Ronald Hepburn
Contemporary Aesthetics and the Neglect of Natural Beauty (1966)
- Contemporary (1966) aesthetics ignore natural beauty
- 18th century thought had serious treatment of natural beauty
- Many 1900s texts define aesthetics as "philosophy of art"
- No problems of aesthetics w/o art
- Serious aes concern for nature today (in 1966) a rather rare phenomenon
- What about Leopold's 1948 discussion of outdoor recreation and its conservation esthetic?
- Reasons for this:
- (No meaning in nature?) Gone is the idea of nature as man's educator and that its beauties
communicate specific morally ennobling messages
- Gnarly limber pine at tree line on a 14 thousand foot
mountain communicate perseverance?
- We no longer believe in nature's thoroughgoing intelligibility
and ultimate endorsement of human visions and aspirations
- Contemporary man seen as a stranger encompassed by a nature
that is indifferent, unmeaning and absurd
- Science has intensified the bewilderment and loss of nerve
concerning the aesthetic interpretation of nature
- Last widely accepted aes theory (expression theory) does better with
artefacts and not so well with natural objects
- A communication theory; fits with interpersonal communication
of art works
- Doesn't fit all that well with contemplation of sheer entities
- Unless one thinks of nature as God speaking to us
- Perhaps nature's shapes and colors can--by chance--serve as
expressive vehicles for human feeling, but not constructed for
that purpose
- Recent anti-intentionalism, and its critique of expression theory
bodes well for aes concern with natural objects
- Anti-intentionalism:
- Insists that art-objects are independent objects, to be appreciated
in their own right and not to be approached as simply a clue to
artist's state of mind (his/her intentions or actual feelings)
- Both art and nature are self-contained entities worth
contemplating due to own objective properties
- Still important differences between art and natural objects and
intentionality of art matters
- Two perceptually identical objects, one an artefact, one natural
- Misleading to say no difference
- Need to attend to them differently and respond differently
- Can't know how to properly evaluate an object if don't know if
artefact or natural object
- Examples:
- Smooth rock: think about the geological pressure that
produced it (or sculptor's skill)
- The perception when viewing a painting and looking
through a telescope at the spiral nebula Andromeda may be
the same, but mistake to appreciate them in same way
- Origin and history of aes object central to its proper appreciation
- Natural beauty helps us see what is wrong with an anti-intentionalism that denies this
- Reason it's unfortunate that aesthetics has ignored nature
- Aesthetics is steered away from examining an important and
richly complex relevant phenomenon
- An important set of human experiences ignored by a theory
relevant to it
- The experience becomes less readily available, if can't find
language to describe it that fits with the rest of our aesthetic talk
- Aes experience of nature is seen as off the map and
becomes seldom visited
- And this is bad for conservation of nature
- Nature appreciation will be impoverished
- If person's aesthetic education leads him to look only for what is
unique to art, he will pay little aes attention to nature and
miss much or look in vain for what is only in art
- Without knowing differences between how appreciate
nature and how art, won't get but a rudimentary
appreciation/comprehension of natural beauty
- That nature lacks features art has, need not impoverish and can
enhance aes app of nature
- Art objects have features objects of nature lack and this lack can
contribute positively to the aesthetic experience and need not be
merely negative
- Types of experience art can't provide to same extent as nature
and in some cases can't provide at all
- DIFFERENCES NATURE AND ART APPRECIATION/AES
- One: Degree to which spectator is involved in natural aes situation
is greater than in art appreciation
- Landscape doesn't control spectator's response as much as does
art/artist
- Mutual involvement spectator and object
- Unlike art objects, we are in the nature and a part of the nature we are
aes appreciating
- We rarely confront natural objects as a static, disengaged observer
- Don't stand over and against it as a painting on a wall
- Object envelopes the viewer on all sides: stands in the midst of a
forest or ringed by the hills
- Spectator may be in motion and this may be important to aes experienced
- E.g., Kayaking down a river
- Spectator experience herself in an unusual and vivid way and this
difference is dwelt upon aesthetically
- This is an effect not unknown to art, especially architecture
- But more intently realized and pervasive in nature experience
- Aes appreciation is supposed to involve detachment, with nature
there is a lot more involvement
- Detached because not using nature, manipulating it, or thinking
about doing so
- Involvement: Not just a spectator but actor
- Two: Art objects are "framed" in a way natural object are not
- Art objects are set apart from their environment in distinctive ways
- Frames, pedestals, stage area/audience area
- Concert convention: Only relevant sounds made by
performers
- Mechanisms to prevent art object from being mistaken for a
natural object or for an artefact w/o aes interest
- Frame helps determinateness and stability of aes object
- Art objects are essentially bounded objects
- Aesthetic characteristics determined by internal structure
and interplay of their elements
- Formal completeness of art objects
- Interesting in themselves separate from their relation to
environment
- May not be all that true of some avant garde art
- In contrast, natural objects are frameless and this allows for
interpretative creativity
- Both aesthetic disadvantages and compensating advantages
- What lies beyond frame of art can't become part of aesthetic experience
- Chance train whistle can't be integrated into string quartet,
but interferes with its appreciation
- With no frame, sounds or visible intrusions challenges us to
integrate them into our aes appreciation of nature
- To modify our experience to make room for this
- Challenges our creativity and can experience a sudden expansion
of imagination
- Aesthetic appreciation of nature is more creative
- The aes object not bounded (limited and controlled) by
artist's intent or frame
- More suitable for an aesthetically courageous person (versus
aes apathetic or un-adventuresome person)
- Lack of guideposts
- Unify the experience yourself
- Risk of drawing a blank and being unable to hold various
elements together in a single object of aesthetic
contemplation
Miscellaneous Notes Below (not recently edited) (ignore)
- This frame/unframed distinction does not map universally onto
art/nature distinction
- Not every art object has a frame
- E.g., Architecture, like Natural objects can set no limits to
viewpoints from which properly regard them; no
- Church from several miles away may dominate and
determine how see whole landscape
- Still distinction is true for most part and a useful one
- Absence of frame makes natural aes objects more indeterminate and
unpredictable
- Makes room for surprises and a sense of adventurous
openness
- Frame of a painting exerts controlling influence that helps
determine nature of aes object and proper context of viewing it
- Don't get this with natural objects
- Aes impact of tree determined by context we include in our view
of it
- We choose the frame?
- Look at one tree bent over, strained and grim
- Look at whole hillside of such trees and see a delightful
pattern with quite different emotional quality (may be
cheerful)
- Any aes quality in nature is provisional, correctable by reference
to different-wider or narrower context
- Idyllic scene? Have you noticed the distant by advancing
thunderclouds and how threatening and ominous they look?
- Leads to a restlessness, alertness in viewer and a active search for
new standpoints and more comprehensive way of seeing
- For aes appreciation of nature lack of artistic intent can enhance
experience
- Delighted that forms of nature offer scope for exercise of
imagination
- Wonder at this amazing uncontrived adaptation
- It needn't have been so; nature might not have been aesthetically
excellent
- See a pattern in art and expect it there (as someone made it); see
it in nature and more amazing as it was not consciously designed
- Aes appreciation of nature can allow experience of a range of emotions
that human scenes by themselves can't evoke
- Desolateness of desert
- Nature's otherness can affect our own sense of being
- Oneness with nature (with aesthetic object)
- Not possible with art (for we are not part of art/one with
art)
- Env from which get food, protect ourselves, eventually take
us (death) and to which finally united
- Cease fire negotiated in out relation with nature
- Role of thought/scientific knowledge in aes appreciation of nature
- Not require to have pure aesthetic contemplation unmixed by impure
associations/thoughts
- Sand example: Realizing the wide expanse of sand and mud one
stands on is a tidal basin with the tide out is not irrelevant to aes
experience
- Not theoretical knowledge for own sake but to help us determine
aesthetic impact of object on us.
- The true, false, profound, shallow, superficial in aes appraisal of nature
(as well as art)
- Where in aes appreciation of nature is there room for talk about
truth, depth, triviality?
- Is truth required is seeming all that matters?
- Examples
- Utter loneliness of the moor? But there are 100 people there
hiding behind the bushes?
- Rolston's moon/microwave tower example
- Tree's solidity, sturdiness and strength (touch it and it crumples)
- Outlines of clouds as resemble a basket of washing
- Trivial, shallow appraisal of a freakish element
- Focus on inner turbulence and 250 mile wind speeds in cloud that
determine its structure
- Less superficial experience, more worth having
- Rock made by great pressure (or looks like a funny face)
- Passage in both appreciation of art and nature from easy beauty
to more difficult and serious beauty
- If there wasn't a strong sense in which truth is important to aes
appreciation of nature, how explain bewilderment people express over
how to bring aesthetic view of nature into accord with recent science?
- If aes experience of nature merely contemplation of shapes,
colors movements, these discoveries couldn't disturb it
- Science can enhance an aes experience of nature, but can also
undermine it
- See full moon rising behind winter trees and it is more beautiful
to see it as a livery flat disc at no great distance from the trees
- Why have one's enjoyment spoiled by someone telling that you
need to realize moon's true shape and distance
- No guarantee truth here will enhance aes experience
- Can imaginative assimilation of scientific knowledge ultimately lead to
aes impoverishment?
- To reject intentionalism is not to embrace formalism:
- That intention of artists aren't of total importance in aesthetic appreciation of art (or are not even relevant?) allows for many other factors besides formal ones to be relevant (such as history of production, context of appreciation, etc.)
- Following examples are a problem for formalism