Land Art: From the Perspective of the Daoist Appreciation of Nature

Abstract

Land Art, i.e., Earth Art or Earthworks, is an important type of contemporary art in Occident. Its idea expressed in art movement from the late 1960s is very close to Chinese traditional thought of Aesthetics, especially to thought of ”The way models (fa) itself to that which is so on its own” in the Dao De Jing. Land Art is against the opposite relation between art and nature; art must be created in expansive natural space. Affinity between nature and artifact stood out in Chinese traditional culture all through. The trinity in heaven, man and earth is rethought in Land Art. Man in this kind of art is not ”ego” to change the earth, but is harmonious with nature as whole. Generally, Land Art works must be greatness, and spectators enjoy themselves far away from works. And Land Art chooses ”extreme-actualistic” as its art technique in order to redefine ”art language.” Analogously, in Chinese aesthetics, notion of ”no-rule” (wu fa) being the ”ultimate rule” (wu fa er fa, nai wei zhi fa) is very important. In brief, Land Art philosophy is similar to Chinese Aesthetics of naturalness (zi ran). But Land Art is not a phenomenon of globalization, by reason of Euro, logo-centric intention being in it inevitably. Therefore, we can criticize it from east-Asian cultural and wisdom's perspective, and look forward to Land Art's flourish in China.