The Art of Loving Nature

Abstract

This project follows the philosophy of biophilia, the idea that humans have a deep emotional and physical connection to the environment from our evolution alongside it. Particularly, this project seeks to understand the connection between reducing stress with environmental imagery and paintings. The purpose of this is to reduce stress in college students by opening their eyes to the nature and beauty on campus and to calm nerves during stressful times. Data will be gathered for this project through anonymous surveys from my peers on stress levels before and after looking at nature based art for a period of time along with my own insights as someone viewing nature and capturing it in art and how it impacts my stress levels. By the end of this project, I intend to convince my audience of the importance of appreciating nature in their environment in the hopes that the audience will integrate nature-based art into their own environments for their own mental wellbeing.