schelling’s philosophy is a replacement for religion, then the climate change that is currently underway through the tremendous increase in the number and ferocity of storms and natural disasters, is in conflict with the ‘nature’ of Schelling’s day which was supportive of humanity, as today’s nature seemingly has declared war on humanity. I created my art with these various influences competing for articulation. I chose to objectify my art and value system photographing trees. The abstract nature of the photographs capture the essence and avoid the particular, as, values to qualify as a moral position, must be universal. This also mirrors the essence of Schelling’s philosophy, that nature could substitute for those disillusioned with religion. While nature may be fey, wild and unpredictable, nature, unlike war, is creative destruction.