The American wilderness was seen as the physical expression of the divine, unsullied by civilization. Writers beginning with Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau praised the redeeming value of nature in opposition to the onward march of civilization. So did Ansel Adams:

Ansel Adams, The Tetons and the Snake River, Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming, 1942.

What is depicted is an endangered wilderness. Adams depicts the beauty of nature threatened by the ever-encroaching civilization. This prompted the creation of the National Park system and the conservation movement. Nature is God's living laboratory. Beauty is revered because it is morally uplifting.

Nature is the touchstone here---this works within the unconconscious understanding of nature expressed in 'nature as natural', which presupposes that it's just how the world is; we can't change it. Isn't nature constructed? The snow on Adam's mountains would be melting from global warming caused by the greenhouse emissions from fossil fuel power plants. The trees would be dying from lack of rain.

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