INTERVIEW. – Do we not have to open our eyes to save the planet? Enchant our relationship with nature again? In the fascinating book (1) Estelle Chong Mengual, the art historian Normal,, invites us to a revolution of attention.
The ecological crisis that threatens us all depends on our collective response, but do we really know who we are talking about when we talk about biodiversity loss? If we could see larvae or summer larvae as they are, we would build a relationship with the living based on gratitude քի surprise, knowing that we are connected, we would do anything to keep our ‘parents’ away. This is the bet of Estelle Jong Mengual, who bets on the transformation of our gaze, tells what she has learned in an original and attractive essay. Fill all your backpacks immediately before going for a walk in the countryside.
Madame Figaro. – Learning to see begins with the cover of your book with this gorgeous, dark, overcrowded painting by American Tom Uttech.
Estelle Chong Mengual. – Indeed, it is a picture of dusk, but if you look closely, you will see that presences are rising, wolves, bears, owls appear looking at you. You are no longer just an esthete who appreciates or admires the picture, you are considered yourself. It seemed to me that this was a good starting point for this reversal of views, this reversal of attention that I study and suggest in my book.
To learn to see a landscape, a spring flower or an earthworm, in short, to live it as it is, not as an environment, not as a resource, means learning to train the eye as you write with humor.
Works. We have inherited an eye shaped by our biography and culture. Seeing is also a way to attribute value, classify, choose in the field of attention. If we realize this ենք run this critical reaction in our eyes, we can transform it. I realized a few years ago that I could not see anything. I saw green and colored areas in the meadow. I did not know all these creatures that we are losing because of the ecological crisis, which we are mourning. So I went to meet them.
Evolution is crazy. Whatever I do, there is an inseparable connection between my “other beings”. We have a common origin.
Estelle Zhong Mengual
And you began to study plants, inspired by the approach of the extraordinary female naturalists of the 19th century.e: Who gave up the “soft and sedentary” life in the 20th century?
It happened in England on the nineteenthe: something that did not happen in France in the 20th century. popularization of the practice of naturalism. Everyone wanted to be there. More than fashion, it was a cultural moment. We bought butterfly nets, terrariums, went on excursions, և, more surprisingly, many women became naturalists, unable to integrate into educated societies, passionately և humbly watching insects, plants և fungi in their homes. Their lives revolved around this activity, which allowed them to be liberated. This existence extended to other lives alleviated the feeling of isolation և limitation. Their work combined observation and poetry, science and sensitivity, հաճախ they often wrote in the first person. And then, watching on all fours, walking through the hills, they released their rather atrophic bodies and body patterns. He changed his clothes, becoming more comfortable with these naturalistic practices. The body of the plant helped to liberate the body of these women.
You quote one of them, Arabella Buckley (1840-1929). “If we could only know everything, the creatures around us to fight, to live a thousand different ways, we would be amazed.” Can these naturalists, Arabella Buckley or her partner Francis Theodora Parsons, be an example to all of us in 2022?
They were my “passers-by” և I am sure that we need mediators who will help us to pay full attention to the living.
What is the purpose of your book, which is a wonderful study of the history of nature, the history of painting, as well as a way of walking to get to know and recognize this flower from a bee? opinion
Help to face the frustration of the world, weave scientific knowledge և sensitivity, better consider animals ել protect it. When the ecological crisis shocked me, I tried to help make it more understandable, but being in the history of art, it seemed to me that doing so was the worst discipline. Art and nature are traditionally rare. Art is possible, but in the event of a global crisis, in terms of political efficiency, it is the last wheel of the chariot. And then I discovered the concept proposed by the philosopher Baptist Morizot Ways to live (Actes Sud Editions). Thinking of the ecological crisis as a crisis of sensitivity to animals. It opened my eyes.
Where does your research on animal sensitivity inherited from us in the history of Western art come from?
Yes, I wanted to understand how painting builds our eye through still lifes and landscapes. Nature is a decor or wallpaper, a symbol or a mirror of our human emotions. The poppy represents the transience of life in the vanity of Philippe de Champagne, the sea reflects loneliness in the painting of Caspar David Friedrich, etc. Nature is represented for something other than itself. I wondered how we could ask new questions about old works, in our naturalistic heritage, by betting that we could show a different sensitivity to those living from these old works.
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Weaving other, richer, more intense relationships with animals means knowing, for example, our kinship with feathers, as these 19th-century English naturalists did.e: century?
Yes, kinship has been twofold since Charles Darwin. it is based on similarity, as in human families, but also on otherness. My kinship with Peter is two billion years old. The story of evolution connects us to animals in a magical kinship, “alien” kinship.
What to admire, to use the term of the English naturalist Arabella Buckley?
Yes! A renewed miracle in front of a supernatural prodigy, embodied in every natural egg. Evolution is crazy. Whatever I do, there is an inseparable connection between my “other beings”. We have a common origin. Knowing about our “alien” parents, moss or thrush, is something that surprises us in the long run, it works for this living thing.
(1) Learn to see. The view of the living, By Estelle Zhong Mengual, Éditions Actes Sud, 256 pages, 29 euros.
Source: Le Figaro
