Saturday, October 08, 2016

Big, Big Art


Since the beginning of the earliest civilizations humans have sought to mold and shape the landscape for the purposes of defense, marking territory, hunting & farming and for other practical purposes. However alongside these practical reasons for altering the natural, physical environment humans have also sought to change the landscape for, what might be argued as impractical, cultural, religious and artistic reasons.

Allen Carroll of Esri has created a really interesting Story Map which examines the history of land art, or the 'the human urge to create ... expressed on a very large scale'. Very Large Art uses Esri aerial imagery to take a close look at examples of geoglyphs and other landscape art, from 3,000 year old chalk figures in England to the work of contemporary artists.

As well as exploring the works of important artists, such as James Turrell and Robert Smithson,  A Very Large Art also examines the work of famous landscape gardeners, the interesting architecture of large airports and the agricultural landscapes formed as a result of farming the land.

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