Environmental approaches: expanded perspectives, differential positions

This chapter addresses art histories that adopt an environmental perspective, known variously as “ecocritical Art History” or “eco-art history.” Although all environmental approaches aim to uncover the extent to which culture, art, and human histories are embedded in ecologies of nonhuman life, this account underlines the plurality of ways in which this theme has been explored. Six are identified here, including, for instance, critical animal studies and the so-called “material turn.” Each contributes to an expansion of Art History's traditional purview and leads to an increased recognition of the plural, disparate perspectives that exist within the material, social world.