Ralph Waldo Emerson
Emerson, one of the first "Americans" sees nature through the lens of a child, free spirited and open to infinite possibilities. Nature defines who a man is, but "the sun illuminates only the eye of the man and shines into the eye and heart of the child" (Nature). Emerson claims that the bond between nature and man can only appear if man retains a free, infant spirit. This spirit, much like a lens, is shaped through the visible world, always changing alongside the thoughts of man. The American Visionary Art Museum takes pride in beginning this gallery with the work of Waldo Emerson for this reason. Look at the paintings below. What do you notice?
“Emerson found in religion, as in nature, a continuing revelation of truth that god has infused into the human soul.” Emerson’s belief that God resides in each human soul comes into conflict with traditional bible teachings. Although Emerson states that Jesus Christ lived within the human soul as a true prophet, ministers at Harvard Divinity School equated Emerson’s beliefs of the human soul to criticism of Christianity and called him an atheist. In reality, Emerson connected to God and nature through his soul and therefore “saw that God incarnates himself in man.” This idea of God residing in each human soul gave a sense of individualism to Christianity.
Tradition was Emerson's rival throughout his writing, but he knew that nture would give men self-relience (freedom from society) through tranquility brought by the spirit's connection with nature. Emerson claims that the reason why most conform to old traditions if that "few adult persons can see nature." (Nature). Those who are open to the beauty and possibility in the everchangin world knows that individualism is God's best gift Emerson's writing promotes the fluitity of the natural world, as ever changing nature shapes our ever changing thoughts and identity.
Now that you have a good understanding of a variety of Emerson's core principles regarding the American experience, the museum will test the extent in which they are true by analyzing the work of writer James Contant. He agrues against Emerson's viewpoint on the "new" in the American Expirence.
James Contant contradicts Emerson’s idea of a “new” America by claiming that “the American philosopher or author or artists has ever yet been able to feel himself of herself permanently or comfortably at home in America.” Contant is saying that there cannot be a “new” American culture without a foundation of the “old” European culture. It was impossible to become an American intellectual when there were not previous writings or ideas to base the “new” off of. Therefore, creating “new” American literature was not possible without reading the work of Europeans, although it was not American to do so according to Emerson.
Read more on James Contant and his work: http://philosophy.uchicago.edu/faculty/conant.html
This painting includes a girl isolated from "society" in a field. Emerson, who believes nature defines who we are, would say that this girl was in search of a "new" identity. The fact that she is looking back at her house signifies the connection she still has with her past. Emerson would refute this and claim that the girl should always strive for "new." Do you agree that it’s possible for something to become completely new?
This painting presents two men in nature where simplicity and tranquility arise from the colors and composition. Emerson is known to love nature because it gives birth to the new. In Nature he "argues that habit and tradition have become a way of living secondhand, by the truths and ideas of other times, and a barrier against the soul's insights." He believes that nature brings out the "truth" and soul, essential for finding identity. Emerson’s extends this idea in his aphorism that “a man is what he thinks about all day long”. This illustrates that man’s state of being depends on his thoughts, how he interprets the visible world. Emerson states that “not he is great who can alter matter, but he who can alter state of mind.” The truth Emerson is conveying is one’s thoughts influence how one perceives nature and oneself: the "truth" and identity. There is a “radical correspondence between visible things and human thoughts.”Emerson was also very religious because he found it to be much like nature.
The museum's final thoughts on this exhibit:
Considering both the viewpoint of Emerson and that of Contant, the museum concludes that "hip" is taking from the old to create the new. This allows both the new and the old to be balanced, as shown in the paintings, and leads to both individualism and connection to society. Emerson himself illustrates hip as embracing the new and rejecting the old and considers society everywhere to be “in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members,” (Leland). He claims that “it is easy to the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.” Emerson, however, both asserts the importance of the new and denies it, for “no sentence will hold the whole truth, and the only way, we can be just, is by giving ourselves the lie,” (Nominalist and Realist). This holds true because in order to create the new, one must borrow from the old. Therefore, hip is not to isolate oneself from society, but to incorporate the individual into crowd. David Thoreau and Walt Whitman explore this concept even further.
