Aesthetic appreciation of art and nature

British Journal of Aesthetics

Volumn 41, Issue 4, 2001, Pages 395-410

  Matthews, Patricia M ^a  

^a FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 25144442179     PISSN: 00070904     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/bjaesthetics/41.4.395     Document Type: Article

References (26)

1. Allen Carlson, 'Formal Qualities in the Natural Environment,' Journal of Aesthetic Education, vol. 13 (1979), pp. 106-107.
2. George Dickie, Art and the Aesthetic (Ithaca, NY: Cornell U.P., 1974), pp. 169, 173-174 and 199-200.
3. Carlson, 'Formal Qualities', pp. 99-114.
4. Arthur Danto, 'Aesthetic Responses and Works of Art', Philosophic Exchange, vol. 3 (1981), pp. 3-22.
5. Donald Crawford, 'Comparing Natural and Artistic Beauty', in Salim Kemal and Ivan Gaskell (eds), Landscape, Natural Beauty and the Arts (Cambridge: Cambridge U.P., 1993), pp. 189-190.
6. J. M. Moravcsik, 'Beauty in Art and in Nature', Philosophical Studies, vol. 38 (1980), pp. 325-339.
7. See, for example, Allen Carlson, 'Appreciation and the Natural Environment', Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, vol. 37 (1979), pp. 267-275,
8. and 'Nature, Aesthetic Judgment, and Objectivity', Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, vol. 40 (1981), pp. 15-27.
9. I defend the importance of scientific and empirical knowledge for the appreciation of nature in 'Scientific Knowledge and the Aesthetic Appreciation of Nature', Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism (forthcoming). More recently, Thomas Heyd has raised further challenges to Carlson's account. What is interesting about Heyd's account is that he rejects science as being fundamental to nature appreciation by arguing against the importance of knowledge for the appreciation of art or nature. So while Heyd disagrees with me about the role of knowledge in appreciation, he agrees that there are significant parallels between the appreciation of art and nature. See 'Aesthetic Appreciation and the Many Stories about Nature', British Journal of Aesthetics, vol. 41 (2001), pp. 125-137.
10. For further examples, see Malcolm Budd, 'The Aesthetic Appreciation of Nature', British Journal of Aesthetics, vol. 36 (1996), pp. 216-217.
11. Dickie, Art and the Aesthetic, pp. 169, 173-174, and 199-200.
12. See, for example, Marcia Muelder Eaton, Aesthetics and the Good Life (Cranbury, NJ: Associated University Presses, 1989), in which she argues for a view of aesthetic properties that turns on there being conventions for the appreciation of both art and nature.
13. Kendall Walton, 'Categories of Art', Philosophical Review, vol. 79 (1970), pp. 334-367,
14. reprinted in Philip Alperson (ed.), The Philosophy of the Visual Arts (New York: Oxford U.P., 1992), pp. 490-503, see p. 495.
15. Carlson, 'Nature, Aesthetic Judgment, and Objectivity', pp. 5-27.
16. Allen Carlson, 'Nature and Positive Aesthetics', Environmental Ethics, vol. 6 (1984), pp. 28-30.
17. Jay Appleton, The Experience of Landscape (New York: Wiley, 1975). There is some question as to whether his particular thesis is successful.
18. Noël Carroll argues that there are also natural frames in nature, such as cave openings ('On Being Moved by Nature: Between Religion and Natural History', in Kemal and Gaskell [eds], Landscape, Natural Beauty and the Arts, p. 251).
19. Paul Ziff takes the opposite approach, arguing that even if all frames in nature are non-natural, this does not make nature significantly different from art. Ziff points out that the frames, walls, and settings in which a painting is hung also creates a frame (not internal to the work) that affects the way we view the object. Even in the case of art, frames not belonging to the work proper make a difference in the work's formal properties ('Anything Viewed', Essays in Honour of Jaakko Hintikka, ed. Esa Saarinen et al. [Dordrecht: Reidel, 1979], p. 289).
20. Danto, 'Aesthetic Responses', p. 3.
21. Nelson Potter, 'Aesthetic Value in Nature and in the Arts', in Hugh Curtler (ed.), What is Art?(New York: Haven, 1983), pp. 144-145.
22. Ralph Winn, 'The Beauty of Nature and Art', Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, vol. 2 (1942), pp. 3-13.
23. Crawford, 'Comparing Natural and Artistic Beauty', pp. 189-191.
24. Exhibition catalogue, '4 Photographers at the 621 Gallery', Tallahassee, FL, 2001.
25. Moravcsik, 'Beauty in Art and in Nature', pp. 325-337.
26. Raphael Rubinstein, 'Nine Lives of Painting', Art in America, vol. 86 (September, 1998), p. 93.