Allen Carlson, "Appreciation and the Natural Environment"
Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism (1979)

GENERAL STATEMENT OF CARLSON'S POSITION
Appropriate nature appreciation, like appropriate art appreciation, requires knowledge (of natural history/art history)

To know what and how to appreciate art and to insure one is properly appreciating art, one must appreciate art in light of the correct categories as specified by art history

In short, knowledge of art history is necessary for the appropriate appreciation of art

To know what and how to appreciate nature and to insure appropriate appreciation of nature, one must appreciate nature in light of the correct natural categories and these are specified by natural history (i.e., common sense and scientific knowledge of nature)

In short, knowledge of natural history is necessary for appropriate appreciation of nature

SKEMATIC OUTLINE
To appreciate, one must know what and how to appreciate
Answering what/how to app art is easy because we make art to be appreciated and so we know what and how to app it
- At a symphony we listen to piano not the coughing; at the gallery we focus on the painting's color not where it hangs; we don't dring brandy like we drink beer
- Knowledge of art categories and art history allows us to focus our app
Answering what/how to app nature is different because nature is not our creation
Carlson considers and rejects object and landscape models for aes app of nature and then proposes his own natural env. model (as how we answer what/how questions)
Object model would have us appreciate pieces of nature by treating them as if they were like nonrepresentational sculptures
- Isolate them from their environment and appreciate their sensuous, design, and expressive qualities
Carlson rejects object model because it either (1) turns natural object into an artifact (art object) via artistic enfranchisement or (2) or leads to appreciative mistakes because isolated natural objects have different aes properties than do natural objects appreciated in their context (e.g., does that rock express solidity?)
Landscape model says to appreciate nature in the way we would appreciate a landscape painting
Carlson rejects the landscape model for (1) ethical reasons (it involves the scenery cult and ignores that unscenic nature is appreciable) and (2) aesthetic reasons (it appreciates nature as something it is not--a view or scene--rather than as what it is, and this leads to inappropriate appreciation, e.g., using only the sense of sight to appreciate nature rather than all the senses)
Carlson's Natural Environmental Model says to appreciate nature as an environment and as something natural (not human-made)
- Environments are unobtrusive backgrounds, but to appreciate something we must foreground it and select and focus our appreciation
- Common sense and scientific knowledge of nature (i.e., natural history) is what allows us to structure our appreciation (answer the what and how to app questions
  - Just as art history is what allows us to structure our app of art
DETAILED OUTLINE
APPRECIATION (=App) REQUIRES KNOWING WHAT AND HOW TO APP
- It requires knowing how to focus and select the appreciation
With art, straightforward answers to what and how to aes app
What to app in art :

Know how to distinguish a work and its parts from what it is not part of the work

E.g., Know should app sound of piano in concert hall and not the coughing that interrupts it

Can distinguish aes relevant from irrelevant aspects

Know should app paintings color and not that it hangs in the Louvre

Know how to app art (what "acts of aspection" to perform)

Acts of aspection: Things one does when appreciate aesthetically

Contemplate painting, or scan it, or study it
Should not drink brandy the same way one drinks beer
Should look at different styles of painting in different ways (focus on the light in some, colors in others, contours in still others)

What is the basis of this knowledge concerning what and how to app art?

Because works of art are our creations

Know what we made, and its parts, and purposes, and thus know what to do with it
We made them for the purpose of aes app
For this reason we know what is and isn't part of work, which aspects aes significant, and how to app them

Example: Because we have created the painting, we know

That its colors are important (and not its smell)
That we look at it and not listen to it

In knowing the type (category) of art we know what and how to appreciate it

Carlson claims this is beyond serious dispute

Questions, possible worries

Is too much credence being given to artistic intention?
Who is the"we" here? The artworld, art community
Do artworks sometimes have dimensions that art communities later discover and require new ways of appreciating them?
Is there a serious issue about what and how to app? Consider the view that says one can app whatever we want about art and in whatever way we want to?

GIVEN THAT NATURE IS NOT OUR CREATION (and that art history is not applicable) WHAT GROUNDS THE WHAT AND HOW TO AES APP NATURE?

Carlson first provides two artistic paradigms--Object and Landscape Models--that he rejects
Then provides his own model (Natural Environmental Model=NEM) as an acceptable answer

OBJECT MODEL

Natural objects are like non-representational sculpture:

E.g., Bird in Space, Bransusi 1919

App it as the actual physical object it is

App its sensuous and design (order) qualities and abstract expressive qualities:

E.g., it glistens, has balance and grace, and expresses flight itself

It has no representation connections, no relational connections to surroundings

In contrast, Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper is representational

It refers to, represents (and thus is related to) something besides itself

Representational sculpture (Michelangelo's David)

Can app object of nature in this way (as a non-representational sculpture)

Consider a rock or piece of driftwood

Actually or contemplatively remove it from its surroundings and dwell on its sensuous, design, and expressive qualities

Nat objects are often so app: mantel pieces littered with rocks and driftwood

Nat objects--like non-rep sculpture--do not have representational ties to rest of reality

This involves using an accepted, traditional aes approach to the app of nature

CARLSON REJECTS OBJECT MODEL

One version of object model turns objects of nature into found art (like ready made art)

As artistic enfranchisement turned Duchamp's urinal into Fountain,

So too a piece of driftwood becomes art by being placed on the mantel

Do get answers to what and how to app questions

Treat it like a non-representational sculpture and appreciate its form, expressive qualities, etc.

But app of nature lost, now appreciating art

App sculpture that was once driftwood is no closer to app nature than app a totem pole that was once a tree

Conversion from nature to art/artifact is complete

Take a piece of driftwood, put it on a mantel, app it

We've turned it into art (converted it into an artifact) and no longer are appreciating nature

Different version of object model (continues to view it as a natural object)

Still actually or contemplatively remove natural objects from surroundings but they remain natural objects and don't become art

Don't consider rock on mantel as ready-made sculpture but as an aes pleasing rock

App the object not qua art object but as natural object

Our app will be limited to sensuous and design and expressive qual of rock

It is smooth, gracefully curved and expresses solidity

Problem: Removing natural object affects its aes qualities

If remove an a aesthetically self-contained art object from the environment of its creation and display, won't affect it aes qualities

But natural objects have an organic unity with their environments of creation/existence which are relevant to aes app of them

Forces that created a natural object and the its environment of existence matter to the aes app of that object

E.G.: The rock on the mantel may express different qualities when it is in its environment

Unlike on the mantel, in its environment the rock might express the forces that shape it

Some qualities it has when removed from its environment -e.g., it being expressive of solidity--may disappear when in its env.

Leave that rock on a scree slope where it was found and it might not look so solid

Scree Slope

Isolating natural objects (physically or in contemplation) thus leads to mistakes

Object model ignores a large part of what is aes appreciable about the natural object (its relation to its environment of existence and creation)

PICTURESQUE/LANDSCAPE MODEL OF AES APP NATURE

Landscape model suggests perceive nature as if were a landscape painting

Usually as grand prospect (suitable for taking a picture of) seen from specific standpoint and distance

Nature is divided into scenes, aiming at an ideal dictated by art, especially landscape painting

Claude glass once used to help nature appreciators see landscape as landscape paintings

Centers attention on those aes qualities of color and design that are seen best at a distance

CARLSON REJECTS LANDSCAPE MODEL

Ethical criticism of this model (part of scenery cult

Carlson closely relates the landscape model of aes app of nature to the scenery cult and the picturesque approach to nature appreciation

Scenery cult: Only dramatic natural landscapes are appreciated, only that nature that is "picturesque" (suitable for a picture or a picture postcard)

Swamps, prairies, backyards not appreciable

R. Rees criticizes the "scenery cult" for "it is an unfortunate lapse which allows us to abuse our local environments and venerate the Alps and the Rockies"

Assumes nature made for our pleasure:

"A special form of arrogance involved in experiencing nature in the categories of art. It involves accepting idea that natural elements arranged for sake of man's aes pleasure (as are traditional art objects)

Confirms our anthropocentrism by suggesting nature exists to please us (as well as serve us)

But flower color and odor has been fashioned so organisms are attracted to flowers.

Aesthetic criticism of landscape model

Reduces environment to a scene or view,

But env. is not a representation, not static, not two dimensional

So this model has us app nature for what it is not and so is an inappropriate model

Assumption: We should appreciate things for what they are and not for what they are not

The idea is that if you try to app something in a manner appropriate for something else which it isn't, then, then you are likely to app in a manner inappropriate to it.

E.g., trying to appreciate a tango (or dance to tango music) as if it were a waltz will lead to inappropriate aesthetic responses

This model also limits our appreciation to visual qualities like color and overall design and this is misleading

CARLSON'S NATURAL ENVIRONMENTAL MODEL: NEM

NEM: App natural env. (1) as an env. and (2) as natural

Env. is something we are a sentient part of, our surroundings, our background

Our relation to it is self to setting, not subject to object or traveler to scene

It is something we take for granted, hardly notice and necessarily unobtrusive

If a part becomes obtrusive, in danger of being seen as an object

That natural environment is an unobtrusive background suggests implications for what and how to app

What appreciate?

Everything, for an essentially unobtrusive setting there seems little basis for including and excluding

How appreciate?

Those ways in which we normally are aware of and exp our surroundings

Eye and ear loose privilege, use all senses

Like an animal fully present to the senses or like a child?

But Carlson argues we can't app anything that is only an unobtrusive background

Agrees with Dewey that anything aes app must be obtrusive and must be foreground

We have to pay attention to it

And we can't app everything; need to focus our attention

Must be limits and emphases in aes app of nature as in art

W/o limits get Jamesian blooming buzzing confusion;

Not aes exp (nor any experience at all)

So how do we get this focus?

Nat env. is natural, not a work of art so

Nature has no boundaries or foci of aes significance that result from our creation or our knowledge due to being involved in that creation

That nature is not our creation doesn't mean we have no knowledge of it

We can discover things about nature even thought not created/involved in it

Can know lots about it: common sense/scientific knowledge

Common sense/sci knowledge is what substitutes for knowledge of types of art and artistic traditions

and provides the focus of aes attention

It is the only viable candidate for playing the role concerning app of nature our knowledge of types of art, artistic traditions, plays for art

How important is it to find a substitute on a par with art?

Are there other candidates: Emily Brady, for ex., says imagination

Common sense/sci knowledge allows us to take the meld of sensations of nature and transform them from raw exp, "blooming, buzzing confusion" into a meaningful determinate aes experience

An exp in which kn and intelligence transform raw exp into something determinate, harmonious, and meaningful

To aes app an environment, we experience our surroundings as obtrusive foreground, allowing our knowledge of that environment to select certain foci of aes significance and perhaps exclude others, thereby limiting the experience

Why can't let chance determine our foci?

This kn gives us

Appropriate foci of aes significance

appro boundaries of the setting

And allows our exp becomes one of aes appreciation

Examples

For aes app, must recognize the smell of the hay and that of the horse dung and perhaps distinguish between them, must feel the ant at least as an insect rather than as a twitch

Such recognizing and distinguishing results in aspects of obtrusive foreground becoming foci of aes sig

Lets us for example include sounds of cicadas and exclude sound of distant traffic (like exclude coughing in concert hall)

Since the traffic is not nature...

If we find an Indian arrow head, should we exclude that from aes app of nature, because it is not nature?

Just as to aes app art need knowledge of different traditions and styles within art,

So to aes app nature must have

Knowledge of different environments of nature and systems and elements within those environments not just for appropriate aes of nature,

But for any aes app, for we need some mechanism for selecting and focusing

Does this mean that a person from ghetto of NY city who knew nothing about different env. and systems of nature would have no aes app when went to rainforest (or perhaps only a rudimentary sensuous response)?

Just as art critic and art historian are well equipped to aes app art

So naturalist and ecologist well equipped to aes app nature

If they are well equipped, then those who lack that information are "poorly equipped"

Examples: Better equipped to appreciate a valley if you know how it was formed?

V shaped valley

U shaped valley

KNOWLEDGE ALLOWS US TO USE DIFFERENT ACTS OF ASPECTION FOR DIFFERENT NATURAL ENVIRONMENTS

And tell us what to look for and sense in different environments

Dif acts of aspection prairie and forest

Survey a prairie,

Look at subtle contours of land,

Feel wind blowing across open space,

Smell mix of prairie grasses and flowers

Such act of aspection have little place in a dense forest environment

Here we must examine and scrutinize, inspect the detail of forest floor, listen carefully for sounds of birds, smell carefully for scent of spruce and pine

Do these acts of aspection differ in content but not in what you are doing?

It's our kn of those env. that tell us what acts of aspection to use..

Sum of NEM

Nature is an environment, a setting in which we exist and normally exp with complete range of senses as an unobtrusive background

For exp to be aes requires unobtrusive background to be exp as obtrusive foreground

The result is the exp of blooming, buzzing confusion

To app it we must temper it by knowledge we have discovered about that natural env.

Our kn of the nature of particular environments yields

Appro boundaries of app

Particular foci of aes significance and

Relevant acts of aspection for that type of environment

Ned's concerns about argument need to turn booming buzzing confusion into coherent experience

But this is just the point that mere sensation w/o concepts is a blooming buzzing confusion.

So in order to experience our sense experience coherently we must apply concepts
But then our experience will be aesthetic as well?
All sense experience is aesthetic?
All this gets you is concepts, not sci knowledge