LIKE PAINTING?

Thinking Globally: I use the analogy of painting. For the sake of discussion, a painting is defined as done on a flat, rectangular surface. All elements on that surface must be unified—color, line, texture, composition, (illusionary) space. Finished paintings are usually framed, leaving no doubt as to the scope of the painting.

We can treat the entire planet as a painting. The main difference is that the “painting” here is done on a sphere rather than on a flat rectangle. There are other differences too. The elements of the global painting are either already in place or are different from those in painting. Elements in the global painting include not only what we can see, but also visually moot subjects such as economic and cultural disparity, etc. While there is likely to be a correlation between poverty and visual presence—deforestation, soil erosion, etc.—many factors may have no visual correlates.

Paintings are either abstract or figurative, but the global painting is both. It is reality, and therefore as real as any entity one might paint on a flat surface. But the globe-as-a-whole doesn’t correspond to the normal lexicon of forms—landscape, portrait, still life—used by artists. Global forms can therefore be viewed as abstract as much as figurative. The globe is always changing, unlike the fixed nature of a finished painting. In that respect, it can be grossly compared to performance art. The issues of the globe are very complex, and can comprise the artist’s conception. So the globe can be like conceptual art.

None of this is clear, and clarity about such complexity might never be attained. But there can be some simple advances to treating Earth as a painting. One example would be a forestation project that is so vast and widespread that it can be easily viewed from space as vegetation (green) succeeds aridity (brown/tan). My hypothesis is that, as sustainable land-uses succeed unsustainable ones, a new sense of beauty will arise, and with it, a new appreciation of the planet as a work of collective art.