Changes in the human-nature relationship and its reflections on art

Humankind, who has only 300 thousand years' part in the 4.5 billion years of the history of Earth and 3.8 billion years of life, are considered to be the cause of today's environmental and climate crisis and the main factor that would create mass extinction and allow the transition to a new geological era. According to the Anthropocene (Human Epoch) thesis put forward by J. Paul Crutzen in the early 2000s, in the new geological period starting with the Industrial Revolution, the creator of the change, pollution, environmental, and climate problems on the Earth is the human. Issues like the transformative and destructive effects of humans on nature, global warming, climate crisis, environmental problems, and what art/artist can do in the face of these problems have been heavily discussed by the culture and art communities in Turkey. The study aims to investigate the historical roots, causes, processes that reveal the environmental and climate crisis we are confronting today, the changes in human thinking and perception of nature in these processes, and their reflections on art. Instead of sticking to only a certain theoretical theory, historical period or an art movement, the transformation in the relationship of the human with nature has been tried to be examined retrospectively and gathered under the main headings of geological periods. The change in the humans' relationship with nature emerges as one of the most important reasons for the changes in the way of interpreting it and is reflected in the art forms of the period, the style, and the content produced. This study, it is aimed to examine how the changing perception of nature and the way of thinking are reflected in art, how they affect art and artists, how people/artists interpret nature and the environment with an eco-critical approach.