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?
- 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