Go Wild: The History of Landscape and Its Aesthetic Expression

Environmental aesthetics is, in its essence, landscape aesthetics. As an objective natural landscape, scenery is an object independent of human beings. However, landscape as an aesthetic object is a product of artificial construction. The ancient Chinese living in farming society discovered the beauty of natural scenery earlier, and established an aesthetic relationship with nature in ethical way. Mountain and water painting played a role which is similar to religion in ancient China. The ancient West, which was mainly characterized by commercial society, neglected natural scenery. Western classical art was dominated by body art. As a response to the industrial revolution, people began to pay attention to and reassess the aesthetic value of nature, to put the city against the countryside and praise the natural scenery. Western landscape painting developed rapidly and entered a golden age. Romantic artists not only depict charming natural scenery, but also show the untamable and uncontrollable wild power of nature. They love primitive and wild and even frightening natural scenery. This has caused a significant change in the themes of modern and contemporary Western art and aesthetics, and opened the way to wilderness aesthetics.