Natural Visions : The Power of Images in American Environmental Reform

"In often moving prose and through a select history of landscape photography and film, Natural Visions offers a compelling analysis of how changing environmental politics in America were intimately connected to different ways of seeing nature. Finis Dunaway offers a novel look into the history of American environmentalism, one that demonstrates the centrality of the visual in the portrayal and defense of nature in America. This book is an important addition to a growing body of literature on the historical role of visual media in shaping the American environmental imaginary."-Gregg Mitman, author of Reel Nature: America's Romance with Wildlife on Film

"Looking at photographs by Herbert Gleason, Ansel Adams, and Eliot Porter; New Deal documentaries by Pare Lorentz and Robert Flaherty; and posters and coffee table tomes published by the Sierra Club, Natural Visions tells the story of how pictures helped modern Americans imagine ecology as a new kind of civil religion. In this fresh and insightful book, Finis Dunaway traces the intersections of visual images and religious feeling from the Progressive era to the first Earth Day and convincingly explains how nature photography's `gospel of seeing' was translated into a moral mission of environmental defense."-Erika Doss, author of Twentieth-Century American Art

Book Description
Walden Pond. The Grand Canyon.Yosemite National Park. Throughout the twentieth century, photographers and filmmakers created unforgettable images of these and other American natural treasures. Many of these images, including the work of Ansel Adams, continue to occupy a prominent place in the American imagination. Making these representations, though, was more than a purely aesthetic project. In fact, portraying majestic scenes and threatened places galvanized concern for the environment and its protection. Natural Visions documents through images the history of environmental reform from the Progressive era to the first Earth Day celebration in 1970, showing the crucial role the camera played in the development of the conservation movement.

In Natural Visions, Finis Dunaway tells the story of how visual imagery—such as wilderness photographs, New Deal documentary films, and Sierra Club coffee-table books—shaped modern perceptions of the natural world. By examining the relationship between the camera and environmental politics through detailed studies of key artists and activists, Dunaway captures the emotional and spiritual meaning that became associated with the American landscape. Throughout the book, he reveals how photographers and filmmakers adapted longstanding traditions in American culture—the Puritan jeremiad, the romantic sublime, and the frontier myth—to literally picture nature as a place of grace for the individual and the nation.

Beautifully illustrated with photographs by Ansel Adams, Eliot Porter, and a host of other artists, Natural Visions will appeal to a wide range of readers interested in American cultural history, the visual arts, and environmentalism.

Natural Visions: The Power of Images in American Environmental Reform,Finis Dunaway,University Of Chicago Press,0226173259,Americas (North Central South West Indies),Environmental Conservation & Protection - General,Environmental protection in ar,Environmental protection in art,Environmentalism,Government - U.S. Government,Nature conservation,Pictorial works,Political Science,Politics / Current Events,Politics/International Relations,Public Policy - Environmental Policy,Public Policy - General,United States,American history,Conservation of the environment,Political Science / Public Policy,The Americas