Brady, Chapter 2, Early Theories of Aesthetic Appreciation of Nature

When aes app of nature began
From early beginnings of human civilization many individuals have responded aes to natural surroundings
Before 18^th century, aes app of nature taken place informally in pastoral envs and gardens;
- Formally probably only through rep in art and literature
No phil aes theories addressing nature until 18^th century
From classical period (300 BC?) to 18^th century many had little access to predominantly natural landscapes and didn't seek env. exp we so value today (except for indigenous people living in wilder environments)

But weren't many/most people "indigenous"? Or did most people live in cities and in rural, reworked areas and were not hunter-gathers; Consider Native Americans peoples ("little access to predominantly natural landscapes"?)
App of wild nature by Asian cultures, including nature worship; wild manifest divine better than rural
Not common practice to enjoy nature for recreation or own sake

Alexander Baumgarten formulated term 'aesthetics" in 18^th century

18^th century change

Theorists talked about both art and nature (Kant, Burke, Hutcheson)
Landscape app became art form, leisure activity of educated
Start to get more sympathetic attitude toward nature
Within 50 years, drastic change occurred in attitude toward nature

KANT ON NATURE OF AES JUDGE AND BEAUTY
Aes based on perception and feeling not cognition or knowledge

Aes not dt by kn of object but immediate feeling of liking or disliking in appreciator of an object (e.g., flower) unmediated by the concept of what it is
Aes dt by immediate response to its perceptual qualities: soft creamy white color with delicate petals

Enjoyment of these underlies aes app

Judge of beauty results from interaction of subjective and objective features

But beauty is not objective (perceptual) quality of flower; not in flower's color/forms
Finding it beautiful is result of accordance/attunement between perceptual qualities of flower and mental powers or imagination (=im) and understanding (=under)

Attunement is harmonious free play of im and under

Freed from conceptualization, mental powers engages perceptual qualities of object in a pleasurable activity directed at object for own sake.

Aes judge not merely subjective, as it is disinterested (DI), and thus potentially universal

Not subjective in sense of "everyone has own taste" and beauty in eye of beholder (Kant argues against this)
Judge of beauty implies possibility of universal assent

Disinterestedness: not indifference or lack of interest, but aes interest as distinct from interest in

Object as means of sensory gratification
Or interest in using it as means to some end.

Why isn't aes app sensory gratification, an instrumental use of aes object?

Brady's example: DI aes app of seascape valuing aes qualities (graceful movement of seals against striking blue backdrop), rather than valuing it as place to refresh myself after sunbathing (sensory gratification) or as a mineral resource

Is the sensory gratification involved in aes pleasure the result of contemplating object for own sake, and aes pleasure is a byproduct of this and not goal sought (hence not mere sensory gratification?)

DI gets one a degree of impartiality; Free oneself from personal desires or preoccupation in relation to the object, better able to judge object on its own terms

DI keeps aes judge from arbitrariness and subjectivity of personal desires (and other practical aims)

DI helps with universality: One way aes judges don't express personal preferences

Approach flower DI (and assume others do too), can expect agreement from others when judge it beautiful.

Does DI mean that one's own peculiar relation to an aes object is an inappropriate part of one's aes response to it? (First mountain I climbed? Where I learned to kayak?)

Summary Kant (on beauty)

Aes app based on immediate, DI, liking or disliking in response to perceptual qual of object

Not aes if it is a neutral response?

Kn not basis, but feeling that comes from perception and harmonious free play of Im and Under

Neither wholly objective or subjective: Intersubjective, subjective universal validity

Subjective basis in feeling,

Asserting agreement of others

KANT ON SUBLIME
Wild/great things in nature evoke aes response not wholly pleasurable (nor displeasure at ugliness), but pleasure mixed with fear
E.g.: Overhanging and threatening rocks, thunderclouds with lightning, destructive power of volcano/hurricane, boundless ocean or high waterfall of mighty river
Two types of sublime objects for Kant:
(1) Sheer magnitude or infinite size or unending vastness

Imagination can't grasp-displeasure, reason needed-pleasure

(2) Nature's power/might

E.g.: Massive mountains climbing skyward, deep gorges with raging streams
Seized by amazement bordering on terror, horror and sacred thrill
Result is wonder and anxiety
Dangerous, could harm us; but we are in a place of safety
So not actual fear, but imagined fear
Judge nature as sublime rather than simply find nature frightening

Recognize we can cope with nature's challenges and dangers, discover our own strength

Not as superior to nature, but independence from it
Respect both for nature and its might and for ourselves

Difficulty in perceiving these; Imagination pushed to its limits (use reason, our capacity for grasping what is beyond sensation)
Imagination goes beyond conceptual thought, as rather than aiming for order in exp (using concepts), allows us to appreciate disorder/indeterminacy in nature
Many claim that Kant's account of sublime dualizes humans and nature (and he writes about our dominion over nature)
Brady claims that sublime feeling leads to a respect for nature; it's a humanist perspective but anticipates Romantic turn toward nature
Subline response to nature seems to be a very positive, helpful attitude toward nature
- Religious sentiments toward nature are close to this
CLASSICAL BEAUTY
Aes exp of env mainly via idealizations of nature;
Improve nature via art or idealize it via mythological landscapes of Greek literature
Aesthetic qualities of nature valued: serene pastoral qualities, peacefulness and calm tranquility
Wild nature as frightening place, savage, irrational, disordered and evil compared to safety, order and virtue of cities; Forests looked on with horror and dismay
Reached peak in middle ages
First European settlers of North America viewed it as ungodly, hostile, wilderness to conquer and civilize
Human life sharply dist from nature and dominion over it
Nature of little interest compared to art
PICTURESQUE
Lies between

Serene pastoral qualities of classical beauty
Awesome grandeur of sublime

Example of picturesque, classical beauty, and the sublime
Useful slide show on these issues by Gene Hargrove on Why we Think Nature is So Beautiful?
Paintings by Claude Lorrain and Salvator Rosa
Criticism of landscape gardening involving grand designs that moved earth and trees to create classical landscapes with extensive prospects (views) across lawns, lakes (and built features like classical temples) (Henry Repton's criqique)
Landscapes should be app by criteria used to app picturesque paintings
- Picturesque objects: those that please due to a quality that can be illustrated in painting; proper subjects of paintings
Move away from formal ordered classical beauty: Peacefulness and tranquility
P's main qualities were roughness, sudden variation and irregularity
Examples of picturesque

Ruggedness in landscape, protuberances in land, irregularity due to passage of time: weather stains, mosses, variety of colors
Splendid confusion and tumbled masses with everything overgrown
Picturesque scenery: undulating, lake with savage banks, white water, trees not evenly but irregularly spaced in clumps
Picturesque trees: with rugged variegated bark
Often included buildings; in natural landscapes a ruin would be built (to expressed passage of time and weather and overgrown ivy)

Picturesque temples collapsed and decayed, as opposed to beauty of classical temples
Rough hewn character of mills, cottages and old barns

Contrast with sublime less clear (than contrast with classical beauty) but still there

Both sublime and picturesque move away from calm tranquillity of beautiful, toward more expressive aesthetic
Picturesque paintings of wild uninhabited places and designed landscapes that copy them are mysterious and strange
Sublime (other extreme from beautiful) most wild, most fearful, most alien of any landscape, overwhelming senses and evoking awe
Appreciation of picturesque is less anxious, less fearful and more curious and charming
Sublime hard to express via art, picturesque theory aimed at depicting nature and art of gardening

Picturesque was (and is) a practical movement for nature appreciation

Had handbooks for guidance in constructing such landscapes and for viewing natural scenery from picturesque perspective
Look at nature like look at landscape painting: stand back and behold
Claude glass (tinted convex mirror) framed landscapes like rectangular painting
Upper and middle class picturesque travelers scout out these landscapes

Positive aspects of picturesque

Picturesque a serious step towards app nature in the raw (for its own qualities)
Before, nature's imperfections were corrected in neo-classical art that idealized nature's beauty
P recognized the temporality of nature, its dynamic/organic character, as opposed to freeze nature in ideal of classical beauty
Allowed us to see nature's imperfection; nature not neat and tidy or symmetrically perfect
P a softening of attitude saw nature as ugly and uncontrollable, to be tamed and perfected by human ideals
Increased human curiosity for nature's wild qualities

Picturesque's problematic approach to nature (aes and ethical)

Strongly human centered: value landscape by how well met standard set by picturesque paintings
Landscapes app as if were paintings, Claude glass literally framed nature
This is one way to app nature, but narrow basis, as falsely assumes nature approp app as a picture, as if landscapes were two-dimensional fixed images on canvas

Makes some sense for landscapes designed this way
Little sense for more natural landscapes

Inappropriately judges nature by artistic criteria:
- Oscar Wilde's "a sunset is a second-rate Turner"
Nature demands diff app frameworks than art
Nature is three dimensional, dynamic, and multi sensuous

Picturesque limits app to the visual
Fails to capture poss of sensory immersion in env as three dimensional space

Creates a distance between humans and nature

App nature as spectators rather than being part of it

Failed to recognize nature as worthy of app apart of human design
Although did not sentimentalize nature, recreated nature to make it look wild and uninhabited
Still in tradition whereby aesthetic improvement of nature viewed as preferable to raw nature

Contemporary counterparts to picturesque

Scenery model of nature app exists today
Claude glass replaced by picture postcards
Relatively superficial aes exp from scenic viewpoints
- Discourages mufti sensory environed app

Fails to find aes value in less conventionally attractive environments

ROMANTICISM AND AFTER
In part reaction to distanced and relatively elitist aes treatment of nature in picturesque (=P)
Much greater respect for nature
Much more intimate relation between humans and nature
Strong emphasis in powers of imagination and feeling, in contrast to Enlightenment's reliance on power of reason and science, with its tendency to separate humans and nature.

Imagination closed gap humans and nature, and lets us understand nature

One root is Rousseau's noble savage: humans as primitive wild beings living closer to nature than to civilization
Romantic aes subject: solitary traveler exploring her expressive freedom via exp of living close to land where exp leads to self-under and self-realization
Shelley, Wordsworth, Coleridge
Constable, Turner, Ruskin
Ruskin: focused on truthful & faithful rep of nature rather than idealized rep of classical landscape painters

More measured, other directed attitude towards nature
Appreciators and artist not worshiping nature via humanist dream, but respect for natural phenomena as truly distinct and independent from human design.

AMERICAN TRANSCENDENTALISTS (TR)
Thoreau and Emerson
Wilderness worship of TR
App of wildness as in Thoreau
Sublime wilderness paintings of Hudson River School
Wilderness paintings of Thomas Cole and Frederick Church (Falls of Niagra 1957)

Mountains/rivers with little or no human presence
Wild, sublime, divine qualities of nature

Here you get the furthest extension of gradual increase in aes receptivity to wilder landscapes
Raw encounters with nature essential to one self, as provides source of spiritual and moral truths
Also cared about local places, not just distant and alien (Thoreau's Walden Pond)
Less humanistic in comparison with picturesque
Values a more direct relation with nature
Is much less concerned with artistic rep of nature than romanticism

AFTER TRANSCENDENTALISM
Phil attention to aes app of nature peaked in 18^th century and early 19^th century, then tailed off
Hegel's insistence on primacy of art over nature

Hegel: nature aes value realized only when fashioned by human sprit via production of art

Concern for human/nature relation displaced by focus on artistic expression and social value of art
Twentieth century art moved away from rep toward expression and abstraction
Avant-garde art got philosophers to pay attention to art: figure out status of art
Only in late 1960s, early1970s did a few aes philosophers begin to think about nature again, and their interest emerged in context of environmentalism.