Strauss & co - WWF Art Auction

6 Letter fromWWF-SA Chairperson Valli Moosa B oth art and nature have an appeal and force which cannot be fully captured in the rational. The beauty of nature, the evocation of a work of visual art, or a piece of music competes for the same spaces in the human heart. The earliest work of art known to us is the Blombos Stone, found in the Southern Cape. At 70 000 years old, this engraved piece of ochre constitutes the world’s oldest artwork and the earliest expression of intelligent human activity. This work was made at a time when our ancestors lived at the mercy of the forces of nature. We had to put up with nature. As the first artist sheltered in the Blombos Cave, she could not, in her wildest dreams, have imagined that a time would come when nature would live at our mercy ... that nature would have to put up with us ! Only when the sounds of the wild vibrated on the eardrums of the African Eve 150 000 thousand years ago, and when she set her eyes on the beauty of her first Southern African dawn, did the long, slow, development of humanity begin, in harmony with nature. This harmonious co-existence between man and nature continued until a mere 250 years ago with the advent of the Industrial Revolution. Then we thought: free, free at last from the tyranny of nature! We began re-creating the world with concrete, asphalt, steel and plastic. The once unstoppable force of nature now experienced the humiliation of cowering before the tyranny of one of its own offspring. Even so, our generation has inherited the globally significant Fynbos kingdom, the Succulent Karoo, the Bushveld and the great Grasslands. We have also inherited a rich coastline and wetlands of breathtaking beauty. Yes, a natural heritage to behold. Let us not be the generation that witnesses the last cheetah dash, the last flight of the wondrous Tristan albatross or the last black rhino charge. Let us not be the ones to finally switch the lights off …