Mixed-Media Collage: World Heritage and Culture Series
Episode Four
Sublime and Awe of Nature in Gaia
Chaos and Order of Gaia, 2019. Mixed Media Collage.
Nature of Gaia
The personification of nature as a goddess or motherly figure is a timeless one. Like a mother, nature becomes the womb that allows growth, and it is miraculous and self-less in purpose. She gives creation out of nothing but love. Before there were religious orders, mankind celebrated and worshiped a great earth goddess.
Before before Zeus or Allah, the pagan religions were dedicated to this great goddess, know to ancient Greeks as Gaia. The very earth man was molded from.
Order in Chaos
The patterns of nature are both bountiful and destructive, sometimes at the same moment. There are so many ways natural disasters could destroy civilizations and families over the span of time, and yet people still held faith in nature. They understood that nature could both give and take,that what gives life to the environment only sometimes benefits them.
Instead of cursing nature, they thanked the earth and the seasons. Instead of countering the patterns of nature and time, people became attuned to the changes of their environment. People celebrated the harvest, and rested during the winter.They used the changes to their benefit, and found order in the chaos that is inherent in life and existence.
Sublime/Awe
Art has always been inspired by nature and the environment around the artists. From the source of art materials that came out of local minerals, plants and animals, to the inspiration found in the ecosystems and their families, people found art in nature.
People have felt the awe from inspiring landscapes and they often attributed these sublime forces of nature into ideals and gods. Imagination and inspiration are not seeds, but the sprouts that burst from the chaotic and bizarre constructions of the world around us. We see the order in the chaos, and find beauty in the blurry darkness.