Dialogue Poem

Girl: This rock is so smooth
Boy: Yes it is, it was made by the water
Girl: The water makes your eyes look nice
Boy: The waves in your hair are so precious; you are a true beauty of nature

Girl: Would you like to go for a swim?
Boy: Of course, for you I would lose a limb
Girl: The water is so warm
Boy: Because you’re in it

Girl: We should go for a hike and spend the night
Boy: Anything for you, will you be my boo?
Girl: Yes, I thought you’d never ask
Boy: How couldn’t I with such a heartwarming girl

20 excerpts

How strange that Nature does not knock, and yet does not intrude! ~Emily Dickinson

I love to think of nature as an unlimited broadcasting station, through which God speaks to us every hour, if we will only tune in. ~George Washington Carver

Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves. ~John Muir

If one advances confidently in the direction of one's dreams, and endeavors to live the life which one has imagined, one will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.” ~David Henry Thoreau

Man is wise and constantly in quest of more wisdom; but the ultimate wisdom, which deals with beginnings, remains locked in a seed. There it lies, the simplest fact of the universe and at the same time the one which calls forth faith rather than reason.
~Hal Borland "The Certainty - April 5," Sundial of the Seasons (1964)

When Nature has work to be done, she creates a genius to do it.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

To the dull mind nature is leaden; To the illumined mind the whole world burns and sparkles with light
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Nature is a mutable cloud which is always and never the same.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, "History" 1841

Our remnants of wilderness will yield bigger values to the nation's character and health than they will to its pocketbook, and to destroy them will be to admit that the latter are the only values that interest us.
Aldo Leopold, A Plea for Wilderness Hunting Grounds, Outdoor Life, November 1925. Reproduced in Aldo Leopold's Southwest, edited by David E. Brown & Neil B. Carmony, University of New Mexico Press, 1990, pg. 160-161.
In wilderness I sense the miracle of life, and behind it our scientific accomplishments fade to trivia."
Charles A. Lindbergh, Life, 22 December 1967

Forests, lakes, and rivers, clouds and winds, stars and flowers, stupendous glaciers and crystal snowflakes - every form of animate or inanimate existence, leaves its impress upon the soul of man.
Orison Swett Marden (1850-1924) Founder, Success Magazine

When one tugs at a single thing in nature; he finds it attached to the rest of the world.
John Muir

Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountain is going home; that wildness is necessity; that mountain parks and reservations are useful not only as fountains of timber and irrigating rivers, but as fountains of life.
John Muir

The forest is the poor man's overcoat.
New England Proverb

Nobody sees a flower really; it is so small. We haven't time, and to see takes time - like to have a friend takes time.
Georgia O'Keffe

When you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it's your world for the moment. I want to give that world to someone else. Most people in the city rush around so, they have no time to look at a flower. I want them to see it whether they want to or not. .
Georgia O'Keffe

Nature is an infinite sphere of which the center is everywhere and the circumference nowhere.
Pascal

To protect what is wild is to protect what is gentle. Perhaps the wilderness we fear is the pause within our own heartbeats, the silent space that says we live only by grace. Wilderness lives by this same grace.
Terry Tempest Williams

Come forth into the light of things. Let nature be your teacher.
William Wordsworth

One impulse from a vernal wood
May teach you more of man,
Of moral evil and of good,
Than all the sages can. William Wordsworth

When we pay attention to nature's music,
we find that everything on the earth
contributes to its harmony.

Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace
will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow
their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy,
while cares will drop away from you like the leaves of Autumn.

Critique 2

“Monk by the Sea”

In Caspar Friedrich’s painting, “Monk by the Sea”, he uses pale and dark colors to set the mood of the painting so the viewers have a better understanding of what is going on in the picture. He portrays the monk as the subject matter in the picture. He creates many emotional landscapes that are very accurate. He also uses very austere compositions that set tone. The colors he uses creates a symbol of how the monk is really feeling and why he is at the sea at this time.

The painting shows a tracheotomy with its colossal sky, a narrow, dark band of sea and the sparse strap of seashore. The monk is seen from behind as a tiny figure and is placed exactly where the sky reaches its deepest point and the coast extends to the sea. This open motive shows an empty and desolate landscape in pale colors. The monk not only experiences the emptiness and vastness but his own meaninglessness and loneliness in front of God and oblivion. The motive of this landscape painting consists of single motives of different origins. It is reduced to the essential and somehow an abstraction. Because of this the painting is striking, the steps almost into the painting to enter the scene and is able to empathize an individual interpretation of symbolism.

The endlessness the monk faces could be explained as an expression of the oblivion, on which the rising moon is shining. Just as well the endlessness of the universe could be the major theme. In this work the difference to popular landscape painting is obvious, and therefore Friedrich is known as a painter of modernity. The colors describe a lot. When people see dark, pale colors, they immediately think of depression, loneliness, hopelessness, ect. Friedrich has compressed space in a manner anticipating abstract art.

"Monk by the Sea"

Wire Tree Sculpture Bonsai Trees

Nature Walk Ridgefield Washington

“Rose on Driftwood”

Art is portrayed in many ways. One common way is through nature. Nature had hidden secrets that not many people notice. Anything in nature can be used to create art. Ansel Adams, a famous photographer, finds natural and similar things in nature to photograph. In the photo, “Rose on Driftwood”, Ansel Adams prompts the viewers to compare the components of the image to show the similarities they share that are secretly hidden.

Ansel Adams uses juxtaposition to compare the objects in the image and the different textures both components share. Adams compared the rose petals and the driftwood and noticed the similar shapes they have. He used a camera that would take a close up image of the rose to show the texture of it and make it stand out to the viewers. By doing this, the viewers would be able to imagine how soft the rose petals are just by looking at the image. He uses driftwood as the background to emphasize the rose petals and make the image stand out as a whole. The design of the driftwood is very similar to the texture of the rose petals. The petals and the driftwood both have a soft texture to it, causing the components in the image to stand out.

In Ansel Adams’ image, “Rose on Driftwood”, there are many hidden secrets people do not notice. He compares the driftwood and the rose petals in many ways. Looking at the image closely, people may notice how the details are similar, the layers are similar and how the textures of the components are similar. The focal point in the image is very important because it emphasizes what is being portrayed in the image.
　

Rose on Driftwood

Declaration of Concept

The concept I chose is nature. I chose this concept because that is so much meaning in nature. It relates to the natural world and physical world. It is everywhere around us and surrounds us daily. Nature can easily describe and show emotion just by what is going on. It is a very common concept that people don’t think too much about. Everyone is familiar with nature and it is easy to explain.