Emerson to Earth

Contemplating the lofty passages of Emerson while considering the environment- Brian Keeler

Above- A landscape of Spring- by the author. Spring and renewal are part of this essay. This oil painting depicts a vineyard near Hammondsport, NY

Relation to the Universe- Context

A confluence of occurrences blended around Earth Day 2026 as aspects of landscape, spirituality, the 250th anniversary of the USA, and  the environment dovetailed to make an odd mix- with compelling and competing messages. The environmental aspect is that ecosystem collapse is truly astounding and insistent with news of breakdowns and imminent disasters filling the news daily. More on that later. 

The Artemis astronauts circling the moon with images coming back again of the Earth. After rounding the dark side of the moon these recent images recalled those of the Apollo mission in 1969, (and subsequent missions) and all the attendant optimism and the macro view it offered to us in the midst of still more global political dysfunction.   This time- the refrain of the Pink Floyd song of Dark SIde of the Moon, of the same era seemed prescient and fitting soundtrack to our times.

The initial spark for this contemplation of the land, as a landscape painter with an interest in the environment came from the work of that proto- spiritual and art thinker Ralph Waldo Emerson.  The appeal of equating nature and landscape in particular with the deity briings a spritual aspect to art. In fact, it suggests a divination or at least a path toward having landscapes serve as an allegory for spiritual and transcendent vision. What's not to like with Emerson's mission to forge a truly American vision for artists of the 19th century and for our own times?  Well, there is an underbelly of discord to Emerson's take on America that will strike most of us as extremely wrong headed.

A book given to me recently, purchased at the Clark Art Institute supplied fertile ground for this contemplation with an engaging title of, Idea as Landscape, Landscape as Idea by Tyler Green.

Odd, as it is, Emerson's mission to encourage our budding nation and its artists to throw off the shackles of European and ancient art began when he was in Italy.  Apparently Florenc of the 1830's was teaming with American artists seeking the muse from the Renaissance and the ancient Romans and Greeks. In fact, Emerson's primary encounter on the trip in 1833 was with the American sculptor, Horatio Greenough.  Greenough was working on a huge marble of George Washinton portrayed as a classical orator, as if in the Roman Forum making a pronouncement with hand raised and bare chested and cloak on arm and over lower half.  The work could inspire reverence with the classical allusion or perhaps a cringe at the misplaced allegiance.  Still we are well advised to recall just how deeply steeped in the classics our nation builders were.

Above- a recent landscape by the author of the Susquehanna River near Wyalusing, PA. The Emersonian ideas of the landscape being an analogy to ideas rather than merely scenery is at play here. This 36" x 40" oil is titled, "Spring Equinox Evening- Susquehanna".

Relational Universe- Empathy to the Land

Emerson's book, Nature, published anonymously when he was thirty-three in 1836 becme the most influential and widely read text of the era. It formed a national credo and inspiration to many. It could be summed up thusly by Tyler Green. "Why should not we have an original relation to the universe?" He expalins that our age is retropsective. "It Builds the sepulchres of the fathers."

There's another aspect of Emerson's agenda that rubs against our grain today- it coincides with current policies coming out of DC.  That being the penchant for the White House to meddle in American Museums, like the Smithsonian museums by suggesting the art needs to have an American agenda.  Not only that, the purge indicated is to white wash our history of anything suggesting a dark side- say like slavery for instance.  So it is indeed an odd coupling of Emerson's agenda with that coming out of the Oval Office, with their skewed and distorted mission for Art.  Then again, that megalomaniac in DC wants to emulate Paris and the Roman Forum with Arch even grander than those imperial edifices to military glory- but without the glory. All this adulation of classics while Vance and crew have disdain and open contempt in their anti-woke cultural war for all things European. The irony disconnect is remarkable.

My beef with Emerson's mission is that it seems overly simplistic and that it advocates a divorce of sorts from valuable cultural heritages. Yes, art that is derivative of the past or work that pays too heavily and homage to the past could be stifling and inauthentic.  And we appreciate art that is truly of our time or reflective of our sense of place and representative of our context.

Just how indebted so many of the American Artists of the early and mid-19th century were to Emerson is fascinating.  And as with the title of Tyler Green's book- "Idea as Landscape, Landscape as Idea" it is truly revealing to understand how what seems to be a straight forward landscape, say by Thomas Cole or Albert Bierstadt  can serve as allegory for our burgeoning republican form of government. Or a landscape with a peaked mountain in the distance resembling a triangle would suggest the stability and endurance of a pyramid in Egypt. There is a nocturne painting by Frederick Church of a sky with the stars and clouds simulating the union jack as an overt image of a landscape paintng suggesting a concept beyond merely picorial.

Emerson's insistence that America build a new vision based on secularism but with an element of the nation's republicanism can smack a propagandistic tone. Noting that he was the son of a preacher and he himself gained notoriety for resigning from a plum pulpit at Boston's Second Church. So it shouldn't surprise ius that his aesthetic comes off as preachy.   The irony (and the discord) comes in through his belief that this cultural agenda he was advocating did not include American Indians or any other ethnicity.   He saw this cultural and spiritual mission restricted to only English descendents in America. On the one hand he's pushing for a native vision but only through a narrow part of Europe- the British bloods here in the new world.

Even more- to underscore this disconnect between Emerson's mission and his inspirations was the art and books in his home.  He had a print based on Raphael's School of Athens- the fresco in the Vatican.  This painting is the epitome of the classics.  And his library contained a book of the life of Michelangelo.  So for all his professed nativism he had a well infromed respect for the arts of Europe. 

Still many have found great worth and wisdom to Emerson's transcendent and pantheistic approaches to life and to art.  For example  Emerson suggested that art is " nature passed through the alembic of man". This suggests that man is the distiller of nature.  We get the poetic and even alchemical transformation that is possible. For us mere mortals we are often just attempting an honest work of aesthetic success.  The vision of a higher purpose and goal is still appealing. We look at these accomplished works of the Hudson River School artists now with a new understanding as they incorporated Emerson's ideas. 

So these aspects of an American vision and equating earthly light and landscape with a transcendent mission provides for wonderful considerations.   And with the earth and proto-environment efforts of Thomas Cole and Emerson we are confronted with our environemntal collapse as mentioned earlier.

The news is indeed bleak and profoundly disconcerting.  The news is replete with scientific reports of disaters from many species on the brink of extinciton due mostly to man made interferences and catastrophic effects of over industrialization fostered by greed.   Just today on the front page of our daily newspaper, the Ithaca Journal- there was a report of migrating fishes near the brink- world wide. Like giant catfish in the Mekong River being eliminated by dams and over fishing.

And what to make of the 250th annivesary of our nation dovetailing with these other elements of art, nature and politics? Well, this too is onerous. In a word our national principles and rule of law have been subverted and profaned in the most extreme a vile ways by our current president.

What would Emerson think?  What would John Muir do in the face of the dystopian world?

In the April 23 issue of the New York Review of Books there was a feature article by Caroline Fraser titled The Throwaway Planet- where she reviews three books on the subject.  The facts are grim and astounding.  The cruise ship industry comes off as just one of the culprits.  Those humongous floating luxury liners have finite exisitence and then they need to be scraped and dismantled;  China used to do it but stopped as they realized the environmental effect were just too bad.  The recyling of used electronics is grim and horrible for those woriking in such toxic hell holes. 

Data centers are also in the news locally and nationally - and not without environmental impact as part of the stories.  This insidious foisting of even more technology is part of the problem. It engenders even more dependence on fossil fues and data centers are even encouraging a resurrgence in nuclear energy.   We defeated an LNG plant near my hometown in Pennsyvania only to have it be considered for a data center. It is heartening however to see locals in Bradford County, PA rise up against this influx as they are here in Tompkins County, NY. 

Above- an allegorical work by the author address the global choices to be made- This oil from circa 1990 titled, "One Earth to Live on, Many Worlds to Choose From."

Where does this leave us on Earth Day 2026?  Well it is a mixed bag at best.  Emerson's transcendence is still with us and offers a vision the spriritual in art and life.  And we see effective infrastructures meeting our needs -somehat.  I am impressed out how our local recyling center takes care of our detritus.  Still, the overwhelming of the Earth's capacity seems forebodeing. 

Fortunatley for artists we can still invoke and contemplate the beauty of Emerson's transdendent and hopeful vision. In fact, one of the take aways of Green's book is Emerson's hope for renewal. For Emerson, landscape became a metaphor for renewal- especially after the American Civil War. Today as I painted out doors in downtonwn Ithaca, the spring light and burgeoning green of new buds and flowers. There is hope of renewal in the silent spring of nature, the evanescence of light, the beauty of stately Victorian architecture or in the community of neigborhoods.

Above- The author painting a plein air oil study of a view along Six Mile Creek in Ithaca, NY.

To view videos of this oil being created on location, go to this link; https://youtu.be/fbynIKVk7ZM?si=tWGkkbPsB52hzRdx

Or this link showing the painting in the early stage.

https://youtu.be/jnKm4Rh7LXY?si=g_eOxgQAqhiFrCYV