An elderly caretaker at a large outdoor exhibition, called Art in Nature, finds that a couple have lingered on to bicker about the value of a picture; he has a surprising suggestion that will resolve both their row and his own ambivalence about the art market. A draughtsman's obsession with drawing locomotives provides a dark twist to a love story. A cartoonist takes over the work of a colleague who has suffered a nervous breakdown only to discover that his own sanity is in danger. In these witty, sharp, often disquieting stories, Tove Jansson reveals the fault-lines in our relationship with art, both as artists and as consumers. Obsession, ambition, and the discouragement of critics are all brought into focus in these wise and cautionary tales.

Art of Nature is an astonishing visual record of the exploration of parts of the natural world that had never previously been documented. It features many of the greatest natural history artists of the last 300 years--Merian, Bartram, Ehret, the Bauer brothers, Audubon, and Gould. Some were seeking fame as scientists or artists, others sought financial gain or at least the prospect of earning a living in what they loved doing. For some it also provided them with the opportunity to present their view of nature to a wider community. Whatever the reasons, few would have contradicted Humboldt's comment that he was "spurred on by an uncertain longing for what is distant and unknown, for whatever excited my fantasy: danger at sea, the desire for adventures, to be transported from a boring daily life to a marvellous world." Continent by continent, Judith Magee draws on the unrivaled collections of the Library of the Natural History Museum in London to illustrate the development of natural history art through the centuries and its crucial role in furthering people's appreciation of nature all around the world.

This book examines how contemporary artists have engaged with histories of nature, geology, and extinction within the context of the changing planet. Susan Ballard describes how artists challenge the categories of animal, mineral, and vegetable—turning to a multispecies order of relations that opens up a new vision of what it means to live within the Anthropocene. Considering the work of a broad range of artists including Francisco de Goya, J. M. W. Turner, Robert Smithson, Nancy Holt, Yhonnie Scarce, Joyce Campbell, Lisa Reihana, Katie Paterson, Taryn Simon, Susan Norrie, Moon Kyungwon and Jeon Joonho, Ken + Julia Yonetani, David Haines and Joyce Hinterding, Angela Tiatia, and Hito Steyerl and with a particular focus on artists from Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand, this book reveals the emergence of a planetary aesthetics that challenges fixed concepts of nature in the Anthropocene. The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, visual culture, narrative nonfiction, digital and media art, and the environmental humanities.

This anthology considers how the rise of transdisciplinary practices in the post-war era allowed for new kinds of artistic engagement with nature. It provides an overview of the eclectic scientific and philosophical sources that inform contemporary art's investigations of nature.

Snow, ice, leaves, flowers, branches, rocks, sand and light... this book is a series of simple works of art, made with easily found natural materials, through the changing seasons. For those who delight in a few minutes of creativity, for families and for educators, the book is a rich source of inspiration to engage closely with the shapes, colours and textures of the everyday outdoors