In this discussion I consider one aesthetic issue which arises from certain intimate relationships between art and nature. The background to these relationships can be traced to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It includes factors of considerable importance in the history of the aesthetic appreciation of nature such as the eighteenth century infatuation with landscape gardening and the continuingly influential role of landscape painting. Here, however, I concentrate on these relationships only as exemplified in a contemporary phenomenon – environmental art. (...) By environmental art I mean both the earthworks and earthmarks of artists such as Robert Smithson, Michael Heizer, and Dennis Oppenheim and certain structures on the land such as those of Robert Morris, Michael Singer, and Christo. Some paradigm cases are Smithson's Spiral Jetty, Heizer's Double Negative, Singer's Lily Pond Ritual Series, and Christo's Running Fence. (shrink)

Positive aesthetics holds that the natural environment, insofar as it is unaffected by man, has only positive aesthetic qualities and value-that virgin nature is essentially beautiful. In spite of the initial implausibility of this position, it is nonetheless suggested by many individuals who have given serious thought to the natural environment and to environmental philosophy. Certain attempts to defend theposition involve claiming either that it is not implausible because our appreciation of nature is not genuinely aesthetic, or that the position (...) is justified in virtue of man’s limited control and understanding of the natural world or in virtue of the natural world’s divine design and origin. Such attempts are inadequate; they neither justify the position nor explain its acceptance. In order to account for positive aesthetics,we must note the intimate connection between nature appreciation and the development of natural science. An understanding of the role of scientific knowledge in the aesthetic appreciation of nature not only sheds light on the acceptance of the positive aesthetics position, but also suggests a means by which to justify it. (shrink)

Contents: PART I: AESTHETICS OF ARCHITECTURE: QUESTIONS. Francis SPARSHOTT: The Aesthetics of Architecture and the Politics of Space. Arnold BERLEANT: Architecture and the Aesthetics of Continuity. Stephen DAVIES: Is Architecture Art? PART II: NATURE OF ARCHITECTURE. B.R. TILGHMAN: Architecture, Expression, and the Understanding of a Culture. David NOVITZ: Architectural Brilliance and the Constraints of Time. Michael H. MITIAS: Expression in Architecture. Ralf WEBER: The Myth of Meaningful Forms. Michael H. MITIAS: Is Meaning in Architecture a Myth? A Response to Ralf (...) Weber. PART III: AESTHETIC EXPERIENCE IN ARCHITECTURE. Allen CARLSON: Existence, Location, and Function: The Appreciation of Architecture. Martin DONOUGHO: Spaced Out or Folded In? Trends in Architectural Choreography. Tom LEDDY: Dialogical Architecture. Roy T. DECKER: Tactility and Imagination: Considerations of Aesthetic Experience in Architecture. Robert GINSBERG: Aesthetics in Hiroshima. The Architecture of Remembrance. (shrink)