The Art and Science of Close Observation

Look closely. Closer still. This fall at The Huntington, two exhibitions focus on the practice of observing and documenting natural phenomena in ways that lead to profound insights. The exhibitions, both opening Sept. 14, are part of PST ART: Art & Science Collide, Getty’s regional collaboration involving more than 70 cultural institutions across Southern California.

“Storm Cloud: Picturing the Origins of Our Climate Crisis” examines the ways in which British and American scientists and artists documented the environmental impact of industrialization from the late 18th through the early 20th centuries. “奪天工 Growing and Knowing in the Gardens of China” focuses on how scholars and artists of the Ming and Qing dynasties (1368–1912) carefully studied plants to gain insight into the wider world and themselves.

Each exhibition traces separate but dovetailing histories of the relationship between humans and the environment. And both share an emphasis on close observation of the natural world and the important role that observation played in art, science, and ethics.

“Storm Cloud” takes its name from “The Storm-Cloud of the Nineteenth Century,” a series of impassioned lectures given by the British essayist and art critic John Ruskin in 1884.  Ruskin was one of the first people to home in on industrialization’s impact on the atmosphere: dark, polluted skies. In the summer of 1871, he began to write about what he had been observing: “For the sky is covered with gray cloud;—not rain-cloud, but a dry black veil, which no ray of sunshine can pierce; partly diffused in mist, feeble mist, enough to make distant objects unintelligible, yet without any substance, or wreathing, or color of its own.”

The birth of industrialization altered not only the air people breathed but also their sense of time, work, and humanity. The balance shifted from predominantly rural communities that labored outdoors to mostly urban populations that worked in smoke-spewing factories for low wages. Days were no longer apportioned by the sun but by clocks and train schedules. Manufacturing required new ways of shipping goods, such as railroads and canals, whose construction disrupted ecosystems and threatened biodiversity. Artists and writers were confronted with a new challenge: how to depict the power and beauty of the natural world, now altered by industrialization, for an urban audience increasingly separated from nature.

Meanwhile, scientific advances were upending commonly held views. While it had been generally accepted from literal readings of the Bible that the Earth was only 6,000 years old, scientific observations of the fossil record showed that the planet’s history reached much further back—by hundreds of millions of years. Such findings radically destabilized some people’s religious beliefs and their sense of humanity’s place in Earth’s long history.

In 1851, about three decades before his “Storm-Cloud” lecture, Ruskin confided to a friend in a letter:

[My faith] … is being beaten into mere gold leaf … If only the
Geologists would let me alone, I could do very well, but those dreadful Hammers!
I hear the clink of them at the end of every cadence of the Bible verses.

The influence of science was also reflected in the work of some artists and writers of the era, who began closely observing and depicting flora and fauna with a level of accuracy derived from botanical study (see the Mary Parker Macclesfield illustration below). When applied to whole landscapes, this focused attention revealed the connections among plants, animals, and their environment, referred to as “the economy of nature.” The scientific study of these interactions would eventually become known as “ecology.”

The Romantic poets and Pre-Raphaelite painters in England at the time, as well as the transcendentalist writers and the Hudson River School artists in the United States, took the concept of the economy of nature a step further, imbuing it with spiritual and moral significance. These artists presented the containment and commodification of nature—the carving of a canal through a landscape, for instance—not as an indication of progress but a sign of destructive hubris. “The ravages of the axe are daily increasing—the most noble scenes are made desolate,” wrote the English American painter Thomas Cole in 1836.

Centuries earlier, careful observation of the natural world, and the ethical insights that followed from it, defined the work of Chinese scholars. Their gardens served as their laboratories. In studying the behavior of plants in relation to their environment, these Ming and Qing dynasty scholars sought to understand li, the universal pattern underlying everything in the world, and qi, the energy and matter that suffuses all things. Through these two linked concepts, the entire cosmos was perceived as a collective whole.

However, knowledge alone was not the end goal of scholarly interest in botanical study. The cultivation of plants was also a form of self-development. Plant care could teach one to act in accordance with li, shifting one’s behavior to live harmoniously with nature. In contrast to prevalent Western ideas of humans existing outside of or in opposition to nature, most Chinese thinkers envisioned heaven, earth, and humans in dynamic interdependence: Each element affected the others.

Chinese gardens provided opportunities not only for contemplation but physical engagement. Gardening was seen as a necessary complement to intellectual pursuits and a more complete way of knowing what nature had to teach. But not all learning derived from plants was seen as equal. In the painting above, Garden for Solitary Pleasure, a clear division of labor and knowledge is evident. The scholar Sima Guang (1019–1086) sits in thoughtful repose, while laborers carry out the work of planting and growing. He is rendered more central and larger than the workers, elevating his intellectual discernment over their physical, experience-based understanding.

But working more directly with plants, even actively interfering in natural processes, led to more advanced horticultural practices. Gardeners collected rare specimens, domesticated wild plants, and, through selection and grafting, created new varieties—from dozens of camellias to hundreds of chrysanthemums, which were especially prone to natural mutations.

It is interesting to contrast these instances of controlling or guiding nature’s processes with those introduced by industrialization. Did these new horticultural practices “usurp the works of Heaven” (duo Tian gong 奪天工), as some Chinese scholars of the era contended, or were such interferences respectful augmentations of nature? When viewed together, The Huntington’s two PST exhibitions elicit these and other provocative questions about how close observation—of changes over time, of our connections to other living things, and of the ethical implications those connections entail—can be a powerful catalyst for reenvisioning one’s place in the world.

“Growing and Knowing” shows that Chinese scholars understood, even presupposed, this interconnectedness, and this awareness compelled them to consider the effects of their actions on the world around them. “Storm Cloud” reveals that some in the modern West came to a similar realization, though only when faced with the early signs of an impending crisis.

As an accompaniment to the “Growing and Knowing” exhibition, Hong Kong–based artist Zheng Bo developed eight interactive exercises to activate the qi, or energy-matter, in the body. By focusing on the fragrance of the landscape at The Huntington, in concert with specific bodily movements, visitors are encouraged to experience a closer connection with and a deeper understanding of plants, water, and soil.

“Growing and Knowing” and “Storm Cloud” are among more than 70 exhibitions and programs presented as part of PST ART. Returning in September 2024 with its latest edition, PST ART: Art & Science Collide, this landmark regional event explores the intersections of art and science, both past and present. PST ART is presented by Getty. For more information, visit PST ART: Art & Science Collide

“Storm Cloud” is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts. 

Generous support for “Storm Cloud: Picturing the Origins of Our Climate Crisis” is provided by the Douglas and Eunice Erb Goodan Endowment. Additional funding is provided by The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, The Neilan Foundation, The Ahmanson Foundation Exhibition and Education Endowment, The Melvin R. Seiden-Janine Luke Exhibition Fund in memory of Robert F. Erburu, and the Boone Foundation.

Generous support for “奪天工 Growing and Knowing in the Gardens of China” is provided by an anonymous foundation and the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation. 

Andrew Kersey is the senior writer in the Office of Communications and Marketing at The Huntington.