discussion post

Appreciation and the Natural Environment Author(s): Allen Carlson Source: The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Vol. 37, No. 3 (Spring, 1979), pp. 267- 275 Published by: Wiley on behalf of The American Society for Aesthetics Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/430781 Accessed: 03-12-2018 19:20 UTC

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ALLEN CARLSON

Appreciation and the

Natural Enviroment

I

WITH ART OBJECTS there is a straightforward sense in which we know both what and how

to aesthetically appreciate. We know what to appreciate in that, first, we can distin- guish a work and its parts from that which is not it nor a part of it. And, second, we can distinguish its aesthetically relevant aspects from its aspects without such rele- vance. We know that we are to appreciate the sound of the piano in the concert hall and not the coughing which interrupts it; we know that we are to appreciate that a painting is graceful, but not that it happens to hang in the Louvre. In a similar vein, we know how to appreciate in that we know what "acts of aspection" to perform in re- gard to different works. Ziff says:

... to contemplate a painting is to perform one act of aspection; to scan it is to perform an- other; to study, observe, survey, inspect, examine, scrutinise, etc., are still other acts of aspection. . . I survey a Tintoretto, while I scan an H. Bosch. Thus I step back to look at the Tintoret- to, up to look at the Bosch. Different actions are involved. Do you drink brandy in the way you drink beer?'

It is clear that we have such knowledge of what and how to aesthetically appreciate. It is, I believe, also clear what the grounds are for this knowledge. Works of art are our own creations; it is for this reason that we know what is and what is not a part of a work, which of its aspects are of aesthetic significance, and how to appreciate them.

ALLEN CARLSON is associate professor of philosophy at The University of Alberta, Canada.

We have made them for the purpose of aes- thetic appreciation; in order for them to fulfill this purpose this knowledge must be accessible. In making an object we know what we make and thus its parts and its purpose. Hence in knowing what we make we know what to do with that which we

make. In the more general cases the point is clear enough: In creating a painting, we know that what we make is a painting. In knowing this we know that it ends at its frame, that its colors are aesthetically im- portant, but where it hangs is not, and that we are to look at it rather than, say, listen to it. All this is involved in what it is to be a painting. Moreover, this point holds for more particular cases as well. Works of dif- ferent particular types have different kinds of boundaries, have different foci of aes- thetic significance, and perhaps most im- portant demand different acts of aspection. In knowing the type we know what and how to appreciate. Ziff again:

Generally speaking, a different act of aspection is performed in connection with works belonging to different schools of art, which is why the classification of style is of the essence. Venetian paintings lend themselves to an act of aspection involving attention to balanced masses: contours are pf no importance, for they are scarcely to be found. The Florentine school demands attention to contours, the linear style predominates. Look for light in a Claude, for color in a Bonnard, for contoured volume in a Signorelli.2

I take the above to be essentially beyond serious dispute, except as to the details of the complete account. If it were not the case, our complementary institutions of art and of the aesthetic appreciation of art would

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CARLSON

not be as they are. We would not have the artworld which we do. But the subject of this paper is not art nor the artworld. Rather: it is the aesthetic appreciation of nature. The question I wish to investigate is the question of what and how to aesthet- ically appreciate in respect to natural en- vironment. It is of interest since the account

which is implicit in the above remarks and which I believe to be the correct account

for art cannot be applied to the natural environment without at least some modifi-

cation. Thus initially the questions of what and how to appreciate in respect to nature appear to be open questions.

II

In this section I consider some paradigms of aesthetic appreciation which prima facie seem applicable as models for the appre- ciation of the natural environment. In this I follow tradition to some extent in that

these paradigms are ones which have been offered as or assumed to be appropriate models for the appreciation of nature. How- ever, I think we will discover that these models are not as promising as they may initially appear to be.

The first such paradigm I call the object model. In the artworld non-representational sculpture best fits this model of apprecia- tion. When we appreciate such sculpture we appreciate it as the actual physical object which it is. The qualities to be aesthetically appreciated are the sensuous and design qualities of the actual object and perhaps certain abstract expressive qualities. The sculpture need not represent anything ex- ternal to itself; it need not lead the ap- preciator beyond itself: it may be a self- contained aesthetic unit. Consider a Bran-

cusi sculpture, for example, the famous Bird In Space (1919). It has no representational connections with the rest of reality and no relational connections with its immediate

surroundings and yet it has significant aes- thetic qualities. It glistens, has balance and grace, and expresses flight itself.

Clearly it is possible to aesthetically ap- preciate an object of nature in the way indi-

cated by this model. For example, we may appreciate a rock or a piece of driftwood in the same way as we appreciate a Brancusi sculpture: we actually or contemplatively remove the object from its surroundings and dwell on its sensuous and design qualities and its possible expressive qualities. More- over, there are considerations which sup- port the plausibility of this model for ap- preciation of the natural environment. First, natural objects are in fact often appreciated in precisely this way: mantel pieces are lit- tered with pieces of rock and driftwood. Second, the model fits well with one feature

of natural objects: such objects, like the Brancusi sculpture, do not have represen- tational ties to the rest of reality. Third and most important, the model involves an ac- cepted, traditional aesthetic approach. As Sparshott notes, "When one talks of the aesthetic this or that, one is usually thinking of it as entering into a subject/object relation."3

In spite of these considerations, however, I think there are aspects of the object model which make it inappropriate for nature. Santayana, in discussing the aesthetic ap- preciation of nature (which he calls the love of nature) notes that certain problems arise because the natural landscape has "indeterminate form." He then observes

that although the landscape contains many objects which have determinate forms, "if the attention is directed specifically to them, we have no longer what, by a curious limi- tation of the word, is called the love of nature."4 I think this limitation is not as

curious as Santayana seems to think it is. The limitation marks the distinction be-

tween appreciating nature and appreciating the objects of nature. The importance of this distinction is seen by realizing the diffi- culty of appreciating nature by means of the object model. For example, on one under- standing of the object model, the objects of nature when so appreciated become "ready- mades" or "found art." The artworld grants "artistic enfranchisement" to a piece of driftwood just as it has to Duchamp's urinal or to the real Brillo cartons discussed by Danto.5 If this magic is successful the result is art. Questions of what and how to aes-

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Appreciation and the Natural Environment

thetically appreciate are answered, of course, but in respect to art rather than na- ture; the appreciation of nature is lost in the shuffle. Appreciating sculpture which was once driftwood is no closer to appreciat- ing nature than is appreciating a totem pole which was once a tree or a purse which was once a sow's ear. In all such cases the con-

version from nature to art (or artifact) is complete; only the means of conversion are different.

There is, however, another understanding of how the object model applies to the ob- jects of nature. On this understanding natural objects are simply (actually or con- templatively) removed from their surround- ings, but they do not become art, they re- main natural objects. Here we do not ap- preciate the objects qua art objects, but rather qua natural objects. We do not con- sider the rock on our mantel a ready-made sculpture, we consider it only an aesthet- ically pleasing rock. In such a case, as the example of non-representational sculpture suggests, our appreciation is limited to the sensuous and design qualities of the natural object and perhaps a few abstract expressive qualities: Our rock has a wonderfully smooth and gracefully curved surface and expresses solidity.

The above suggests that, even when it does not require natural objects to be seen as art objects, the object model imposes a certain limitation on our appreciation of natural objects. The limitation is the result of the removal of the object from its sur- roundings which the object model requires in order even to begin to provide answers to questions of what and how to appreciate. But in requiring such a removal the object model becomes problematic. The object model is most appropriate for those art objects which are self-contained aesthetic units. These objects are such that neither the environment of their creation nor the environment of their display are aesthet- ically relevant: the removal of a self-con- tained art object from its environment of creation will not vary its aesthetic qualities and the environment of display of such an object should not affect its aesthetic quali- ties. However, natural objects possess what

we might call an organic unity with their environment of creation: such objects are a part of and have developed out of the ele- ments of their environments by means of the forces at work within those environ- ments. Thus the environments of creation

are aesthetically relevant to natural objects. And for this reason the environments of

display are equally relevant in virtue of the fact that these environments will be either the same as or different from the environ- ments of creation. In either case the aes-

thetic qualities of natural objects will be affected. Consider again our rock: on the mantel it may seem wonderfully smooth and gracefully curved and expressive of solidity, but in its environment of creation it will

have more and different aesthetic qualities- qualities which are the product of the re- lationship between it and its environment. It is here expressive of the particular forces which shaped and continue to shape it and displays for aesthetic appreciation its place in and its relation to its environment. More-

over, depending upon its place in that en- vironment it may not express many of those qualities, for example, solidity, which it appears to express when on the mantle.

I conclude that the object model, even without changing nature into art, faces a problem as a paradigm for the aesthetic appreciation of nature. The problem is a dilemma: either we remove the object from its environment or we leave it where it is. If the object is removed, the model applies to the object and suggests answers to the questions of what and how to appreciate. But the result is the appreciation of a com- paratively limited set of aesthetic qualities. On the other hand if the object is not re- moved, the model seemingly does not con- stitute an adequate model for a very large part of the appreciation which is possible. Thus it makes little headway with the what and how questions. In either case the object model does not provide a successful para- digm for the aesthetic appreciation of na- ture. It appears after all not a very "curious limitation" that when our attention is directed specifically toward the objects in the environment it is not called the love of nature.

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The second paradigm for the aesthetic appreciation of nature I call the scenery or landscape model. In the artworld this model of appreciation is illustrated by landscape painting; in fact the model probably owes its existence to this art form. In one of its

favored senses "landscape" means a prospect -usually a grandiose prospect-seen from a specific standpoint and distance; a land- scape painting is traditionally a representa- tion of such a prospect.6 When aesthetically appreciating landscape paintings (or any representative paintings, for that matter) the emphasis is not on the actual object (the painting) nor on the object represented (the actual prospect); rather it is on the representation of the object and its repre- sented features. Thus in landscape painting the appreciative emphasis is on those qual- ities which play an essential role in repre- senting a prospect: visual qualities related to coloration and overall design. These are the qualities which are traditionally signifi- cant in landscape painting and which are the focus of the landscape model of appre- ciation. We thus have a model of apprecia- tion which encourages perceiving and ap- preciating nature as if it were a landscape painting, as a grandiose prospect seen from a specific standpoint and distance. It is a model which centers attention on those

aesthetic qualities of color and design which are seen and seen at a distance.

It is quite evident that the scenery or landscape model has been historically sig- nificant in our aesthetic appreciation of nature.7 For example, this model was evi- dent in the eighteenth and nineteenth cen- turies in the use of the "Claude-glass," a small, tinted, convex mirror with which

tourists viewed the landscape. Thomas West's popular guidebook to the Lake Dis- trict (first published in 1778) says of the glass:

... where the objects are great and near, it re- moves them to a due distance, and shews them in the soft colours of nature, and most regular perspective the eye can perceive, art teach, or science demonstrate . . .to the glass is reserved the finished picture, in highest colouring, and just perspective.8

In a somewhat similar fashion, the modern

CARLSON

tourist reveals his preference for this model of appreciation by frequenting "scenic view- points" where the actual space between the tourist and the prescribed "view" often constitutes "a due distance" which aids the

impression of "soft colours of nature, and the most regular perspective the eye can perceive, art teach, or science demonstrate." And the "regularity" of the perspective is often enhanced by the positioning of the viewpoint itself. Moreover, the modern tourist also desires "the finished picture, in highest colouring, and just perspective"; whether this be the "scene" framed and balanced in his camera's viewfinder, the re- sult of this in the form of a kodachrome

slide, and/or the "artistically" composed postcard and calendar reproductions of the "scene" which often attract more appre- ciation than that which they "reproduce." R. Rees has described the situation as follows:

. .. the taste has been for a view, for scenery, not for landscape in the original Dutch-and present geographical-meaning of term, which denotes our ordinary, everyday surroundings. The aver- age modern sightseer, unlike many of the Ro- mantic poets and painters who were accomplished naturalists, is interested not in natural forms and processes, but in a prospect.9

It is clear that in addition to being his- torically important, the landscape model, like the object model, gives us at least initial guidelines as to what and how to appreciate in regard to nature. We appreciate the natural environment as if it were a land-

scape painting. The model requires divid- ing the environment into scenes or blocks of scenery, each of which is to be viewed from a particular point by a viewer who is separated by the appropriate spatial (and emotional?) distance. A drive through the country is not unlike a walk through a gallery of landscape paintings. When seen in this light, this model of appreciation causes a certain uneasiness in a number of

thinkers. Some, such as ecologist Paul Shep- ard, seemingly believe this kind of appre- ciation of the natural environment so mis- guided that they entertain doubts about the wisdom of any aesthetic approach to na- ture.10 Others find the model to be ethically

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Appreciation and the Natural Environment

suspect. For example, after pointing out that the modern sightseer is interested only in a prospect, Rees concludes:

In this respect the Romantic Movement was a mixed blessing. In certain phases of its develop- ment it stimulated the movement for the protec- tion of nature, but in its picturesque phase it simply confirmed our anthropocentism by sug- gesting that nature exists to please as well as to serve us. Our ethics, if the word can be used to describe our attitudes and behaviour toward the

environment, have lagged behind our aesthetics. It is an unfortunate lapse which allows us to abuse our local environments and venerate the

Alps and the Rockies."

What has not been as generally noted, however, is that this model of appreciation is suspect not only on ethical grounds, but also on aesthetic grounds. The model re- quires us to view the environment as if it were a static representation which is essentially "two dimensional." It requires the reduction of the environment to a scene

or view. But what must be kept in mind is that the environment is not a scene, not a representation, not static, and not two di- mensional. The point is that the model re- quires the appreciation of the environment not as what it is and with the qualities it has, but rather as something which it is not and with qualities it does not have. The model is in fact inappropriate to the actual nature of the object of appreciation. Con- sequently it not only, as the object model, unduly limits our appreciation-in this case to visual qualities related to coloration and overall design, it also misleads it. Hepburn puts this point in a general way:

Supposing that a person's aesthetic education .. instills in him the attitudes, the tactics of ap- proach, the expectations proper to the apprecia- tion of art works only, such a person will either pay very little aesthetic heed to natural objects or else heed them in the wrong way. He will look-and of course look in vain-for what can be found and enjoyed only in art.12

III

I conclude that the landscape model, as the object model, is inadequate as a para- digm for the aesthetic appreciation of na- ture. However, the reason for its inadequacy is instructive. The landscape model is inade-

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quate because it is inappropriate to the na- ture of the natural environment. Perhaps to see what and how to appreciate in respect to the natural environment, we must con- sider the nature of that environment more carefully. In this regard there are two rather obvious points which I wish to emphasize. The first is that the natural environment is an environment; the second is that it is natural.

When we conceptualize the natural en- vironment as "nature" I think we are tempt- ed to think of it as an object. When we conceptualize it as "landscape" we are cer- tainly led to thinking of it as scenery. Con- sequently perhaps the concept of the "nat- ural environment" is somewhat preferable. At least it makes explicit that it is an en- vironment which is under consideration.

The object model and the landscape model each in its own way fail to take account of this. But what is involved in taking this into account? Here I wish initially to follow up some remarks made by Sparshott. He suggests that to consider something environ- mentally is primarily to consider it in re- gard to the relation of "self to setting," rather than "subject to object" or "traveler to scene."13 An environment is the setting in which we exist as a "sentient part"; it is our surroundings. Sparshott points out that as our surroundings, our setting, the en- vironment is that which we take for granted, that which we hardly notice-it is necessarily unobtrusive. If any one part of it becomes obtrusive, it is in danger of being seen as an object or a scene, not as our environment. As Sparshott says, "When a man starts talk- ing about 'environmental values' we usually take him to be talking about aesthetic values of a background sort."14

The aesthetic values of the environment being primarily background values has ob- vious ramifications for the questions of what and how to appreciate. In regard to what to appreciate this suggests the answer "every- thing," for in an essentially unobtrusive setting there seems little basis for including and excluding. I will return to this shortly. In regard to how to appreciate, the answer suggested is in terms of all those ways in which we normally are aware of and ex-

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CARLSON

perience our surroundings. Sparshott notes that "if environmental aspects are back- ground aspects, eye and ear lose part of their privilege" and goes on to mention smell, touch, and taste, and even warmth and coolness, barometric pressure and

humidity as possibly relevant.15 This points in the right direction, but as Sparshott also notes, it seems to involve a difficulty: that "the concept of the aesthetic tugs in a differ- ent direction"-the direction of the subject/ object relation involving primarily the vis- ual scrutiny of an aesthetic object.16 How- ever, I do not think this difficulty need be as serious as Sparshott seems to think. I suspect the apparent tension here is not due to the concept of the aesthetic being necessarily tied to the subject/object relation or to the visual, but rather is due to its being anti- thetical to the appreciation of anything only as unobtrusive background. To con- firm this we need to consider the concept of the aesthetic as it is elaborated by John Dewey in Art as Experience.17 Dewey's con- cept is such that anything which is aesthet- ically appreciated must be obtrusive, it must be foreground, but it need not be an object and it need not be seen (or only seen). Moreover, to assume that that which is aes-

thetically appreciated need be an object or only seen is to confine aesthetic apprecia- tion to either the object model or the land- scape model, which, as we have noted, im- pose unacceptable limitations on the aes- thetic appreciation of the natural environ- ment.

I suggest then that the beginning of an answer to the question of how to aesthet- ically appreciate an environment is some- thing like the following: We must experi- ence our background setting in all those ways in which we normally experience it, by sight, smell, touch, and whatever. How- ever, we must experience it not as unob- trusive background, but as obtrusive fore- ground! What is involved in such an "act of aspection" is not completely clear. Dewey gives us an idea in remarks such as:

To grasp the sources of esthetic experience it is . . .necessary to have recourse to animal life below the human scale .... The live animal is fully present, all there, in all of its actions: in

its wary glances, its sharp sniffing, its abrupt cocking of ears. All senses are equally on the qui vive.l

And perhaps the following description by Yi-Fu Tuan gives some further indication:

An adult must learn to be yielding and careless like a child if he were to enjoy nature polymor- phously. He needs to slip into old clothes so that he could feel free to stretch out on the hay be- side the brook and bathe in a meld of physical sensations: the smell of the hay and of horse dung; the warmth of the ground, its hard and soft contours; the warmth of the sun tempered by breeze; the tickling of an ant making its way up the calf of his leg; the play of shifting leaf shadows on his face; the sound of water over the pebbles and boulders, the sound of cicadas and distant traffic. Such an environment might break all the formal rules of euphony and aesthetics, substituting confusion for order, and yet be wholly satisfying.'?

Tuan's account as to how to appreciate fits well with our earlier answer to the ques- tion of what to appreciate, viz. everything. This answer, of course, will not do. We can- not appreciate everything; there must be limits and emphasis in our aesthetic appre- ciation of nature as there are in our ap- preciation of art. Without such limits and emphases our experience of the natural environment would be only "a meld of physical sensations" without any meaning or significance. It would be a Jamesian "bloom- ing buzzing confusion" which truly sub- stituted "confusion for order" and which, I suspect contra to Tuan, would not be wholly satisfying. Such experience would be too far removed from our aesthetic appre- ciation of art to merit the label "aesthetic"

or even the label "appreciation." Consider again the case of art. In this case, as noted in Section I, the boundaries and foci of aes- thetic significance of works of art are a function of the type of art in question, e.g., paintings end at their frames and their colors are significant. Moreover, I suggested that our knowledge of such matters is due to art works being our creations. Here it is relevant to note the second point which I wish to emphasize about natural environ- ments: they are natural. The natural en- vironment is not a work of art. As such it

has no boundaries or foci of aesthetic sig- nificance which are given as a result of our

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Appreciation and the Natural Environment

creation nor of which we have knowledge because of our involvement in such creation.

The fact that nature is natural-not our creation-does not mean, however, that we must be without knowledge of it. Natural objects are such that we can discover things about them which are independent of any involvement by us in their creation. Thus although we have not created nature, we yet know a great deal about it. This knowledge, essentially common sense/scientific knowl- edge, seems to me the only viable candidate for playing the role in regard to the appre- ciation of nature which our knowledge of types of art, artistic traditions, and the like plays in regard to the appreciation of art. Consider the aesthetic appreciation of an environment such as that described by Tuan. We experience the environment as obtrusive foreground-the smell of the hay and of the horse dung, the feel of the ant, the sound of the cicadas and of the distant

traffic all force themselves upon us. We ex- perience a "meld of sensations" but, as noted, if our state is to be aesthetic appre- ciation rather than just the having of raw experience, the meld cannot be simply a "blooming buzzing confusion." Rather it must be what Dewey called a consumma- tory experience: one in which knowledge and intelligence transform raw experience by making it determinate, harmonious, and meaningful. For example, in order for there to be aesthetic appreciation we must recog- nize the smell of the hay and that of the horse dung and perhaps distinguish be- tween them; we must feel the ant at least as an insect rather than as, say, a twitch. Such recognizing and distinguishing results in certain aspects of the obtrusive foreground becoming foci of aesthetic significance. More- over, they are natural foci appropriate to the particular natural environment we are ap- preciating. Likewise our knowledge of the environment may yield certain appropriate boundaries or limits to the experience. For example, since we are aesthetically appre- ciating a certain kind of environment, the sound of cicadas may be appreciated as a proper part of the setting, while the sound of the distant traffic is excluded much as we ignore the coughing in the concert hall.

What I am suggesting is that the question of what to aesthetically appreciate in the natural environment is to be answered in a

way analogous to the similar question about art. The difference is that in the case of the natural environment the relevant knowl-

edge is the common sense/scientific knowl- edge which we have discovered about the environment in question. This knowledge gives us the appropriate foci of aesthetic significance and the appropriate boundaries of the setting so that our experience becomes one of aesthetic appreciation. If to aesthet- ically appreciate art we must have knowl- edge of artistic traditions and styles within those traditions, to aesthetically appreciate nature we must have knowledge of the differ- ent environments of nature and of the sys- tems and elements within those environ-

ments. In the way in which the art critic and the art historian are well equipped to aesthetically appreciate art, the naturalist and the ecologist are well equipped to aes- thetically appreciate nature.20

The point I have now made about what to appreciate in nature also has ramifica- tions for how to appreciate nature. When discussing the nature of an environment, 1 suggested that Tuan's description seems to indicate a general act of aspection appro- priate for any environment. However, since natural environments differ in type it seems that within this general act of aspection there might be differences which should be noted. To aesthetically appreciate an en- vironment we experience our surroundings as obtrusive foreground allowing our knowl- edge of that environment to select certain foci of aesthetic significance and perhaps exclude others, thereby limiting the experi- ence. But certainly there are also different kinds of appropriate acts of aspection which can likewise be selected by our knowledge of environments. Ziff tells us to look for con- tours in the Florentine school and for color in a Bonnard, to survey a Tintoretto and to scan a Bosch. Consider different natural en- vironments. It seems that we must survey a prairie environment, looking at the subtle contours of the land, feeling the wind blow- ing across the open space, and smelling the mix of prairie grasses and flowers. But such

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an act of aspection has little place in a dense forest environment. Here we must

examine and scrutinize, inspecting the de- tail of the forest floor, listening carefully for the sounds of birds and smelling care- fully for the scent of spruce and pine. Like- wise, the description of environmental ap- preciation given by Tuan, in addition to being a model for environmental acts of aspection in general, is also a description of the act of aspection appropriate for a par- ticular kind of environment-one perhaps best described as pastoral. Different natural environments require different acts of aspec- tion; and as in the case of what to appre- ciate, our knowledge of the environment in question indicates how to appreciate, that is, indicates the appropriate act of aspection.

The model I am thus presenting for the aesthetic appreciation of nature might be termed the environmental model. It in-

volves recognizing that nature is an environ- ment and thus a setting within which we exist and which we normally experience with our complete range of senses as our un- obtrusive background. But our experience being aesthetic requires unobtrusive back- ground to be experienced as obtrusive fore- ground. The result is the experience of a "blooming, buzzing confusion" which in order to be appreciated must be tempered by the knowledge which we have discovered about the natural environment so experi- enced. Our knowledge of the nature of the particular environments yields the appro- priate boundaries of appreciation, the par- ticular foci of aesthetic significance, and the relevant act or acts of aspection for that type of environment. We thus have a model which begins to give answers to the ques- tions of what and how to appreciate in re- spect to the natural environment and which seems to do so with due regard for the nature of that environment. And this is important not only for aesthetic but also for moral and ecological reasons.

IV

In this paper I have attempted to open discussion on the questions of what and how

to aesthetically appreciate in regard to na- ture. In doing so I have argued that two traditional approaches, each of which more or less assimilates the appreciation of nature to the appreciation of certain art forms, leave much to be desired. However, the approach which I have suggested, the en- vironmental model, yet follows closely the general structure of our aesthetic appre- ciation of art. This approach does not de- pend on an assimilation of natural objects to art objects or of landscapes to scenery, but rather on an application of the general structure of aesthetic appreciation of art to something which is not art. What is impor- tant is to recognize that nature is an environment and is natural, and to make

that recognition central to our aesthetic appreciation. Thereby we will aesthetically appreciate nature for what it is and for the qualities it has. And we will avoid being the person described by Hepburn who "will either pay very little aesthetic heed to nat- ural objects or else heed them in the wrong way," who "will look-and of course look in vain-for what can be found and enjoyed only in art."21

1Paul Ziff, "Reasons in Art Criticism," Philoso- phy and Education, ed., I. Scheffler (Boston, 1958). Reprinted in Art and Philosophy, ed., W. E. Ken- nick (New York, 1964), p. 620.

2Ibid. Ziff is mainly concerned with the way in which knowledge of types yields different acts of aspection. For an elaboration of this point and its ramifications concerning what is and is not aes- thetically significant in a work, see K. Walton, "Categories of Art," Philosophical Review (1970), 334-67. How our knowledge of art (and the artworld) yields the boundaries between art and the rest of reality is interestingly discussed in A. Danto, "The Artistic Enfranchisement of Real Objects: the Artworld," Journal of Philosophy (1964), 571-84.

8F. E. Sparshott, "Figuring the Ground: Notes on Some Theoretical Problems of the Aesthetic

Environment," Journal of Aesthetic Education (1972), 13.

4George Santayana, The Sense of Beauty (New York, 1961), p. 100.

Danto, op. cit., p. 579. 6This favored sense of "landscape" is brought

out by Yi-Fu Tuan. See Topophilia: A Study of Environmental Perception, Attitudes, and Values (Englewood Cliffs, 1974), pp. 132-33, or "Man and Nature: An Eclectic Reading," Landscape, Vol. 15 (1966), 30.

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Appreciation and the Natural Environment

For a good, brief discussion of this point, see R. Rees, "The Scenery Cult: Changing Landscape Tastes over Three Centuries," Landscape, Vol. 19 (1975). Note the following remarks by E. H. Gom- brich in "The Renaissance Theory of Art and the Rise of Landscape," Norm and Form: Studies in the Art of the Renaissance (London, 1971), pp. 117- 18: ". . I believe that the idea of natural beauty as an inspiration of art . . . is, to say the least, a very dangerous oversimplification. Perhaps it even reverses the actual process by which man discovers the beauty of nature. We call a scenery 'picturesque' ... if it reminds us of paintings we have seen.... Similarly, so it seems, the discovery of Alpine scenery does not precede but follows the spread of prints and paintings with mountain panoramas."

8Thomas West, Guide to the Lakes (London: 1778) as quoted in J. T. Ogden, "From Spatial to Aesthetic Distance in the Eighteenth Century," Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. XXXV (1974), 66-67.

'R. Rees, "The Taste for Mountain Scenery," History Today, Vol. XXV (1975), 312.

10Paul Shepard, The Tender Carnivore and the Sacred Game (New York, 1973), pp. 147-48. Shep- ard made this position more explicit at a lecture at Athabasca University, Edmonton, Alberta, Novem- ber 16, 1974.

U Rees, "Mountain Scenery," op. cit., p. 312. Ethical worries are also expressed by Tuan, Topo- philia, op. cit., Chapter 8, and R. A. Smith and C. M. Smith, "Aesthetics and Environmental Edu- cation," Journal of Aesthetic Education (1970), 131-32. Smith and Smith put the point as follows: "Perhaps there is a special form of arrogance in

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experiencing nature strictly in the categories of art, for the attitude involved here implies an acceptance, though perhaps only momentarily, of the notion that natural elements have been arranged for the sake of the man's aesthetic pleasure. It is possible that this is what Kant had in mind when he said

that in the appreciation of natural beauty one ought not assume that nature has fashioned its forms for our delight and that, instead, 'it is we who receive nature with favour, and not nature that does us a favour.'"

12R. W. Hepburn, "Aesthetic Appreciation of Nature," Aesthetics and the Modern World, ed. H. Osborne (London, 1968), p. 53. Hepburn implicitly argues that our aesthetic appreciation of nature is enhanced by our "realizing" that an object is what it is and has the qualities which it has. See pp. 60-65.

13 Sparshott, op. cit., pp. 12-13. Sparshott also considers other possible relations which are not directly relevant here. Moreover, I suspect he con- siders the "traveler to scene" relation to be more significant than I do.

4Ibid., pp. 17-18. 15 Ibid., p. 21.

'6 Ibid., pp. 13-14, p. 21. "John Dewey, Art as Experience (New York,

1958), especially Chapters I-III. ls Ibid., pp. 18-19. 19Tuan, Topophilia, op. cit., p. 96. 20I have in mind here individuals such as John

Muir and Aldo Leopold. See, for example, Leopold's A Sand County Almanac.

21 Hepburn, op. cit., p. 53.

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