Environmental Art and Wilderness: The Stakes of Beauty

In the field of environmental art, the concept of beauty is linked to the history of wilderness and Romantism. The beautiful and the sublime arouse a debate that opposes the defenders of a pragmatic ecological commitment against the partisans of a subjective and sensitive creation. In reality, these debates are nothing but old quarrels over the engagement of art, the recognition or rejection of its autonomy towards other disciplines, especially regarding scientific expertise. Approaching creation from the angle of beauty is a way of updating our principles of taste, the ability to judge and also to raise once again what is considered a risk for the individual and for the collective, the exacerbation of the senses, the passions and seduction. Finally, it is about subjecting art to principle of utility that neglects all subjective creation when we are collectively and daily subjected to a regime of guilt and anxiety which orchestrates in turn a form of political and existential resignation. But what remains of aesthetic and artistic experience in such conditions? Does not the rationality of this approach confuse art and communication, denying the emotional connect of art and the fact that beauty is defined by emotional reactions?