Online research in philosophy

The Phenomenology of Painting examines the practice of painting - how a painter works with materials, the elements of space, form and color - and viewer response to a work of art. Nigel Wentworth seeks to answer some of the central questions of the philosophy of art, such as: To what extent can a painting and its meaning be understood to result from the artist's intentions? In what way can the painting be understood as an expressive object? What does it mean for a painting to be a representation of something? And what is the nature of aesthetic quality in painting? In offering responses to these questions, Wentworth offers a new theory on aesthetic quality.

This article compares Alexander von Humboldt's and John Ruskin's writings on landscape art and natural landscape. In particular, Humboldt's conception of a habitat's essence as predominantly composed of vegetation as well as judgment of tropical American nature as the realm of nature of the highest aesthetic enjoyment is examined in the context of Ruskin's aesthetic theory. The magnitude of Humboldt's contribution to the natural sciences seems to have clouded our appreciation of his prominent status in the field of art history. In addition to his position as scientist, Humboldt's role as aesthetician is demonstrated in this paper. Unlike Ruskin, who comfortably resides in the canon of art history relative to his minor significance in the field of geology, Humboldt has not been recognized for his impact on the world of art; his tremendous scientific importance seems to have overshadowed an appreciation of it.

I begin by demonstrating the inadequacy of the idea that the aesthetic appreciation of nature should be understood as the appreciation of nature as if it were art. This leads to a consideration of three theses: (i) from the aesthetic point of view natural items should be appreciated under concepts of the natural things or phenomena they are, (ii) what aesthetic properties a natural item really possesses is determined by the right categories of nature to experience the item as falling under, and (iii) (the doctrine of positive aesthetics with respect to nature) the natural world untouched by humanity is essentially aesthetically good. I indicate an unclarity in (i) and identify difficulties facing (ii). I distinguish various versions of (iii), reject certain of these, and fault a number of arguments in support of (iii). I conclude that the idea of the aesthetic value of a natural item is such that it endows the aesthetic appreciation of nature with a freedom and relativity denied to the appreciation of art and renders (iii) problematic.

§1. How much do we have to know about what we evaluate? Many aestheticians say that all or most aesthetic evaluations of artworks and natural things require that we know not just about its immediately perceivable aspects but also about its history or deeper nature or wider role. I agree that quite a lot of aesthetic evaluation is like this. But I also think that much is not. Much of our aesthetic life is a matter of a relatively uninformed aesthetic appreciation of what is immediately given in our perceptual experience of a thing, where that appreciation and experience is not informed by knowledge of its history or deeper nature or wider role. Much appreciation is relatively innocent. I disagree with those who deny the actuality or validity of this kind of appreciation.

Mountains were once no less feared and loathed than wetlands. Mountains, however, were aesthetically rehabilitated (in part by modern landscape painting), but wetlands remain aesthetically reviled. The three giants of American environmental philosophy--Thoreau, Muir, and Leopold--all expressed aesthetic appreciation of wetlands. For Thoreau and Muir--both of whom were a bit misanthropic and contrarian--the beauty of wetlands was largely a matter of their floral interest and wildness (freedom from human inhabitation and economic exploitation). Leopold's aesthetic appreciation of wetlands was better informed by evolutionary natural history and ecology. For example, cranes--wetland denizens--are more ancient than other large American avifauna and this evolutionary information and perspective enhances our aesthetic experience of them; and the ecological relationships between wetland species--such as sphagnum moss, tamaracks, and pitcher plants--informs our aesthetic experience of the wetlands biotic community. The Leopold land aesthetic involves all sensory modalities, emphasizes cognition as well as sensation (in this regard it may fruitfully be compared to the philosophy of Kant), and is more akin to an aesthetic of muisic than to an aesthetic of painting.

In a pluralist and pragmatist view of aesthetic appreciation of nature, nature is validly appreciated through various cultural media including science, technology, mythology, and, in particular, the arts. Those who attack arts-based appreciation mainly think about the arts of the nineteenth century: traditional landscape painting and sculptures on pedestals. When we turn to art since the 1970s, for example, earth art, this picture changes. Allen Carlson’s attack on postmodernist and pluralist models of aesthetic appreciation does not pose significant problems for an arts-based approach, for he makes a major concession to non-scientific culture-based approaches when he allows mythological descriptions. If mythology can be taken into consideration when appreciating the natural environment, then the arts should be as well. The aesthetic object in environmental aesthetics is emergent from, and upon, the interaction of the experiencing subject(s) and the appreciated environment, the limits of which are set by the experiencing subject(s). These limits need not be narrowly science-based.

In Landscape, Natural Beauty, and the Arts, a distinguished group of scholars probes the complex structure of aesthetic responses to nature. Each of the chapters refines and expands the terms of discussion, and together they enrich the debate with insights from art history, literary criticism, geography and philosophy. To explore the interrelation between our conceptions of nature, beauty and art, the contributors consider the social construction of nature, the determination of our appreciation by artistic media, and the duality of nature's determining in gardening. Showing that natural beauty is impregnated with concepts derived from the arts and from particular accounts of nature, the volume occasions questions of the distinction and relation between art and nature generally, and culminates in a set of philosophical studies of the role of scientific understanding, engagement, and emotion in the aesthetic appreciation of nature.

The development and nature of environmental aesthetics -- Aesthetic appreciation and the natural environment -- The requirements for an adequate aesthetics of nature -- Aesthetic appreciation and the human environment -- Appreciation of the human environment under different conceptions -- Aesthetic appreciation and the agricultural landscape -- What is the correct way to aesthetically appreciate landscapes?