Aesthetic Appreciation in Natural Environments
By Zach Gardner
The aesthetic appreciation of natural environments offers a gateway to the enhancement of relationship with nature. But what is aesthetic appreciation, one might ask. To begin, it is rooted in the domain of the aesthetic, which, as esteemed scholar Yuriko Saito puts it, “begins and ends with the sensuous surface.”[1] So the aesthetic experience is predicated on that which is sensible—the content that is apprehended via the sense faculties. Under the umbrella of the aesthetic experience are many prosaic activities that will be familiar to most: aesthetic judgements such as whether a thing “looks right” when placed in a particular orientation; aesthetic apprehensions like how a thing strikes us through engagement, whether of beauty, disgust, or what have you; and aesthetic appreciation, which we might call, to use Kantian language, a uniquely receptive, though disinterested (in the sense of without desire) attitude in approaching the sensuous features of a given object. The latter type, aesthetic appreciation, is especially suitable to encounters with artworks, but also, and in an importantly different way, with the objects of nature. The main difference of course being that artworks are constructed by human hands while natural objects are not. This distinction requires a different method of appreciating these disparate types of objects, leading to the development of moral consideration for natural objects which exceed the scope of human design.
To aesthetically appreciate natural objects and environments then, requires at least some degree of ethical consideration insofar as the objects must necessarily be viewed as, to use philosophical jargon, things in and of themselves. And this is where we start engaging in the aesthetic appreciation of nature—with a particularly receptive, though disinterested (again, lacking the desire to possess) attitude which recognizes the independent moral existence of natural objects. In taking up this approach, a wide variety of aesthetically-oriented experiences then become increasingly possible. One can wander into nature keen to experience its beauty as one organism among many—as a single string within the multifarious, interdependent web of ecological activity. This perspective, let’s call it donning the ecological lens, paves the way for more complex instances of aesthetic appreciation such as the sublime. Scholar Ronald Hepburn has written of the sublime at length, describing it as the concurrence of grandeur and “dread at the overwhelming energies of nature and the vastness of space and time with a solemn delight or exhilaration.”[2] Such an experience might be the act of standing on the precipice of a massive volcano, peering down into its volatile caldera which once erupted with liquid fire of a most terrible magnitude. The sublime, like most aesthetically valuable experiences in nature, is attended by an emotional response ranging in intensity.
As humans, few experiences compel us in the way that emotion does. Through it we are driven to do incredible things. Chief among these is the proclivity to step outside of ourselves and consider others with importance equal to or greater than that which we accord to ourselves. The generation of emotion is one of the primary ways in which the aesthetic appreciation of nature brings us closer to the natural world. Through the experience of beauty, the sublime, grandeur, and mysterious ineffability, our emotions are necessarily stirred. These emotional responses alter our state of being; they incite a profundity that is replete with meaning. And in these moments, we are most acutely aware of nature as something greater than ourselves, as something that we are honored to be a part of. We are brought closer to nature, returning to the embrace of Mother like the lost child who is finally reunited with her family; our intrinsic connection with the Earth and Her inhabitants renewed and restored. In this, we experience the enhancement of our relationship with nature, and it all begins with aesthetic appreciation.
Zach Gardner is the recent recipient of an MA degree from the University of Georgia, specializing in Environmental Philosophy. He is a nature-lover and currently resides at the ecovillage of Earthsong in the Athens, Georgia area.
[1] Yuriko Saito, “Appreciating Nature on Its Own Terms,” in The Aesthetics of Natural Environments, ed. Allen Carlson and Arnold Berleant (Ontario: Broadview Press, 2004), 149.
[2] Ronald Hepburn, “Landscape and the Metaphysical Imagination,” in The Aesthetics of Natural Environments, ed. Allen Carlson and Arnold Berleant (Ontario: Broadview Press, 2004), 136.
