Frontier Exceptionalism: The Representation of Nature and Race in Thomas Cole's Art and PBS's "Frontier House"

邊境的例外主義：托馬斯•科爾的藝術與“邊境小屋”中自然與種族的再現

10.6184/TKR.200812_39(1).0004

Tzu-I Chung

邊境 ； 環境 ； 藝術 ； 媒體 ； 再現 ； 生態論述 ； 自然與文化 ； frontier ； environment ； art ； media ； representation ； ecocriticism ； nature and culture

Tamkang Review

39卷1期（2008 / 12 / 01）

67 - 94

英文

本文對比觀照托馬斯•科爾(Thomas Cole)繪畫作品與2002年美國公共電視節目「邊境小屋」中邊境自然的觀點，藉以顯現出在十九世紀初期與千禧年交替變化最劇烈的階段中，邊境自然之文化建構與美國自然環境之間的關係。不論是科爾描繪邊境的畫作，或是美國公共電視的該節目，都吸引了廣大的觀眾，驗證了當代觀眾對邊境生活及原始自然的想望。我將探討科爾的藝術表現與「邊境小屋」節目中的普遍視野：邊境作爲過去與現在的交會之地，一個既富爭議又帶來和諧的地方。個人主張，兩者對觀眾的吸引力來自於這兩種自然的視野，針對文明演變中，環境的迅速變遷所造成文化與自然之間的衝突，所提供的解決之道。兩者鑒於環境問題困局之觀點，既與工業化前的世界產生鄉愁的共感，同時也認同現有的物質安逸及工業進步；既維護現狀，亦確立了讓征服自然成爲可能的基礎架構。因此本文將探討生態論述中跨領域的各種可能，同時也揭示新奇的結論：自然與文化的關係中，過去與現在所處的困境之間的清楚關連性。本文同時也證實了，在美國生活型態中，邊境是一個保有持續魅力及爭議之所在。

In this paper, I juxtapose and connect the vision of nature on the frontier in Thomas Cole's paintings and that in the 2002 PBS program Frontier House. In doing so, this paper reveals the relationships between the cultural construction of nature on frontier and its referent, America's natural environment, at its most dramatic transformative stages during the early nineteenth century and at the turn of the millennium. At those transformative moments, Cole's frontier paintings and the PBS program each attracted large contemporary audiences as they spoke to their audiences' imagination of and aspirations to the frontier and its backdrop of pristine nature. I explore the popular visions of the frontier in Cole's artistic expression and in the PBS program as a contested and a reconciling place where past and present meet. The appeal of both visions of nature in Cole's frontier paintings and the PBS Frontier House for their contemporary audiences, I argue, comes from their proposed solutions to the conflicts between nature and culture when environment was rapidly transformed by the progress of civilization. Both visions resonate with the nostalgia for a pre-industrialized world, while they simultaneously endorse the contemporary material comfort and industrial improvement in light of the environmental hardships, thereby upholding the status quo and the infrastructure that made the conquest of nature possible. This paper thus explores the interdisciplinary possibilities in the field of ecocriticism, reveals curious results about the clear link between the past and present predicaments in the relationships between nature and culture, and testifies to the frontier as a contested place of both lasting charm and continuing dispute in the American lives.

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