From soil in art towards Soil Art SOILD 1, 1–48, 2015 From soil in art towards Soil Art C. Feller et al. Title Page Abstract Introduction Conclusions References Tables Figures J I J I Back Close Full Screen / Esc Printer-friendly Version Interactive Discussion D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | SOIL Discuss., 1, 1–48, 2015 www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/ doi:10.5194/soild-1-1-2015 © Author(s) 2015. CC Attribution 3.0 License. This discussion paper is/has been under review for the journal SOIL. Please refer to the corresponding final paper in SOIL if available. From soil in art towards Soil Art C. Feller1, E. R. Landa2, A. Toland3, and G. Wessolek3 1Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD), 28 rue Dr Blanchard, 30700 Uzès, France 2Department of Environmental Science and Technology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA 3Department of Soil Protection, Institute for Ecology, Technische Universität Berlin, Ernst Reuter Platz 1, 10587 Berlin, Germany Received: 14 August 2014 – Accepted: 15 September 2014 – Published: Correspondence to: C. Feller (christian.feller@ird.fr) Published by Copernicus Publications on behalf of the European Geosciences Union. 1 http://www.soil-discuss.net http://www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/soild-1-1-2015-print.pdf http://www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/soild-1-1-2015-discussion.html http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ SOILD 1, 1–48, 2015 From soil in art towards Soil Art C. Feller et al. Title Page Abstract Introduction Conclusions References Tables Figures J I J I Back Close Full Screen / Esc Printer-friendly Version Interactive Discussion D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | Abstract The range of art forms and genres dealing with soil is wide and diverse, spanning many centuries and artistic traditions, from prehistoric painting and ceramics to early Renaissance works in Western literature, poetry, paintings, and sculpture, to recent developments in cinema, architecture and contemporary art. Case studies focused on5 painting, installation, and cinema are presented with the view of encouraging further exploration of art about, in, with, or featuring soil or soil conservation issues, created by artists, and occasionally scientists, educators or collaborative efforts thereof. 1 Introduction Soils are too important to be studied by soil scientists alone. We live in a world where10 disciplinary boundaries often define our work world. Within the realm of science, bound- ary crossings and territorial mergers are typically of the nearest-neighbor type: i.e., bi- ology + chemistry = biochemistry. Extensions outside of the earth sciences, to the arts and humanities, are less frequent. The last decades show, however, that the activities of the soil science community and its traditional partners were insufficient to protect15 our soils and landscapes. To encourage more holistic approaches to soil protection our community must open the doors to develop new perspectives by investigating trans- disciplinary projects. Soil and art, as well as soil and history, soil and culture, soil and economics, and soil and religion represent just a few opportunities for expanding the scope of soil research and soil protection.20 Until now, no other planet is known where life is possible. Thus our soil and atmo- sphere are unique. And consider the medium that is soil – a presence in the daily life of all of us as we tread upon and gain sustenance from the earth. This presence and reality has not escaped the view and attention of visual artists. In this contribution we aim to show how soil art helps to reveal the interconnectivity of soil, life and culture.25 2 http://www.soil-discuss.net http://www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/soild-1-1-2015-print.pdf http://www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/soild-1-1-2015-discussion.html http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ SOILD 1, 1–48, 2015 From soil in art towards Soil Art C. Feller et al. Title Page Abstract Introduction Conclusions References Tables Figures J I J I Back Close Full Screen / Esc Printer-friendly Version Interactive Discussion D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | 1.1 The soil vision Soil is a word whose meaning varies according to the context, even within the sci- ences. The patriotic soil (as the “soil of France”) and the agricultural soil have very little in common. Even in the environmental and geological sciences, there are often large differences between the soil (or subsoil) of the geologist, the archaeologist, the5 geotechnical engineer and the soil of the soil scientist or pedologist (in some countries pedology is another word for soil science, in others it is a distinct branch of soil sci- ence). For the non-scientific, public at large, including artists, soil is mainly the surface on which we walk. In soil science, numerous definitions for soil have been published but all agree with10 this kind of minimum definition: Soil is the volume of the very superficial layer of the planet Earth consisting of a loose material (the earth) and limited by the ground at the surface and the rock (or parent material), which it derived, at depth. The soil thickness can be from some centimeters to more than 10 m.15 Soil is organized in different layers named “horizons” and the whole of the horizons is the “soil profile” (Fig. 1). It means that Soil is not only “earth” but a “natural body” with a self organizing ability that depends upon different factors, such as climate, topography, geology, biology (including human activities), and time. Hence, earth as a material must not be equated with Soil as an organized natural body.20 The foundation of pedology with this vision of soil is attributed to the Russian scientist Vasillii Dokuchaev with the publication in 1883 of his thesis The Russian Chernozem. According to Dokuchaev, soil is a natural body and ought to be considered as the 4th natural kingdom of nature, equivalent to the mineral, animal and vegetable kingdoms. With exception of farmers, foresters and builders, the non-scientific public typically25 has had a very low awareness to soil. Their only soil vision is a soil surface vision, where that which lies below is unseen, unimagined and unconsidered. 3 http://www.soil-discuss.net http://www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/soild-1-1-2015-print.pdf http://www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/soild-1-1-2015-discussion.html http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ SOILD 1, 1–48, 2015 From soil in art towards Soil Art C. Feller et al. Title Page Abstract Introduction Conclusions References Tables Figures J I J I Back Close Full Screen / Esc Printer-friendly Version Interactive Discussion D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | The 3-dimensional soil vision that continues as a foundation of modern pedology could only have appeared after the work of Dokuchaev (1883) and the introduction of the soil profile concept. Every soil scientist knows how students or friends are astonished and fascinated when they discover the Soil profile (Hartemink et al., 2014). A new world appears for5 them with this organization of multi-colored horizons – a world filled with living crea- tures. This first soil vision is always emotional. As Hartemink (2014) said at the 20th World Congress of Soil Science: “The soil profile speaks to us. . . The soil profile tells us stories”. Moreover, the soil profile gives us clues to how the land had been and should be10 managed. The soil profile is in this sense a visual narrative of some of the services and functions it performs. Since the beginning of mankind soils have provided goods and services to human societies. These include: – food production, – earths for pigments, for ceramics or for building constructions,15 – earths as medicines or for religious and spiritual activities. Many of these roles involved artistic activity (see, for example, Fig. 2). The notion of soil functions, goods and services has been greatly extended since the mid-20th century with the emergence of the environmental movement and of science aimed at addressing environmental quality: the role of the soil is not only to provide20 foods and fibers but its optimal management also considers regulation of climate, mit- igation of pollution, maintenance of biodiversity, etc. It also needs to be considered in the framework of ethical, spiritual and artistic dimensions. As we will see, some artists’ works are related to a general surface vision, or more incidental depiction of the soil including the profile vision while others are more focused on environmental questions.25 4 http://www.soil-discuss.net http://www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/soild-1-1-2015-print.pdf http://www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/soild-1-1-2015-discussion.html http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ SOILD 1, 1–48, 2015 From soil in art towards Soil Art C. Feller et al. Title Page Abstract Introduction Conclusions References Tables Figures J I J I Back Close Full Screen / Esc Printer-friendly Version Interactive Discussion D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | 1.2 Envisioning soil The range of art forms and genres dealing with soil is wide and diverse, spanning many centuries and artistic traditions, from prehistoric painting and ceramics to early Renaissance works in Western literature, poetry, paintings, and sculpture, to recent developments in cinema, architecture and contemporary art (Landa and Feller, 2010;5 Toland and Wessolek, 2010, 2014). With the emergence of environmental awareness and activism during the second part of 20th century, individual artists became inspired by the need to manage nature in a sustainable way. Environmental art, ecological art, and land art are some of the more well-known genres that took up issues of land use, ecology and agricultural change in10 the latter half of the 20th century. With the increasing recognition of the soil as an important compartment of the ter- restrial ecosystems (since the Earth Summit held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992), and of the numerous ecosystem services that it can provide, different artists all around the world have expanded their practices to include soil (and not simply the landscape in general)15 as a subject of artistic inquiry. In this sense, we can speak of an emergence of “Soil Art.” This was first proposed by Wessolek (2002): “It is my personal concern to encourage the foundation of a new art style, perhaps named ‘Soil Art’.” and later defined by Toland and Wessolek (2010).20 For our purposes here, we define Soil Art as: artistic work about, in, or with soil or soil protection issues, that is produced by artists in a multitude of genres and media, to be understood, among other things, as artwork that may contribute to wider environmental and soil pro- tection discourses (adapted from Toland and Wessolek, 2010).25 Since the scope of this area of artistic activity is so large and diverse, it will be impossible to give examples of all artistic forms and genres in a single article. Rather 5 http://www.soil-discuss.net http://www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/soild-1-1-2015-print.pdf http://www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/soild-1-1-2015-discussion.html http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ SOILD 1, 1–48, 2015 From soil in art towards Soil Art C. Feller et al. Title Page Abstract Introduction Conclusions References Tables Figures J I J I Back Close Full Screen / Esc Printer-friendly Version Interactive Discussion D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | than attempt a comprehensive overview, we will offer selected examples that reflect our observations and inquiries as soil scientists with focused interests in art: – Sect. 2 (paintings) by C. Feller, with additions by A. Toland and G. Wessolek, – Sect. 3 (installation) by A. Toland and G. Wessolek, – Sect. 4 (cinema) by E. R. Landa.5 2 Paintings 2.1 Before 20th century – representation of soil in art This part mainly covers paintings in Western culture. Relations between soil and art are numerous and date to Antiquity. On one side – soil as the medium itself – soils have been used as a material for art as10 pigments (since the prehistoric wall paintings in caves) (Ugolini, 2010), pottery (clays), etc., and more recently in contemporary paintings to give special effects to the subject (Van Breemen, 2010). On the other side, soil was frequently represented in paintings, mosaics or sculptures from the Antiquity until the present, in the form of lines or sur- faces, as an element of the landscape but not as the main subject of the representa-15 tion. In many cases, it was a schematic representation, as if the artist often appeared to have consciously failed to observe the soil (Feller et al., 2010) as in Venus standing in a landscape (see: http://www.louvre.fr/oeuvre-notices/venus-debout-dans-un-paysage). However, in some exceptional cases, the depiction of the soil (as a surface or a soil profile in the paintings) is remarkable. But even in these cases, the focus is on another20 object or subject. Feller et al. (2010) distinguish three reasons to show a soil profile in paintings from Renaissance to the 18th century: 6 http://www.soil-discuss.net http://www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/soild-1-1-2015-print.pdf http://www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/soild-1-1-2015-discussion.html http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://www.louvre.fr/oeuvre-notices/venus-debout-dans-un-paysage SOILD 1, 1–48, 2015 From soil in art towards Soil Art C. Feller et al. Title Page Abstract Introduction Conclusions References Tables Figures J I J I Back Close Full Screen / Esc Printer-friendly Version Interactive Discussion D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | 2.1.1 Soil profile for the Resurrection of the Dead In the Last Judgment by Rogier Van der Weyden (1432) (Fig. 3) the resurrection of the dead required the artist to show the soil profile. The complete painting exhibits numerous such soil profiles. Details of emergence of men and women going out of soil profiles (lower part of the painting) are so true to reality that it might be titled “Birth of a5 Pedologist”. 2.1.2 Soil profile for displaying plant roots In the paintings of the Renaissance, the representation of a ditch or a soil cut in a painting served very often as an excuse to picture roots. In the St John the Baptist by Hieronymus Bosch (1450–1516) the figure of St John leans towards a sharp vertical ex-10 posure of soil that includes a strange large root: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._John_ the_Baptist_in_the_Wilderness). A large root also appears in The Tempest painted by Giorgione (1477/78–1510) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tempest_(Giorgione)). These works were just some examples of paintings in which large forked roots were made evident.15 The representation of roots was not due to chance, but chosen for its symbolic value. The root presented in detail in the foreground of the St John the Baptist painted by Bosch could be from the mandragora as suggested by Marjnissen and Ruyffe- laere (1987). The mandragora root is thick, hiry and forked, in a humanoid form. The roots of mandragora genus (mandrake) were extensively used by alchemists and in20 magic rituals. (See: http://mandragore.bnf.fr/jsp/rechercheExperte.jsp, Manuscrits oc- cidentaux, cote: français 12322, fol. 180v, flore: plantain, ca. 1520–1530, Notice no 80/206). It was also a religious symbol for Christians for whom it was linked to Genesis and aspects of Christ’s life. This was the primary reason of its representation in art until the25 18th century. (For further details, see Feller et al., 2010). 7 http://www.soil-discuss.net http://www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/soild-1-1-2015-print.pdf http://www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/soild-1-1-2015-discussion.html http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._John_the_Baptist_in_the_Wilderness http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._John_the_Baptist_in_the_Wilderness http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._John_the_Baptist_in_the_Wilderness http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tempest_(Giorgione) http://mandragore.bnf.fr/jsp/rechercheExperte.jsp SOILD 1, 1–48, 2015 From soil in art towards Soil Art C. Feller et al. Title Page Abstract Introduction Conclusions References Tables Figures J I J I Back Close Full Screen / Esc Printer-friendly Version Interactive Discussion D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | 2.1.3 Soil profile displayed by the ploughing From the 14th and during the 15th century, especially in the Très Riches Heures1 we see representations of agricultural tasks and toils. Here, the soil is depicted with a clear concern of realism and technical specificity, including the tilling of the soil. Herein is an early artistic and technical representation of what agronomists and pedologists5 describe as an agricultural profile. In addition to this example, Peter Brueghel the Elder (1525/30–1569) might be also be cited for The Fall of Icarus (Fig. 4). Icarus is the tiny figure at the bottom on the right-hand corner, with only his legs visible, while in forefront of the canvas, attention is centered on the good Flemish ploughman tilling furrows. That was the triumph of daily working life over Utopia (“falling from the sky”).10 Beside the ploughman serving as a reference for agriculture, Brueghel the Elder did not fail to symbolize other of the world’s riches – animal husbandry in the form of the sheepherder leaning on his staff, and the wealth of the sea shown in the form of a busy fisherman. It should be also noticed that forked roots are included in the agricultural profile – perhaps meant to be mandrake!15 Toward the end of the 16th century landscapes and presentations of nature in paint- ing were in some sense discovered as an independent motif. Typical representatives are Dürer, Cranach, Burgkmair, Bosch and Poussin. Incidentally, this development coin- cides with the emergence of the French model of horticulture (André Le Nôtre, Gardens of Versailles) (Wessolek, 2002). Later, in the the 19th century agricultural art developed20 a lot at and ploughed soil inspired many artists such as Rosa Bonheur (1822–1899) with the Labourage Nivernais (1849) (Fig. 5). 1The Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, or Très Riches Heures, is the most famous and possibly the best surviving example of French Gothic manuscript illumination, showing the late International Gothic phase of the style. It is a book of hours: a collection of prayers to be said at the canonical hours. It was created between ca. 1412 and 1416 for the extravagant royal biblio- phile and patron John, Duke of Berry, by the Limbourg brothers. . . The calendar images, which are the most commonly reproduced. The “calendar” images vivid representations of peasants performing agricultural work (source: Wikipedia). 8 http://www.soil-discuss.net http://www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/soild-1-1-2015-print.pdf http://www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/soild-1-1-2015-discussion.html http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ SOILD 1, 1–48, 2015 From soil in art towards Soil Art C. Feller et al. Title Page Abstract Introduction Conclusions References Tables Figures J I J I Back Close Full Screen / Esc Printer-friendly Version Interactive Discussion D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | 2.2 From beginning of 20th century – teaching the soil: from science to art Nowadays, in modern soil textbooks, soil profile are shown and described with pho- tographs. But the early scientific depiction of soil in painting dated from the beginning of the 20th century, either as splendid illustrations in textbooks on soil (Fig. 1) or prepared for5 educational exhibitions in amphitheaters, generally as canvases representing different types of soil (Fig. 6). One could consider that as a kind of transition from science to art. The two oil canvases (60 × 100 cm) represent soil profiles (Fig. 6). These canvases were published as illustrations in the soil science textbook of Demolon (1952, p. 86bis) and were anonymously displayed in the 1940’s for a soil science course.10 In an art exhibition on “The Earth” (2005, Uzès, France), C. Feller presented these paintings, without any technical explanation. The visitors generally found these can- vases splendid, and asked if they were painted by a contemporary artist? Nowadays, some soil scientists such as Gerd Wessolek and Alexandra Toland (Tech- nische Universität Berlin), Ken van Rees (University of Saskatchewan), and Jay Strat-15 ton Noller (Oregon State University) use artistic techniques in their teaching (Fig. 7), have included soil science students in art activities, and have invited artists to partici- pate in soil science research and teaching endeavors. Soil scientists have referenced paintings by Jacob and Salomon van Ruysdael, Paul Gauguin, Hieronymus Bosch, Pe- ter Brueghel the Elder, and Ambrogio Lorenzetti in communication on historical farming20 practices, land use, and soil geomorphologic processes (Feller et al., 2010; Hartemink, 2009; Jenny, 1968), and drawn upon various painting techniques in soil awareness- raising activities, such as the Painting with the Colors of the Earth program with Irena Racek in Austria (Szlezak, 2009), or the soil painting program at the Museu de Ciên- cias da Terra Alexis Dorofeef (Earth Science Museum) in Brazil (Muggler, 2013). Also,25 paintings by soil scientists are a way of presenting soil scientific concepts in a visual way. Figure 7 exemplarily explores formal aesthetic features (color, texture, structure, composition of horizons) to describe soil properties. Such aesthetic features are often 9 http://www.soil-discuss.net http://www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/soild-1-1-2015-print.pdf http://www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/soild-1-1-2015-discussion.html http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ SOILD 1, 1–48, 2015 From soil in art towards Soil Art C. Feller et al. Title Page Abstract Introduction Conclusions References Tables Figures J I J I Back Close Full Screen / Esc Printer-friendly Version Interactive Discussion D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | used in field descriptions for soil mapping but are not referred to as such. Capturing the profile in a painting is an exercise in aesthetic observation and documentation that allows the field scientist, student (or artist) to capture subtle details not possible in tabular, written form. One could mention too the following some other French soil scientists involved in5 “Soil Art” or “Earthworks” as: – Folkert Van Oort (INRA, France), using undisturbed soil material (collected from soil horizons) applied to canvas and representing natural Soil- or Geo-landscapes (see Feller et al., 2010), – Bénédicte et Louis-Marie Bresson (INRA, France) using disturbed soil material10 applied to canvas to create artificial soil profiles or landscapes, and – Dominique Schwartz (Strasbourg University, France) with his beautiful photos of soils (Fig. 8). 2.3 Soil in realism and abstraction: case studies from the 20th century Here we will give two examples of well-known painters who were instrumental in bring-15 ing soil themes to a wider audience. These two examples stem from two very different and opposed artistic traditions: European abstract painting and American regionalism, which favored realistic representation over abstraction. Art critics such as John Arthur (1989, 2000) and Lauren Della Monica (2013) have described realism in landscape painting as an ongoing tradition in American Art, sug-20 gesting that our understandings and relationships with the land are embedded in the American cultural experience, as depicted by 19th century painters such as Frederic Church and Winslow Homer and later by, for example, Georgia O’Keefe and Alex Katz. 10 http://www.soil-discuss.net http://www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/soild-1-1-2015-print.pdf http://www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/soild-1-1-2015-discussion.html http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ SOILD 1, 1–48, 2015 From soil in art towards Soil Art C. Feller et al. Title Page Abstract Introduction Conclusions References Tables Figures J I J I Back Close Full Screen / Esc Printer-friendly Version Interactive Discussion D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | 2.3.1 Grant Wood (USA) One of the most well-known proponents of American landscape painting is Grant DeVolson Wood (1891–1942), an American painter. He is best known for his paint- ings depicting the rural American Midwest, particularly the painting American Gothic, an iconic image of the 20th century (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grant_Wood). Arbor5 Day (1932) is well-known to soil scientists all around the world (see: http://www. wikiart.org/en/grant-wood/arbor-day-1932). Arbor Day (from the Latin arbor, mean- ing tree) is a holiday in which individuals and groups are encouraged to plant and care for trees. The first Arbor Day was held in the state of Nebraska on 10 April 1872 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbor_Day). Its founder, J. Sterling Morton, went on to be-10 come the Secretary of Agriculture of the United States (1893–1897). But in the Grant Wood painting, the planting of the tree is not the main subject of the painting rather, it is the soilscape, with its clearly evident schematization of soil horizons. This contrast between the title and the subject is interesting. It reminds one of the Brueghel painting The Fall of Icarus where the main subject was not Icarus, who15 is quite invisible, but rather a Flemish ploughman tilling the soil. Such a painting really belongs to Soil Art, for the object of inspiration for the artist is clearly the soil and its horizons. 2.3.2 Jean Dubuffet (France) While painters of genres past used their medium to document specific land formations20 and land use practices (van Breemen, 2010; Zika, 2001; Feller et al., 2010), many con- temporary painters use soil materials more abstractly to explore the physical qualities of a given place rather than to realistically represent it. This turn towards abstract paint- ing must be understood as a backlash against established norms of visual expression dominant in the 19th century.25 With regard to the soil, the Texturology series of works by the French modernist painter Jean Dubuffet (1901–1985) is perhaps the most famous example of the “turn to- 11 http://www.soil-discuss.net http://www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/soild-1-1-2015-print.pdf http://www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/soild-1-1-2015-discussion.html http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grant_Wood http://www.wikiart.org/en/grant-wood/arbor-day-1932 http://www.wikiart.org/en/grant-wood/arbor-day-1932 http://www.wikiart.org/en/grant-wood/arbor-day-1932 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbor_Day SOILD 1, 1–48, 2015 From soil in art towards Soil Art C. Feller et al. Title Page Abstract Introduction Conclusions References Tables Figures J I J I Back Close Full Screen / Esc Printer-friendly Version Interactive Discussion D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | wards abstraction”. At the height of action painting and abstract expressionism most no- tably characterized by artists such as Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning, Dubuffet began using a plastering technique called the “Tyrolean” method in the early 1950s to create large format paintings celebrating the complexity of the soil (Alley, 1981). He discovered he could do splendid paintings using the soil of his garden. About his5 series Topographies or Texturologies or Materiologies (Fig. 9), he wrote (15 April 1958) to his friend Henri Matisse (Dubuffet, Catalogue Gianadda, 1993, p. 104): “. . . J’entends par là une nouvelle série de ‘tableaux d’assemblages’ représentant des morceaux de sols. . . ” (“. . . I mean by that a new series of paintings representing an assembling of10 pieces of soils. . . ”) Between 1950 and 1960, Dubuffet created numerous such paintings with “pedologi- cal” titles as: – Terre mon biscuit (Earth, my biscuit). April 1953. – Terre orange aux trois hommes (Earth orange with three men). May 1953.15 – Histologie du sol (Soil Histology). October 1957. – Série Texturologie (Texturology series). 1957–1958. – Mécanique du sol Texturologie (Soil Mechanics). December 1958. – Topographie honneur au sol (Topography in honnor to soil). December 1958. – Terre mère (Mother earth). December 1959–May 1960.20 Many other painters before 1970 have used soil as a material or represented soil as a background feature, but it was rare for soil for to be central and presented for itself, as with Grant Wood and Jean Dubuffet. We could mentioned Mark Rothko (1903–1970) with his Terre et Vert (1955) (Earth and Green) from the Museum Ludwig, Cologne, 12 http://www.soil-discuss.net http://www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/soild-1-1-2015-print.pdf http://www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/soild-1-1-2015-discussion.html http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ SOILD 1, 1–48, 2015 From soil in art towards Soil Art C. Feller et al. Title Page Abstract Introduction Conclusions References Tables Figures J I J I Back Close Full Screen / Esc Printer-friendly Version Interactive Discussion D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | Germany. The painting is divided in three horizontal colored parts: red for soil, green for vegetation, blue for sky, but it belongs more as a representation of a landscape than of a soil. 2.4 Soil in contemporary painting In the latter half of the 20th century, more and more painters began considering the soil5 as a subject of inspiration and artistic creation. Two further examples are the works of as Paul Rebeyrolle and Anselm Kieffer. 2.4.1 Paul Rebeyrolle (France) Paul Rebeyrolle (1926–2005) was born in Eymoutiers (France). “He has gained recognition as one of the foremost twentieth-century French painters.10 His striking works of art, centred on violent yet noble themes up hold freedom, combat injustice, intolerance, and the enslavement of both mankind and nature; constituting an authentic testimony of our time” (http://www.espace-rebeyrolle.com/menu.htm). Paul Rebeyrolle’s famous Grands Paysages (Large Landscapes) (1978), made with soil, straw, compost, etc., show torrents of water flowing freely between earth massifs,15 capturing the eroding power and danger of natural forces (Fig. 10). Many other Rebeyrolle’s paintings are related to soil as La Souche (1999)(The tree stump) or paintings about seasons as Le Printemps (1967) (The spring). 2.4.2 Anselm Kieffer (Germany) Anselm Kieffer (1945– ) is one of the most famous artists in the world from the end of20 20th and beginning of 21st century. Until recent years, this German artist partially lived in Barjac in the south of France (Gard) in a vast domain of “garrigue” (a type of low, soft-leaved scrubland ecoregion and plant community in the Mediterranean forests, woodlands, and scrub biome) that he transformed into an huge work of art: a concrete architectural landscape with buildings and towers in ruins, a cathedral of soil and con-25 13 http://www.soil-discuss.net http://www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/soild-1-1-2015-print.pdf http://www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/soild-1-1-2015-discussion.html http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://www.espace-rebeyrolle.com/menu.htm SOILD 1, 1–48, 2015 From soil in art towards Soil Art C. Feller et al. Title Page Abstract Introduction Conclusions References Tables Figures J I J I Back Close Full Screen / Esc Printer-friendly Version Interactive Discussion D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | crete and a network of tunnels at the landscape scale as giant earthworm galleries giving access to small houses as art chapels showing very large paintings or other art works. It seems this artist develops a special relationship with soil. Some of these paintings (as many others in different museum or private collections in the worlds) show cultivated fields, which could have caught on fire, a vision of devastation. It looks very5 dry and bare, but some of these paintings exhibit a glimmer of hope as Aperiatur Terra et Germinet Salvatorem (“Let the earth be opened and send forth a Savior”) (2005– 2006). The painting was done with oil, acrylic, emulsion, shellac and clay on canvas with colored flowers catered at the bottom evocating the new birth of life (Fig. 11). These cultivated landscapes are composed with mixed materials including soil10 but also with reinforced concrete as in the 2004 gigant art work Von den Ver- lorenen gerührt, die der Glaube nicht trug, erwachen die Trommeln im Fluss at the Sydney’s Art Gallery (Australia) (http://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/exhibitions/ new-contemporary-galleries/featured-artists-and-works/anselm-kiefer). 3 Case studies of soil in installation art15 Installation art provides artists with unlimited media and tools with which to explore the soil as social, ecological and political subject. This is not to say that that more traditional forms such as painting and sculpture are not sufficient to capture the complexity of the soil, but that installation introduces dimensions of time, space, and sensory experience beyond traditional fields of vision. “By inviting the viewer literally to enter into the work20 of art, and by appealing not only to the sense of sight but also, on occasion, to those of hearing and smell, such works demand the spectator’s active engagement” (Grove Art Online, 2009). The prevalence of installation as a visual art form can be seen in the “emergence of soil art,” in that it gives artists new tools for exploring our relationships to the soil as medium and its functions for society. Rosenthal (2003) has categorized25 installation art into two main groups, filled-space installation, and site-specific instal- lation, to which many examples of land art and public outdoor interventions with soil 14 http://www.soil-discuss.net http://www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/soild-1-1-2015-print.pdf http://www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/soild-1-1-2015-discussion.html http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/exhibitions/new-contemporary-galleries/featured-artists-and-works/anselm-kiefer http://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/exhibitions/new-contemporary-galleries/featured-artists-and-works/anselm-kiefer http://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/exhibitions/new-contemporary-galleries/featured-artists-and-works/anselm-kiefer SOILD 1, 1–48, 2015 From soil in art towards Soil Art C. Feller et al. Title Page Abstract Introduction Conclusions References Tables Figures J I J I Back Close Full Screen / Esc Printer-friendly Version Interactive Discussion D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | belong. Let us look, for example, at the “filled-space” type of installation art, and dif- ferentiate between two directions: (1) installation as immersive spatial experience that relies heavily on architectural design, and (2) installation as Gesamtkunstwerk,2 or an assemblage of multiple forms that symbolically, materially, or thematically relate to one another concerning the values and functions of soil in society.5 3.1 Immersive experience 3.1.1 Walter de Maria (USA) and Urs Fischer (Switzerland) To begin with the first type of installation, installation as immersive experience, we can think about the soil in terms of its unique spatial qualities. On the one hand soil is solid ground – a dense, stable, immobile field upon which to walk, stand, and build. On10 the other hand, soil is a porous zone in perpetual flux – a complex labyrinth of moist pore spaces and fractalous crevices churning with microscopic life. Regarding the first vision of the soil, we can cite two well know examples from New York, Walter de Maria’s New York Earth Room (1977, Fig. 12a) and Urs Fischer’s You (2007, Fig. 12b). For the New York Earth Room, the pioneering Land Artist, Walter de Maria, filled an entire15 Manhattan loft with soil from a Pennsylvanian farm, only to be viewed (and smelled) through a small doorway blocked off by a Plexiglas window. The installation of earth materials completely occupies the viewers’ experience, bringing the physical, visual awe of Land Art into a familiar, indoor, architectural space. “By filling a loft space in Manhattan with earth, De Maria makes a theatri-20 cal use of space. It is the space itself which is being shown, transformed by both the quantity and nature of the material. . . A sense of exclusion is expe- 2The term Gesamtkunstwerk was first introduced by the philosopher Karl Friedrich Eusebius Trahndorff in an essay from 1827 and later popularized by Richard Wagner to describe the use of multiple art forms in his Operas. 15 http://www.soil-discuss.net http://www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/soild-1-1-2015-print.pdf http://www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/soild-1-1-2015-discussion.html http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ SOILD 1, 1–48, 2015 From soil in art towards Soil Art C. Feller et al. Title Page Abstract Introduction Conclusions References Tables Figures J I J I Back Close Full Screen / Esc Printer-friendly Version Interactive Discussion D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | rienced by the viewer, as the space occupied by the work cannot be entered” (Kastner and Wallis, 1998). Thirty years later and only ten blocks away, Swiss artist, Urs Fischer, “installed” a formal antithesis of de Maria’s Earth Room by excavating rather than depositing about the same amount of earth from the depths of Gavin Brown’s gallery floor and inviting the5 viewer to actually enter into the work of art at his or her own risk. Here too, the viewer is overwhelmed by the earth materials that challenge the architecture of the exhibition space. The solid ground necessary for any architectural venture gives way to a new and somewhat ungrounding spatial experience. In Earth Room and You, typical conceptions of earth materials, such as ploughed fields or excavated pits for construction work, are10 brought indoors to disrupt the viewers’ normal relationship to the materials and the space they occupy, calling for deeper contemplation of and confrontation with both. 3.1.2 Philip Beesley (Canada) Another example of immersive installation soil art explores the more porous, labyrinthine qualities of the soil as spatial entity without actually moving a grain. An on-15 going research project by architects Philip Beesley, Rachel Armstrong, Hayley Isaacs, Eric Bury and Jonathan Tyrell, Hylozoic Soil (Fig. 13) is an interactive environment of tiny sensors, “groves of frond-like ‘breathing’ pores, tongues and thickets of twitching whiskers“and other mechanized components that make up what Beesley envisions as a prototypical model of “immersive architecture and synthetic ecology” (Beesley and20 Armstrong, 2011). With far more potential than the massive, inert, singly-functioning building material it is commonly treated as, the soil is seen as a responsive frame- work for myriad encounters and a physical template for social and biological evolution. Where Maria and Fischer challenge the viewer’s experience of architecture by installing soil within the familiar framework of walls and floors in Earth Room and You, Beesley25 and his partners challenge the very idea of architecture by redefining that framework of walls and floors as a system of reactive pore spaces that imitate the soil. 16 http://www.soil-discuss.net http://www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/soild-1-1-2015-print.pdf http://www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/soild-1-1-2015-discussion.html http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ SOILD 1, 1–48, 2015 From soil in art towards Soil Art C. Feller et al. Title Page Abstract Introduction Conclusions References Tables Figures J I J I Back Close Full Screen / Esc Printer-friendly Version Interactive Discussion D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | Hylozoism refers to the Greek philosophy that life may be found in all matter. Hylozoic Soil is a multisensory kinetic installation that uses the sculptural metaphor of fertile soil to bring architecture, usually inert, to life. It simultaneously references the micro- bial aesthetics of mycorrhizal plant-root-fungi interdependence and the metaphysics of Graham Cairns-Smith’s controversial clay-life hypothesis3. Like the hyper-reactivity of5 clay particles, the delicately responsive structures of Hylozoic Soil are predetermined to evolve and change based on human (or other biological) presence. A meshed net- work of movement sensors, air filters, and flasks filled with ferrofluids sends feedback signals of light and rippling movement triggered by the smallest presence of otherness within the system (Beesley and Armstrong, 2011). It is this juxtapositioning of life as10 container and as contained that creates tension in Beesley’s work. As an installation, or architectural prototype, Hylozoic Soil succeeds in momentarily transporting human experience to the scale of a Collembola, reminiscent of multimedia exhibits that magnify the soil microcosm in natural history museums and soil educa- tional exhibitions4. But Beesley and his partners have created more than an installation15 to contemplate the complexity of the soil. They use the concept of the living soil to chal- lenge accepted notions of architecture by focusing on the fantastic universe of soil pore systems – the spaces in between – rather than the predictable boundaries of cubes and spheres that separate life (via traditional architectural structures) from the wilderness beyond. Beesley remarks,20 “In opposition to design principles of the past century that favoured opti- mal equations where maximum volume might be enclosed by the minimum 3In his controversial book, “Seven Clues to the Origin of Life”, Cairns-Smith (1985) proposed that clays were a proto-organic vehicle or template for biological replication. 4See, for example, soil pore space scale models at the Dig It! The Secrets of the Soil exhibit at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, the Unter Welten exhibit at the Mu- seum am Schölerberg in Osnabrück, and the Unter Unseren Füßen exhibit of the Senckenberg Museum of Natural History in Görlitz. 17 http://www.soil-discuss.net http://www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/soild-1-1-2015-print.pdf http://www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/soild-1-1-2015-discussion.html http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ SOILD 1, 1–48, 2015 From soil in art towards Soil Art C. Feller et al. Title Page Abstract Introduction Conclusions References Tables Figures J I J I Back Close Full Screen / Esc Printer-friendly Version Interactive Discussion D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | possible surface, the structures in Hylozoic Ground prefer diffuse, deeply reticulated skins. . . ” (Beesley and Armstrong, 2011). If we think about the immense surface area of an ideal soil, with pore spaces match- ing aggregates, and sand, silt and clay fractions evenly distributed to allow for optimized flow of water, air, nutrients, and biota, we approach a new vision of architecture where5 no space is empty and no structure is stationary. A handful of loam becomes the ulti- mate installation and architectural template for life itself. 3.2 Gesamtkunstwerk 3.2.1 Claire Pentecost’s (USA) “As a term that gained currency in the 1960s to describe a construction or10 assemblage conceived for a specific interior, often for a temporary period, and distinguished from more conventional sculpture as a discrete object by its physical domination of the entire space” (Grove Art Online, 2009), installation art has become a household name in the contemporary art world. By its nature, installation art can reference and appropriate all other visual art forms,15 cherry-picking different styles, media, and techniques to condense meaning into three- dimensional spatial experience. Many artists and critics have referred to (installation art) as an expression of the concept of Gesamtkunstwerk, a total work of art, as it ap- pears to borrow from a vast spectrum of disciplines (de Oliveira, 1993). This reading of installation art as a total work of art consisting of many related parts is exemplified20 by a further example, Claire Pentecost’s acclaimed contribution to dOCUMENTA 13 in Kassel, the Soil-Erg (Fig. 14). In the rotunda of the historic Ottoneum, a theatre turned hospital turned gallery turned natural history museum, Claire Pentecost assembled a series of drawings, sculptures, worm compost, and appropriated museum pieces that all revolved around a25 central theme – the soil as post-capitalist currency and common resource that anyone 18 http://www.soil-discuss.net http://www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/soild-1-1-2015-print.pdf http://www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/soild-1-1-2015-discussion.html http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ SOILD 1, 1–48, 2015 From soil in art towards Soil Art C. Feller et al. Title Page Abstract Introduction Conclusions References Tables Figures J I J I Back Close Full Screen / Esc Printer-friendly Version Interactive Discussion D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | can create by learning how to compost. As part of this well-researched “Gesamtkunst- werk,” Pentecost participated in a three-month residency program at the University of Kassel’s Faculty of Organic Agricultural Sciences, offered workshops at dOCUMENTA 13 on composting, soil health, and capitalist alternatives to land-grabbing, and devel- oped a series of pillar-like vertical planters in and around the city together with designer5 and philanthropist Ben Friton of the CanYa Love Foundation. The installation at the Ot- toneum served as the visual centerpiece of Soil-Erg, visited by thousands of people over the course of the summer. Lining the walls of the Ottoneum are oversized soil coins, too big and crumbly to fit in anyone’s pockets, and forty-three drawings in earth-based pigments that reference10 the graphic style of banknotes. The series of Soil-Erg bills features images of historic figures of sustainable agriculture such as Rachel Carson, Wangari Maathai, and Van- dana Shiva, as well as influential ecological artists and writers such as Joseph Beuys and Henry David Thoreau, and a cast of non-human soil workers from snails and bees to fungal mycelium and bacteriophagic nematodes. “The center of the installation itself15 is the proposal of a new system of value based on living soil” a symbolic and very literal stack of compost pressed in the shape of gold bars, “sculptural objects from handmade soil, or compost (that) represent units of a new currency, the soil-erg (provisional name), proposed as a replacement of the petro-dollar” (Pentecost, 2012).20 Mounted on another wall of the Ottoneum like the ghost of an affluent fossil fuel past is the Richelsdorfer Mountain Cabinet from 1783, a scale model of Hessen’s ge- ologic strata once used for teaching the fundamentals of extraction. Next to the histor- ical cabinet appropriated from the natural history museum’s collection, a new cabinet squirms with worm compost produced in part by the food scraps of visiting dOCU-25 19 http://www.soil-discuss.net http://www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/soild-1-1-2015-print.pdf http://www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/soild-1-1-2015-discussion.html http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ SOILD 1, 1–48, 2015 From soil in art towards Soil Art C. Feller et al. Title Page Abstract Introduction Conclusions References Tables Figures J I J I Back Close Full Screen / Esc Printer-friendly Version Interactive Discussion D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | MENTA guests, offset by a list of current “land grabbing” deals between sovereign countries in Africa, Asia and South America and multinational agribusiness concerns.5 If we go back to the sheer gravity of Walter de Maria’s Earth Room, we recognize not only a playful approach to redefining architectural space, but also an underlying anti- capitalist statement intended to free art from the commodification and value control of5 the market economy – a reoccurring debate of installation art. Claire Pentecost extends such ideas about the de-commodification of art to the soil, using sculpture, drawing, writing, lecturing, photography, collaborative engineer- ing, participation, composting, gardening, and research as a Gesamtkunstwerk to not only explore but demand new systems of value for the soil.10 “Made of soil and work, the soil-erg both is and is not an abstraction. Sym- bolically, it refers to a field of value, but that value is of a special nature: soil must be produced and maintained in a context. It is completely impractical to circulate it. It is heavy, and, because of the loose structure required of good soil, it falls apart. . . The physical nature of soil the soil-erg both evokes and15 denies the possibility of coinage. If currency as we know it is the ultimate de- territorialization, the soil-erg’s value is inherently territorialized” (Pentecost, 2012). 3.3 Archives A third direction in installation art is the archive, as represented by two artists on either20 side of the planet, herman de vries and Koichi Kurita. 5Pentecost cites the following websites for her list of land-grabbing info presented in the Soil Erg installation: http://farmlandgrab.org/ and http://oaklandinstitute.org. 20 http://www.soil-discuss.net http://www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/soild-1-1-2015-print.pdf http://www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/soild-1-1-2015-discussion.html http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://farmlandgrab.org/ http://oaklandinstitute.org SOILD 1, 1–48, 2015 From soil in art towards Soil Art C. Feller et al. Title Page Abstract Introduction Conclusions References Tables Figures J I J I Back Close Full Screen / Esc Printer-friendly Version Interactive Discussion D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | 3.3.1 herman de vries (Netherlands) One of the first and most renowned artists’ soil archives is herman de vries’ erdmuseum in Eschenau and his related from earth works.6 Initiated in 1979, the erdmuseum con- sists of 7000 soil samples from all over the world, many of which were painstakingly collected by the artist himself. All samples have been dried, pulverized, packed into5 bags, and stored in cardboard boxes marked with the date and location of the finding. These samples are further represented as earth rubbings on uniform grids on paper, the erdkatalog, which is also organized according to time and place of discovery. In a minimalist handling of material, a political overtone is imbued in the work. All samples are unique in color and origin. All have been handled equally. None have been empha-10 sized, singled out, or excluded, even samples from history-laden sites like Chernobyl or the concentration camp at Buchenwald. Mel Gooding (2006) remarks on de vries’ ability to distil the intrinsic qualities of “self-ness” from the materials he collects: “Crushed to a powder, reduced to its basic mineral ’suchness’, rubbed down with the tips of the fingers into a simple rectangle of colour, the earth itself is15 transformed not into the sayable abstraction of the word, but into a material sign of its self-ness.” The erdmuseum furthermore exhibits a scientific rigor in its execution. As de vries explains in an interview with John Grande, his methods are partly informed by experi- ences he gained in his former career as a biologist.20 “a systematic approach is one possible way artists can work. i learned this discipline from science.” de vries continues with an emphasis on interdisciplinarity: “science on its own cannot provide us with a complete understanding of the world and our life. art and science can be complementary. by fusing both,25 6Note: lowercase letters are a signature of de vries’ philosophy of objectivity. 21 http://www.soil-discuss.net http://www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/soild-1-1-2015-print.pdf http://www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/soild-1-1-2015-discussion.html http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ SOILD 1, 1–48, 2015 From soil in art towards Soil Art C. Feller et al. Title Page Abstract Introduction Conclusions References Tables Figures J I J I Back Close Full Screen / Esc Printer-friendly Version Interactive Discussion D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | the two main creative streams of our culture in relation to our life space can be integrated” (de vries, 2004). de vries combines scientific rigor with philosophy of nature in his artistic explorations of random objectivation (1962–1975), chance and change (1972 to present), natural relations (1982–1989), and from earth (1983– ongoing). In so doing, he also calls for a5 transdisciplinary approach to archiving the soil by integrating different ways of knowing and understanding the soil. 3.3.2 Koichi Kurita (Japan) Thirty years later, on the other side of the planet, Koichi Kurita’s Soil Library (2006) (see: http://soillog.exblog.jp/) picks up on de vries’ minimalist form and meticulous ex-10 ecution with a performance/installation work that celebrates the beauty and diversity of Japan’s soils. Koichi Kurita’s Soil Library is a comprehensive performance/installation work that celebrates the beauty and diversity of Japan’s soils. Kurita has collected over 30 000 samples from around the Japanese archipelago one handful at a time, which he uses to create giant floor installations in a slow and meditative process. Kurita has col-15 lected most of the samples himself and presents them in a uniform manner on square pieces of paper laid out in a grid formation. What makes Kurita’s work distinct is not only his performative approach to installation but his ethno-geographic approach to collecting soil. In an email from 27 August 2012, Kurita wrote: “In Japan, when we are born and given a name, we visit the Shinto shrine20 in the village and pay respect to Ubusunagami, “the god of birth soil.” Every- body has Ubusunagami. We believe we are from the soil and we go back to the soil. So I am collecting the soil from all the villages, towns, and cities, for all of the Japanese people. . . I’ve already collected 32,593 soil samples in 3,213 (out of 3,233) villages. . . Road maps are more important than ge-25 ological maps for me. I can see the names of villages, information about soil and life from a road map. If people are living there, there is soil there. 22 http://www.soil-discuss.net http://www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/soild-1-1-2015-print.pdf http://www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/soild-1-1-2015-discussion.html http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://soillog.exblog.jp/ SOILD 1, 1–48, 2015 From soil in art towards Soil Art C. Feller et al. Title Page Abstract Introduction Conclusions References Tables Figures J I J I Back Close Full Screen / Esc Printer-friendly Version Interactive Discussion D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | I am interested in the soil of life, not the soil of geology. The soil becomes the material of research for geologist. . . pigment for the painter. . . money for architect. . . But the soil is life for me”. Kurita provides two insights here that are relevant for a humanities-based approach to soil protection. First, soil (as well as geologic) mapping projects could be more5 strongly tied to maps documenting demographic distribution, settlement, sprawl, trade and transportation routes, but also areas of significant cultural and religious meaning. Soil Atlases, such as those developed in the Soil Portal of the EU, show the regional distribution of soil types based on the 2006 World Reference Base for Soil Resources, enhanced with climate, vegetation, and population density data. Only marginal mention10 is given, however, to the cultural significance and local meanings of the documented soils. This omission can partly be compensated by artistic production. Through art, the rich heritage of Ubusunagami that Kurita attempts to preserve in Soil Library is emancipated from forgotten village shrines and private superstitions. The taxonomic descriptions of the soil atlas are brought to life and given new meaning. Secondly, the15 fundamental dependence of humans on the soil is weighted against the fundamental dependence of soil on human activity – “where there are people,” says Kurita, “there is soil.” In the age of the Anthropocene, where the effects of damaged soils manifest themselves in worldwide health issues, cancers, reproductive and respiratory illnesses, it is soil that is ultimately contingent on us for its health and safety. Healthy soil is an20 indicator of healthy societies (Handschumacher and Schwartz, 2010) and birth soil, Ubusunagami, is seen as an indicator of the heritage that develops from worshipping, and ideally also protecting, that which gives life and health. 4 Cinema and Soil Art In the visual arts, soil is sometimes “in your face” — it is the foreground, the medium,25 the center of attention, as in the works of the above-mentioned artists. In contrast and not unexpectedly, this is rarely the case in feature films. Nevertheless, location scouts 23 http://www.soil-discuss.net http://www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/soild-1-1-2015-print.pdf http://www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/soild-1-1-2015-discussion.html http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ SOILD 1, 1–48, 2015 From soil in art towards Soil Art C. Feller et al. Title Page Abstract Introduction Conclusions References Tables Figures J I J I Back Close Full Screen / Esc Printer-friendly Version Interactive Discussion D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | and directors clearly recognize that soils can form a visually striking element that adds mood and texture to the viewing experience. Some filmmakers have recognized the human connection to the soil and have used it in their storytelling. A few screenwriters and filmmakers have gone even further, and moved from the typical view of soils a static backdrop on which the action is played out, to a view of soils as a dynamic ecosystem5 feature. About a decade ago, when I partnered with Christian Feller to edit Soil and Culture, I made a conscious effort to write about an artistic medium that I love – “film” to be formal, but really for me “the movies” – and its varied depictions of soil. The survey paper for that volume, In a supporting role: Soil and the cinema (Landa, 2010) represented my10 journey to seek out and explore such films. In recent years, other films, viewed solely as a movie fan, continued to enter my newly focused consciousness, and technical films, viewed early in my career as a soil scientist, came back to mind. Within that retrospective and prospective setting that I now occupy, I am continually exposed to cinematic depictions of soils, soil processes, and soil life, and have come to appreciate15 these films in a new light. This perspective truly adds to my viewing pleasure, and I have also come to see film as a familiar and effective, common ground (literally!) for talking to non-soil scientists about the nature and properties of soil. “What have you seen lately?” is a constant question for movie fans, and I will share some thoughts from my recent viewing – some films re-visited, some new to me, all with the hope of20 creating dialog on both film as an art form, and on soil as a component. Woman in the Dunes (1964) and Dune (1984) focus on not only the dynamism of the moving sands, but also on the subsurface water of the dune as a key ecosystem feature. Soil is central to the story of planet Arrakis in Dune, the David Lynch film based upon the 1965 novel by Frank Herbert. Indeed the “planetary ecologist” who is25 the hero of the Dune saga was based upon an Oregon soil scientist (Landa 2010). A 2013 documentary Jodorowsky’s Dune, on the unsuccessful mid-1970s attempt of surrealist director Alejandro Jodorowsky’s to adapt and film Herbert‘s novel, is reviving 24 http://www.soil-discuss.net http://www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/soild-1-1-2015-print.pdf http://www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/soild-1-1-2015-discussion.html http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ SOILD 1, 1–48, 2015 From soil in art towards Soil Art C. Feller et al. Title Page Abstract Introduction Conclusions References Tables Figures J I J I Back Close Full Screen / Esc Printer-friendly Version Interactive Discussion D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | interest in both the Lynch film and in Herbert as a potent force in the environmental movement. The natural history of the prairie and the abundance derived from the soil is exquisitely depicted in Days of Heaven, the 1978 film by acclaimed director Terrence Malick. Characterized by rich images and sparse dialog7, this circa 1915 tale of life on5 the wheat farms of Texas (actually filmed in Alberta and Montana), includes a brief but memorable time-lapse photography sequence by cinematographer Ken Middleham8. The footage (originally shot for the 1979 documentary The Secret Life of Plants (Weber, 2007)) is accompanied by a soundtrack composed and conducted by Ennio Morricone. Images of unfurling seedlings and probing roots have a special magic for scientists10 and non-scientists alike — see, for example, the 10 January 2014 cover of Science magazine showing a lateral root emerging from the main root of a young Arabidopsis thaliana plant (http://www.sciencemag.org/content/343/6167.cover-expansion). Indeed, moving images of elongating roots seem to beg for music, a fact not unno- ticed by Auburn University plant physiologist Elizabeth (“Betty”) L. Klepper and her US15 Department of Agriculture/Agricultural Research Service colleague Morris G. Huck. Their 16 mm film, Time-lapse photography of root growth, depicting research at the Auburn rhizotron (Fig. 15) where cotton roots in soil were observed through glass pan- els while the plant tops were exposed to field conditions (Taylor, 1969; Huck et al., 7For soil scientists, an endearing and perhaps unscripted line (33:10–33:26) in Days of Heaven has a 12-year old girl, played by Linda Manz, musing in voice-over about her future, as she studies a clod of soil and lowers her ear to the earth: “I could be a mud doctor. . . Checking out the earth. . . underneath.” 8For an in-depth look at the time-lapse photography of Ken Middleham (1927– 2001), see: Filming the Invisible: The story of Ken Middleham, Cinematographer at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDElLm1hfSQ and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v= azIXfxqFVQo. Middleham was the natural history cinematographer on The Secret Life of Plants (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGl4btrsiHk), and the soundtrack to accompany his images there was composed and performed by Stevie Wonder. 25 http://www.soil-discuss.net http://www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/soild-1-1-2015-print.pdf http://www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/soild-1-1-2015-discussion.html http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://www.sciencemag.org/content/343/6167.cover-expansion http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDElLm1hfSQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azIXfxqFVQo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azIXfxqFVQo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGl4btrsiHk SOILD 1, 1–48, 2015 From soil in art towards Soil Art C. Feller et al. Title Page Abstract Introduction Conclusions References Tables Figures J I J I Back Close Full Screen / Esc Printer-friendly Version Interactive Discussion D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | 1970) premiered at the 11th International Botanical Congress in Seattle in the summer of 1969. The film opens with a classical musical soundtrack that appears to be a re- write of Luigi Boccherini’s “Celebrated Minuet”9 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v= epJahNtJzss). Klepper wrote the film’s narration that was later recorded by a staff mem-5 ber from Auburn University Television. He recommended several possible accompany- ing music selections to the research team. Klepper and Huck selected one that had a dramatic upturn in the music at a point in the edited, final version of the film where a root growing down a pane of glass has disappeared behind the soil and suddenly reap- pears (e-mail, Klepper to Landa; 21 April 2014). The film was given new life in 199910 with its re-release on DVD by the American Society of Agronomy/Crop Science Soci- ety of America/Soil Science Society of America, and has been a popular instructional video (Kirkham, 2011). The works of Klepper/Huck in the scientific sphere, and of Middleham in the com- mercial film world, are early examples of the convergence of film with the soil and15 plant sciences. More recently soil scientist/geo-archaeologist Paul Adderley (Univer- sity of Stirling, Scotland) and composer Michael Young (University of London) have collaborated on: Exposure: Understanding Living in Extreme Environments (http: //www.ground-breaking.net/exposure.html), an installation that integrates sight and sound across scales ranging from the microscopic to the landscape scale, and that20 depicts both the physicality of soil and its role as a cultural archive of past civilizations (an experimental 12-minute video from installation is available at http://soundsrite.uws. edu.au/soundsRiteContent/volume4/YoungInfo.html). Modern rhizotron facilities, sampling devices adapted from engineering and medicine (including borescopes and laparoscopic samplers), and advanced, three-dimensional25 tomographic imaging techniques offer new opportunities for creative explorations at 9The Boccherini minuet has been used in the soundtrack of a considerable number of feature films (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0090530/), including the Coen brothers The La- dykillers (2004). 26 http://www.soil-discuss.net http://www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/soild-1-1-2015-print.pdf http://www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/soild-1-1-2015-discussion.html http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epJahNtJzss https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epJahNtJzss https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epJahNtJzss http://www.ground-breaking.net/exposure.html http://www.ground-breaking.net/exposure.html http://www.ground-breaking.net/exposure.html http://soundsrite.uws.edu.au/soundsRiteContent/volume4/YoungInfo.html http://soundsrite.uws.edu.au/soundsRiteContent/volume4/YoungInfo.html http://soundsrite.uws.edu.au/soundsRiteContent/volume4/YoungInfo.html http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0090530/ SOILD 1, 1–48, 2015 From soil in art towards Soil Art C. Feller et al. Title Page Abstract Introduction Conclusions References Tables Figures J I J I Back Close Full Screen / Esc Printer-friendly Version Interactive Discussion D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | the interface of science and art, with the potential of attracting new collaborators and audiences to soil science. Ken Middleham’s talents in micro-scale motion picture photography were also put to use in the 1974 science fiction film Phase IV, where ants become a threat to human civilization. Middleham provided the insect photography – which has appropriately been5 described as “creating a sort of animal acting verisimilitude that has gone unmatched on film before or since” (Gilchist, 2012). But from a viewer’s perspective of the entire film – aptly described as “an ecological parable set within the science fiction genre” (Bass and Kirkham, 2011, p. 257), soil is primarily manifested not in the microphotography of ant activity, but on the macro-scale, in towering geometric obelisks made of soil.10 Rising from the desert floor, they are ominous, and the massive and alien occurrence of soil in these ant observation towers, and later in the film, in the form of massive solar reflectors, combined with the storyline and soundtrack, are highly effective conveyors of threat to the viewer. (Having observed much smaller, cylindrical, indurated-soil ant nests in Oregon (Landa, 1977), this image had particular resonance with me – the15 unfamiliar soil feature in that case provoking curiosity.) Phase IV director, Saul Bass (1920–1996), was a noted graphic designer whose cor- porate logos (e.g., the United Airlines “flying U” and blue/red/orange stripes) are known to all, and whose design of motion picture title sequences and advertising posters made him a sought-after talent in Hollywood – the directors with whom Bass worked included20 Otto Preminger, Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick, and Martin Scorsese (who wrote the Foreword to the Bass and Kirkham book). There is a strong linear character in many of the Bass graphics, and this signature style is reflected in the imagining and construction of the soil pillars for the only feature film that he directed. Bass conceptualized and designed all of the earthen manifestations of the ant civi-25 lization in the film – the tunnels, towers, reflectors, and the final chamber (email from Jennifer Bass, 6 May 2014). The film critic of London’s Sunday Times picked up on the linkage of design, imagery and mood, calling Phase IV “a film of design, of un- sentimental forces set against one another in lines, curves, angles, shining surfaces. 27 http://www.soil-discuss.net http://www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/soild-1-1-2015-print.pdf http://www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/soild-1-1-2015-discussion.html http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ SOILD 1, 1–48, 2015 From soil in art towards Soil Art C. Feller et al. Title Page Abstract Introduction Conclusions References Tables Figures J I J I Back Close Full Screen / Esc Printer-friendly Version Interactive Discussion D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | Beautiful, but always threatening, mysterious, forbidding.” (Bass and Kirkham, 2011, p. 258). Although the story is set in Arizona, the outdoors filming was done in the Rift Valley of Kenya, and Bass had to be careful not to get a giraffe in the shot (email from Jennifer Bass, 6 May 2014). Bass’ surreal epilogue to the film (cut by Paramount Pictures and not on the presently5 available DVD) was screened for the first time in Los Angeles in 2012 (Gilchist, 2012). Available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=beLpsWaUDNk, it is a stunning summa- tion that is a must-see to get the unambiguous storyline and to appreciate Bass’ artistic vision in its full realization. Marketed by Paramount as a B-horror movie, Phase IV had only a small footprint in the US, but was a hit in France (Bass and Kirkham, 2011).10 Hopefully Saul Bass’ pioneering work will receive greater attention when scholars and movie buffs gather to discuss environmental films, and future audiences will get to see the uncut version of Phase IV. As soil scientists, our view of soil in films is admittedly atypical. A case in point is the 2011 film from director Lech Majewski, The Mill and the Cross. A truly unique film15 inspired by a still image – Pieter Bruegel’s 1564 painting The Procession to Calvary de- picting Christ carrying the cross to the crucifixion in a reimagined 16th century Flemish setting – it has a scene in which a woman is buried alive. The grave has box-like, ver- tical walls. But even more visually powerful than the geometry are the color contrasts and the strong horizon boundaries in the soil exposed on the pit walls:20 – a very dark surface which grades to a somewhat lighter brown, – then a very sharp demarcation to a thick white layer. Captivated by the image, my first thoughts were: – was that the natural color in the soil pit? If yes, was the filming location specifically chosen for this look?25 – Alternatively, were computer generated imagery or other methods used to en- hance some profile color effects? 28 http://www.soil-discuss.net http://www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/soild-1-1-2015-print.pdf http://www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/soild-1-1-2015-discussion.html http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=beLpsWaUDNk SOILD 1, 1–48, 2015 From soil in art towards Soil Art C. Feller et al. Title Page Abstract Introduction Conclusions References Tables Figures J I J I Back Close Full Screen / Esc Printer-friendly Version Interactive Discussion D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | I had a series of e-mail exchanges with director Lech Majewski on these questions (e-mails Majewski to Landa: 31 December 2012; 26 February 2014). The scene was shot near Katowice, Poland on an old slag-deposit field. The choice of the pit site was just chance – the look of the soil had nothing to do with the selection of the filming location; rather, the slope was chosen to give a good view of the monks in the same5 shot. The lesson to me was clear – Not all depictions of soil, even if eye-catching for a soil scientist, are conscious acts of filmmaking. But one can dream. . . 5 Conclusions As Dokuchaev introduced a more holistic, three-dimensional vision of the soil, artists have been exploring the complex visual, cultural, and symbolic dimensions that are10 embodied in that three-dimensional soil space. As a consequence of experiences in working on soil and art topics, we conclude that: – Investigations and discussions focused on soils and landscapes can be made much more appealing and relevant to lay audiences by including artistic ap- proaches.15 – Soil science professional societies should encourage new transdisciplinary explo- rations in areas such as soil and culture, soil and religion, soil and history, etc. Only when our community becomes more broadly based will soil protection be- come more relevant for the public at large and for decision-makers. – Artists expand the realm of soil science research with visual, cultural and symbolic20 forms of inquiry, offering new ways of visualizing, interpreting and interacting with soil. – An overall aim should be to integrate human aspects, including art, in our work. Author contributions. Co-authors of this article are soil scientists but each one has her/his own interest(s) in art. Hence, Sect. 2 (paintings) was written by C. Feller with additions by A. Toland25 29 http://www.soil-discuss.net http://www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/soild-1-1-2015-print.pdf http://www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/soild-1-1-2015-discussion.html http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ SOILD 1, 1–48, 2015 From soil in art towards Soil Art C. Feller et al. Title Page Abstract Introduction Conclusions References Tables Figures J I J I Back Close Full Screen / Esc Printer-friendly Version Interactive Discussion D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | and G. Wessolek, Sect. 3 (installation) by A. Toland and G. Wessolek, and Sect. 4 (cinema) by E. R. Landa. Acknowledgements. For Sect. 4: Thanks to Jennifer Bass, Stephen Henry (University of Mary- land; Michelle Smith Performing Arts Library), Pat Kirkham (Bard Graduate Center; Decorative Arts, Design History, Material Culture), Betty Klepper (USDA-ARS retired), Lech Majewski, and5 Donald Manildi (University of Maryland; International Piano Archives) for their generous re- sponses to queries. References Alley, R.: Catalogue of the Tate Gallery’s Collection of Modern Art other than Works by British Artists, London: Tate Gallery and Sotheby Parke-Bernet, 1981.10 Arthur, J.: Green Woods and Crystal Waters: The American Landscape Tradition, Tulsa, OK, Philbrook Museum of Art, 2000. Bass, J. and Kirkham, P.: Saul Bass: A life in film & design, London, Laurence King Publishing, 2011. Beesley, P. and Armstrong, R.: Soil and Protoplasm – The Hylozoic Ground Project, Architec-15 tural Design, 81, 78–89, 2011. Catalogue Gianadda: Dubuffetm Exposition 4 mars – 10 juin 1993, Fondation Pierre Gianadda, Martigny, Suisse, 238 pp., 1993. Demolon, A.: Principes d’Agronomie. Tome 1. Dynamique du Sol, 5th Edn., Paris, Dunod, 520 pp., 1952.20 De Oliveira, N.: Introduction, in: Installation Art in the New Millennium. . . The Empire of the Senses, edited by: De Oliveira, N., Oxley, N., and Petry, M., 12–48, London, Thames & Hudson Ltd., 2003. De Oliveira, N., Oxley, N., and Petry, M.: On Installation, Art & Design Profile, 30, 7–11, 1993. de vries, h.: chance and change, in: Art Nature Dialogues – Interviews with Environmental25 Artists, edited by: Grande, J. K., 223–234, Albany, State University of New York Press, 2004. Della Monica, L.: Painted Landscapes: Contemporary Views, Atglen, PA, Schiffer Publishing, Ltd, 2013. 30 http://www.soil-discuss.net http://www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/soild-1-1-2015-print.pdf http://www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/soild-1-1-2015-discussion.html http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ SOILD 1, 1–48, 2015 From soil in art towards Soil Art C. Feller et al. Title Page Abstract Introduction Conclusions References Tables Figures J I J I Back Close Full Screen / Esc Printer-friendly Version Interactive Discussion D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | Dokuchaev, V. V.: The Russian Chernozem, in: Selected Works of V. V. Dokuchaev, vol. 1, 14–419, Moscow, 1948 – Israel Program for Scientific Translations Ltd. (for USDA-NSF), S. Monson, Jerusalem, 1967, translated from Russian into English by N. Kander, 1883. Feller, C., Chapuis-Lardy, L., and Ugolini, F.: The representation of soil in the Western Art: from Genesis to Pedogenesis, Chapter 1, 3–22, in: Soil and Culture, edited by: Landa, E. R. and5 Feller, C., Springer, Dordrecht, Heidelberg, London, New York, Netherlands, 488 pp., Color Plates, 2010. Gilchrist, T.: Saul Bass’ long-lost original ending for “Phase IV” unearthed in Los Angeles; available at: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/ saul-bass-phase-iv-original-ending-cinefamily-paramount-341449 (last access: 25 Jan-10 uary 2015), 2012. Gooding, M.: From earth, in: herman de vries – chance and change, 96–101, London, Thames and Hudson, 2006. Grove Art Online: Grove Art Online, available at: http://www.oxfordartonline.com/public/book/ oao_gao (last access: 9 September 2012), 2009.15 Handschumacher, P. and Schwartz, D.: Do Pedo-Epidemiological Systems Exist?, in: Soil and Culture, edited by: Landa, E. R. and Feller, C., Dordrecht Heidelberg, London and New York, Springer, 355–369, 2010. Hartemink, A. E.: The depiction of soil profiles since the late 1700s, Catena, 79, 113–127, 2009.20 Hartemink, A. E., Balks, M .R., Chen, Z. S., Drohan, P., Field, D., Krasilniko, P., Lowe, D. J., Rabenhorst, M., van Rees, K., Schad, P., Schipper, L. A., Sonneveld, M., and Walter C. : The joy of teaching soil science, Geoderma, 217–218, 1–9, 2014. Huck, M. G., Klepper, B., and Taylor, H. M.: Diurnal variations in root diameter, Plant Physiol., 45, 529–530, 1970.25 Jenny, H.: The Image of Soil in Landscape Art, Old and New, Organic Matter and Soil Fertility, 947–979, 1968. Kastner, J. and Wallis, B.: Land and Environmental Art, NY, Phaidon, 1998. Kirkham, M. B.: Elevated carbon dioxide: Impacts on soil and plant water relations, Boca Raton, Florida, CRC Press, 2011.30 Kubiena, W. L.: Bestimmungsbuch und Systematik der Boden Europas, Ferdinand Enke Verlag, Stuttgart, 392 pp., 1953. 31 http://www.soil-discuss.net http://www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/soild-1-1-2015-print.pdf http://www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/soild-1-1-2015-discussion.html http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/saul-bass-phase-iv-original-ending-cinefamily-paramount-341449 http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/saul-bass-phase-iv-original-ending-cinefamily-paramount-341449 http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/saul-bass-phase-iv-original-ending-cinefamily-paramount-341449 http://www.oxfordartonline.com/public/book/oao_gao http://www.oxfordartonline.com/public/book/oao_gao http://www.oxfordartonline.com/public/book/oao_gao SOILD 1, 1–48, 2015 From soil in art towards Soil Art C. Feller et al. Title Page Abstract Introduction Conclusions References Tables Figures J I J I Back Close Full Screen / Esc Printer-friendly Version Interactive Discussion D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | Landa, E. R.: An unusual ant nest morphology for the ant Formica fusca Linne in western Oregon, Pan-Pacific Entomologist, 53, 250–252, 1977. Landa, E. R.: In a supporting role: Soil and the cinema, in: Soil and Culture, edited by: Landa, E. R. and Feller, C., Dordrecht, Springer, 83–105, 2010. Landa, E. R. and Feller, C. (Eds): Soil and Culture, Springer, Dordrecht, Heidelberg, London,5 New York, Netherlands, 488 pp., Color Plates, 2010. Marijnissen, R. H. and Ruyffelaere, P.: Jérome Bosch. Tout l’oeuvre peint et dessiné. Fonds Mercator, Albin Michel, Paris, Anvers, 513 pp., 1987. Muggler, C. C.: Soil paints as a tool to increase soil awareness among different publics, Geo- phys. Res. Abstr., EGU2013-13986, EGU General Assembly 2013, Vienna, Austria, 2013.10 Pentecost, C.: Notes from the Underground, dOCUMENTA13: 100 Notes, 100 Thoughts, 61, Hatje Cantz, 2012. Rosenthal, M.: Understanding Installation Art – From Duchamp to Holzer, Munich, Berlin, Lon- don, New York, Prestel, 2003. Szlezak, E.: Soilart – Painting with the Colours of the Earth. Project description from the15 Amt der NÖ Landesregierung-Abteilung Landentwicklung, available at: http://www.soilart.eu/ 1-0-Home.htm (last access: 20 December 2011), 2009. Taylor, H. M.: The rhizotron at Auburn – A plant root observatory system, Auburn University, Agricultural Experiment Station Circular 171, 1969. Toland, A. and Wessolek, G.: Merging horizons – soil science and soil art, Chapter 4, 45–66,20 in: Soil and Culture, edited by: Landa, E. R. and Feller, C., Springer, Dordrecht, Heidelberg, London, New York, Netherlands, 488 pp., Color Plates, 2010. Toland, A. and Wessolek, G.: Picturing soil: aesthetic approaches to raising soil awareness in contemporary art, Chapter 7, 83–102, in: The Soil Underfoot Infinite Possibilities for a Finite Resource, edited by: Churchman, G. J. and Landa, E. R., CRC Press, Taylor & Francis25 Group, Boca Raton, USA, 421 pp., Color Plates, 2014. Ugolini, F.: Soil colors, pigments and clays in paintings, Chapter 5, 67–82, in: Soil and Culture, edited by: Landa, E. R. and Feller, C., Springer, Dordrecht, Heidelberg, London, New York, Netherlands, 488 pp., Color Plates, 2010. Van Breemen, N.: Transcendental aspects of soil in contemporary visual arts, Chapter 3, 37–46,30 in: Soil and Culture, edited by: Landa, E. R. and Feller, C., Springer, Dordrecht, Heidelberg, London, New York, Netherlands, 488 pp., Color Plates, 2010. 32 http://www.soil-discuss.net http://www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/soild-1-1-2015-print.pdf http://www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/soild-1-1-2015-discussion.html http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://www.soilart.eu/1-0-Home.htm http://www.soilart.eu/1-0-Home.htm http://www.soilart.eu/1-0-Home.htm SOILD 1, 1–48, 2015 From soil in art towards Soil Art C. Feller et al. Title Page Abstract Introduction Conclusions References Tables Figures J I J I Back Close Full Screen / Esc Printer-friendly Version Interactive Discussion D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | Weber, B.: Commentary track (1:01:38–1:02:05) by Billy Weber (Ed.), Criterion Collection (2007) Days of Heaven, DVD, 2007. Wessolek, G.: Art and Soil, Newsletter of the Committee on the History, Philosophy, and Soci- ology of Soil Science International Union of Soil Science and Council on the History, Philos- ophy, and Sociology of Soil Science, Soil Science Society of America, Vol. 2, 14–16, 2002.5 Zika, A.: ParTerre – Studien und Materialien zur Kulturgeschichte des gestalteten Bodens. PhD Dissertation, Fachbereich 5 der Bergischen Universität, Wuppertal, 2001. 33 http://www.soil-discuss.net http://www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/soild-1-1-2015-print.pdf http://www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/soild-1-1-2015-discussion.html http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ SOILD 1, 1–48, 2015 From soil in art towards Soil Art C. Feller et al. Title Page Abstract Introduction Conclusions References Tables Figures J I J I Back Close Full Screen / Esc Printer-friendly Version Interactive Discussion D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | Figures for article “From soil in art towards Soil Art” Authors: Feller C., Landa Edward R., Toland A., Wessolek G. Figure 01. Soil profiles and associated vegetation represented as paintings in Walter Kubiena’s textbook (1953): Bestimmungsbuch und Systematik der Böden Europas (Soils of Europa). Figure 02. Lascaux Cave, Montignac (Dordogne, France). Frieze of the Bulls, left wall. Photo N. Aujoulat©MCC/Centre national de préhistoire). These caves contain some of the best-known Upper Paleolithic art. These paintings are estimated to be about 17,300 years old. Figure 1. Soil profiles and associated vegetation represented as paintings in Walter Kubiena’s textbook (1953): Bestimmungsbuch und Systematik der Böden Europas (Soils of Europa). 34 http://www.soil-discuss.net http://www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/soild-1-1-2015-print.pdf http://www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/soild-1-1-2015-discussion.html http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ SOILD 1, 1–48, 2015 From soil in art towards Soil Art C. Feller et al. Title Page Abstract Introduction Conclusions References Tables Figures J I J I Back Close Full Screen / Esc Printer-friendly Version Interactive Discussion D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | Figures for article “From soil in art towards Soil Art” Authors: Feller C., Landa Edward R., Toland A., Wessolek G. Figure 01. Soil profiles and associated vegetation represented as paintings in Walter Kubiena’s textbook (1953): Bestimmungsbuch und Systematik der Böden Europas (Soils of Europa). Figure 02. Lascaux Cave, Montignac (Dordogne, France). Frieze of the Bulls, left wall. Photo N. Aujoulat©MCC/Centre national de préhistoire). These caves contain some of the best-known Upper Paleolithic art. These paintings are estimated to be about 17,300 years old. Figure 2. Lascaux Cave, Montignac (Dordogne, France). Frieze of the Bulls, left wall. Photo copyright N. Aujoulat, MCC/Centre national de préhistoire). These caves contain some of the best-known Upper Paleolithic art. These paintings are estimated to be about 17 300 years old. 35 http://www.soil-discuss.net http://www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/soild-1-1-2015-print.pdf http://www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/soild-1-1-2015-discussion.html http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ SOILD 1, 1–48, 2015 From soil in art towards Soil Art C. Feller et al. Title Page Abstract Introduction Conclusions References Tables Figures J I J I Back Close Full Screen / Esc Printer-friendly Version Interactive Discussion D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | Figure 03. Details of Le Jugement Dernier (The Last Jugement), circa 1432, Van der Weyden R., Musée Hôtel-Dieu, Hospices Civils de Beaune, Beaune, France (© Hospices de Beaune). Figure 04 La chute d’Icare (The Icarus Fall), circa 1568, Bruegel P.I., Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Brussels, Belgium (Inv. 4030). Photo: RoScan, J. Geleyns. (©Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Brussels, Belgium) Figure 3. R. Van der Weyden. Details of Le Jugement Dernier (The Last Jugement). circa 1432. Musée Hôtel-Dieu, Hospices Civils de Beaune, Beaune, France (© Hospices de Beaune). 36 http://www.soil-discuss.net http://www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/soild-1-1-2015-print.pdf http://www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/soild-1-1-2015-discussion.html http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ SOILD 1, 1–48, 2015 From soil in art towards Soil Art C. Feller et al. Title Page Abstract Introduction Conclusions References Tables Figures J I J I Back Close Full Screen / Esc Printer-friendly Version Interactive Discussion D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | Figure 03. Details of Le Jugement Dernier (The Last Jugement), circa 1432, Van der Weyden R., Musée Hôtel-Dieu, Hospices Civils de Beaune, Beaune, France (© Hospices de Beaune). Figure 04 La chute d’Icare (The Icarus Fall), circa 1568, Bruegel P.I., Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Brussels, Belgium (Inv. 4030). Photo: RoScan, J. Geleyns. (©Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Brussels, Belgium) Figure 4. P. I. Bruegel. La chute d’Icare (The Icarus Fall). circa 1568. Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Brussels, Belgium (Inv. 4030). Photo: RoScan, J. Geleyns (© Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Brussels, Belgium). 37 http://www.soil-discuss.net http://www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/soild-1-1-2015-print.pdf http://www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/soild-1-1-2015-discussion.html http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ SOILD 1, 1–48, 2015 From soil in art towards Soil Art C. Feller et al. Title Page Abstract Introduction Conclusions References Tables Figures J I J I Back Close Full Screen / Esc Printer-friendly Version Interactive Discussion D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | Figure 05. Detail from Labourage Nivernais, 1849. Rosa Bonheur (1822-1899). Oil on canvas. Musée d’Orsay (personal photo of C. Walter). (© musée d'Orsay, Paris, RF 64, acquisition of French government in 1848, initially for Musée de Lyon). Figure 5. Rosa Bonheur (1822–1899). Detail from Labourage Nivernais. 1849. Oil on canvas. Musée d’Orsay (personal photo of C. Walter). (© musée d’Orsay, Paris, RF 64, acquisition of French government in 1848, initially for Musée de Lyon). 38 http://www.soil-discuss.net http://www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/soild-1-1-2015-print.pdf http://www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/soild-1-1-2015-discussion.html http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ SOILD 1, 1–48, 2015 From soil in art towards Soil Art C. Feller et al. Title Page Abstract Introduction Conclusions References Tables Figures J I J I Back Close Full Screen / Esc Printer-friendly Version Interactive Discussion D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | Figure 06. Paintings of soil profiles used by A. Demolon and colleagues for their lectures in Paris (in the 1940’s). Unknown artist. Left: “Vertisol” from region Centre (Clermont- Ferrand, France); right: “Luvisol” from region Ile de France (Versailles, France) (Private coll.). Figure 07. Soil Aesthetics Criteria, 2007. G. Wessolek. (Courtesy of the artist). Figure 6. Paintings of soil profiles used by A. Demolon and colleagues for their lectures in Paris (in the 1940’s). Unknown artist. Left: Vertisol from region Centre (Clermont-Ferrand, France); right: Luvisol from region Ile de France (Versailles, France) (private collection). 39 http://www.soil-discuss.net http://www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/soild-1-1-2015-print.pdf http://www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/soild-1-1-2015-discussion.html http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ SOILD 1, 1–48, 2015 From soil in art towards Soil Art C. Feller et al. Title Page Abstract Introduction Conclusions References Tables Figures J I J I Back Close Full Screen / Esc Printer-friendly Version Interactive Discussion D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | Figure 06. Paintings of soil profiles used by A. Demolon and colleagues for their lectures in Paris (in the 1940’s). Unknown artist. Left: “Vertisol” from region Centre (Clermont- Ferrand, France); right: “Luvisol” from region Ile de France (Versailles, France) (Private coll.). Figure 07. Soil Aesthetics Criteria, 2007. G. Wessolek. (Courtesy of the artist). Figure 7. G. Wessolek. Soil Aesthetics Criteria. 2007. (Courtesy of the artist). 40 http://www.soil-discuss.net http://www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/soild-1-1-2015-print.pdf http://www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/soild-1-1-2015-discussion.html http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ SOILD 1, 1–48, 2015 From soil in art towards Soil Art C. Feller et al. Title Page Abstract Introduction Conclusions References Tables Figures J I J I Back Close Full Screen / Esc Printer-friendly Version Interactive Discussion D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | Figure 08. Dominique Schwartz, 2012. Photographs of the series “Geo-graphismes” (Courtesy of the artist, http://www.dominiksvarc.book.fr/galeries/geo-graphismes/). Figure 09a (left). Jean Dubuffet and his Matériologies (1960). (©Archives Fondation Dubuffet, Paris,Photo Jean Weber and © Fondation Gianadda, Martigny). Figure 09b (right). Histologie du sol (1957). Private coll., Switzerland (© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2014). Figure 8. Dominique Schwartz. Photographs of the series “Geo-graphismes”. 2012. (Courtesy of the artist, http://www.dominiksvarc.book.fr/galeries/geo-graphismes/). 41 http://www.soil-discuss.net http://www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/soild-1-1-2015-print.pdf http://www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/soild-1-1-2015-discussion.html http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://www.dominiksvarc.book.fr/galeries/geo-graphismes/ SOILD 1, 1–48, 2015 From soil in art towards Soil Art C. Feller et al. Title Page Abstract Introduction Conclusions References Tables Figures J I J I Back Close Full Screen / Esc Printer-friendly Version Interactive Discussion D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | Figure 08. Dominique Schwartz, 2012. Photographs of the series “Geo-graphismes” (Courtesy of the artist, http://www.dominiksvarc.book.fr/galeries/geo-graphismes/). Figure 09a (left). Jean Dubuffet and his Matériologies (1960). (©Archives Fondation Dubuffet, Paris,Photo Jean Weber and © Fondation Gianadda, Martigny). Figure 09b (right). Histologie du sol (1957). Private coll., Switzerland (© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2014). Figure 9. Jean Dubuffet and his Matériologies. 1960. (© Archives Fondation Dubuffet, Paris, Photo Jean Weber and © Fondation Gianadda, Martigny). 42 http://www.soil-discuss.net http://www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/soild-1-1-2015-print.pdf http://www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/soild-1-1-2015-discussion.html http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ SOILD 1, 1–48, 2015 From soil in art towards Soil Art C. Feller et al. Title Page Abstract Introduction Conclusions References Tables Figures J I J I Back Close Full Screen / Esc Printer-friendly Version Interactive Discussion D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | Figure 10. Paul Rebeyrolle in front of Les Grands Paysages (1978) (“Large Landscapes”). (Photo: Freddy Le Saux ©Espace Paul Rebeyrolle, 87120 Eymoutiers, 2014). Figure 11. Aperiatur Terra et Germinet Salvatorem,2005-2006. Anselm Kiefer. (© Anselm Kiefer, Courtesy of the artist). Figure 10. Paul Rebeyrolle in front of Les Grands Paysages. 1978. (“Large Landscapes”). (Photo copyright Freddy Le Saux, Espace Paul Rebeyrolle, 87120 Eymoutiers, 2014). 43 http://www.soil-discuss.net http://www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/soild-1-1-2015-print.pdf http://www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/soild-1-1-2015-discussion.html http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ SOILD 1, 1–48, 2015 From soil in art towards Soil Art C. Feller et al. Title Page Abstract Introduction Conclusions References Tables Figures J I J I Back Close Full Screen / Esc Printer-friendly Version Interactive Discussion D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | Figure 10. Paul Rebeyrolle in front of Les Grands Paysages (1978) (“Large Landscapes”). (Photo: Freddy Le Saux ©Espace Paul Rebeyrolle, 87120 Eymoutiers, 2014). Figure 11. Aperiatur Terra et Germinet Salvatorem,2005-2006. Anselm Kiefer. (© Anselm Kiefer, Courtesy of the artist). Figure 11. Anselm Kiefer. Aperiatur Terra et Germinet Salvatorem. 2005–2006. (copyright Anselm Kiefer, Courtesy of the artist and thank you to Editions du Regard). 44 http://www.soil-discuss.net http://www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/soild-1-1-2015-print.pdf http://www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/soild-1-1-2015-discussion.html http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ SOILD 1, 1–48, 2015 From soil in art towards Soil Art C. Feller et al. Title Page Abstract Introduction Conclusions References Tables Figures J I J I Back Close Full Screen / Esc Printer-friendly Version Interactive Discussion D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | Figure 12. (a) Left: Walter de Maria. New York Earth Room. 1977. Long-term installation at 141 Wooster Street, New York City. Photo: John Cliett. Courtesy Dia Art Foundation, New York. (b) Right: Urs Fischer. You. 2007. Excavation, gallery space, 1 : 3 scale replica of main gallery space. Dimensions variable Installation view, “you”, Gavin Brown’s enterprise, New York, 2007. Collection of The Brant Foundation, Greenwich, Connecticut (copyright Urs Fischer. Courtesy of the artist and Gavin Brown’s enterprise, New York. Photo: Ellen Page Wilson). 45 http://www.soil-discuss.net http://www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/soild-1-1-2015-print.pdf http://www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/soild-1-1-2015-discussion.html http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ SOILD 1, 1–48, 2015 From soil in art towards Soil Art C. Feller et al. Title Page Abstract Introduction Conclusions References Tables Figures J I J I Back Close Full Screen / Esc Printer-friendly Version Interactive Discussion D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | Figure 13. Philip Beesley et al., Hylozoic Soil (2007), Installation at the Musée des Beaux Arts, Montreal, Canada, 2007 (©PBAI, Courtesy of the artist). Figure 14. Claire Pentecost, Soil Erg, Installation at dOCUMENTA 13 (2012). (© Claire Pentecost, Courtesy of the artist, photo Jürgen Hess). Figure 13. Philip Beesley et al. Hylozoic Soil. 2007. Installation at the Musée des Beaux Arts, Montreal, Canada, 2007 (© PBAI, Courtesy of the artist). 46 http://www.soil-discuss.net http://www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/soild-1-1-2015-print.pdf http://www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/soild-1-1-2015-discussion.html http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ SOILD 1, 1–48, 2015 From soil in art towards Soil Art C. Feller et al. Title Page Abstract Introduction Conclusions References Tables Figures J I J I Back Close Full Screen / Esc Printer-friendly Version Interactive Discussion D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | Figure 13. Philip Beesley et al., Hylozoic Soil (2007), Installation at the Musée des Beaux Arts, Montreal, Canada, 2007 (©PBAI, Courtesy of the artist). Figure 14. Claire Pentecost, Soil Erg, Installation at dOCUMENTA 13 (2012). (© Claire Pentecost, Courtesy of the artist, photo Jürgen Hess). Figure 14. Claire Pentecost. Soil Erg. 2012. Installation at dOCUMENTA 13. (copyright Claire Pentecost, Courtesy of the artist, photo Jürgen Hess). 47 http://www.soil-discuss.net http://www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/soild-1-1-2015-print.pdf http://www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/soild-1-1-2015-discussion.html http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ SOILD 1, 1–48, 2015 From soil in art towards Soil Art C. Feller et al. Title Page Abstract Introduction Conclusions References Tables Figures J I J I Back Close Full Screen / Esc Printer-friendly Version Interactive Discussion D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | D iscu ssio n P a p e r | Figure 15. Time-lapse photography set-up used by Klepper and Huck at the Auburn Rhizotron to examine root behavior behind glass panels (Courtesy of Alabama Agricultural Experiment Station). The camera support could be moved to allow photography of any part of the visible root system. The ½ inch square grid-wire mesh embedded in the glass panes provided a measuring scale and reduce shattering if the glass broke (from Taylor 1969). Figure 15. Time-lapse photography set-up used by Klepper and Huck at the Auburn Rhizotron to examine root behavior behind glass panels (Courtesy of Alabama Agricultural Experiment Station). The camera support could be moved to allow photography of any part of the visible root system. The 1/2 inch square grid-wire mesh embedded in the glass panes provided a measuring scale and reduce shattering if the glass broke (from Taylor, 1969). 48 http://www.soil-discuss.net http://www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/soild-1-1-2015-print.pdf http://www.soil-discuss.net/1/1/2015/soild-1-1-2015-discussion.html http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ Introduction The soil vision Envisioning soil Paintings Before 20th century -- representation of soil in art Soil profile for the Resurrection of the Dead Soil profile for displaying plant roots Soil profile displayed by the ploughing From beginning of 20th century -- teaching the soil: from science to art Soil in realism and abstraction: case studies from the 20th century Grant Wood (USA) Jean Dubuffet (France) Soil in contemporary painting Paul Rebeyrolle (France) Anselm Kieffer (Germany) Case studies of soil in installation art Immersive experience Walter de Maria (USA) and Urs Fischer (Switzerland) Philip Beesley (Canada) Gesamtkunstwerk Claire Pentecost's (USA) Archives herman de vries (Netherlands) Koichi Kurita (Japan) Cinema and Soil Art Conclusions