CHAPTER 8
Aesthetic Appreciation of the Natural Environment
ALLEN CARLSON
TheCentralProblem of the Aesthetics
ofNature
I
n his classic work, The Sense of Beauty,
aesthetician, philosopher, and poet
George Santayana characterizes the
natural landscape as follows:
Thenatural landscape is an indeterminate
object;it almost always contains enough
diversityto allow ... great liberty in
selecting,emphasizing, and grouping its
elements,and it is furthermore rich in
suggestionand in vague emotional stimu-
lus.A landscape to be seen has to be
composed... then we feel that the land-
scapeis beautiful. ... The promiscuous
naturallandscape cannot be enjoyed in any
otherway.1
With these few words, Santayana poses
the central question of the aesthetic ap-
preciation of nature. The natural land-
scape, he says, is indeterminate and
promiscuous. To be appreciated, it must
be composed. Yet it is so rich in diversity,
suggestion, and emotional stimulus that
it allows great liberty in selecting, empha-
sizing, and grouping . Thus the problem is
what and how to select, emphasize , and
group and what and how to compose for
appropriate appreciation.
There is no parallel problem, however,
concerning the appreciation of art. With
traditional works of art, we typically know
both the what and the how of appropriate
aesthetic appreciation. We know what to
appreciate in that we know the difference
between a work and what is not it or a
part of it and between its aesthetically rel-
evant qualities and those not aesthetically
relevant. We know that we should appre-
ciate the sound of the piano in the concert
hall and not the coughing that interrupts
119
 NATURE AND
it; we know that we should appreciate a
painting's delicacy and balance but not
where it happens to hang. Similarly, we
know how to appreciate works of art in
that we know the modes of appreciation
appropriate to different kinds of works.
We know that we should listen to the
sound of a piano and look at the surface
of a painting. Moreover, we know that we
must use different approaches for differ-
ent types of paintings, for instance. Philos-
opher Paul Ziff introduced the notion of
"acts of aspection," pointing out that dif-
ferent acts of aspection are suitable for
different types of works and therefore that
"to contemplate a painting is to perform
one act of aspection; to scan it is to per-
form another; to study, observe, survey,
inspect, examine, scrutinize, are still
other acts of aspection. . . . I survey a
Tintoretto, while I scan an H. Bosch ....
Do you drink brandy in the way you drink
beer?" 2
With art, our knowledge of what and
how to appreciate is grounded in the fact
that works of art are our creations. We
know what are and are not parts of works,
which of their qualities are aesthetically
relevant, and how to appreciate them, be-
cause we have made them for the purpose
of aesthetic appreciation-and to fulfill
that purpose, this knowledge must be ac-
cessible. In making an object, we know
what we make, and thus we know its parts,
its purposes, and what to do with it. In
creating a painting, we know that it ends
at its frame, that its colors and lines are
aesthetically important, and that we are
to look at it rather than listen to it. More-
over, works of different types have differ-
ent kinds of boundaries and different foci
of aesthetic significance and so demand
different acts of aspection. Thus in know-
ing the classification, we know what and
120
AESTHETIC VALUE
how to appropriately 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
of no importance .... The Florentine school
demands attention to contours, the linear
style predominates. Look for light in a
Claude, for color in a Bonnard, for con-
toured volumes in a Signorelli.3
Even though we create art and so know
what and how to appreciate it, this does
not solve the central problem of aestheti-
cally appreciating nature. Nature is not
art, and it is not our creation. Rather, it is
our whole natural environment, our nat-
ural world. It surrounds us and confronts
us, in Santayana's words, indeterminately
and promiscuously, rich in diversity, sug-
gestion, and stimulus. But what are we to
appreciate in all this richness? What are
the limits and the proper foci of apprecia-
tion? And how are we to appreciate it:
what are the appropriate modes of appre-
ciation and acts of aspect ion? Moreover,
what are the grounds on which we can
justifiably answer these questions?
Some Artistic Approaches to
Appreciating Nature
In regard to art, we know how to answer
the questions of what and how to appreci-
ate, so it seems justifiable to model our
aesthetic appreciation of nature on our
aesthetic appreciation of works of art. In-
deed, various art-based models of appreci-
 AESTHETIC APPRECIATION OF THE
ationhave often been accepted as the basis
fordeciding what and how to aesthetically
appreciatethe natural environment.
One such approach may be called the
ObjectModel. Consider our appreciation
of a nonrepresentational sculpture, for
example,a Brancusi, such as Bird in Space
(1919).We appreciate the actual physical
object; the aesthetically relevant features
arethe object's sensuous and design qual-
itiesand certain abstract expressive quali-
ties. Such a sculpture need not relate to
anything outside itself; it is a self-
contained aesthetic unit. The Brancusi
has no direct representational ties to the
rest of reality and no relational connec-
tions with its immediate surroundings.
Nonetheless, it has significant aesthetic
qualities: it glistens, has balance and
grace,and expresses flight itself. Clearly,
wecan aesthetically appreciate objects of
nature in accordance with the Object
Model.We can appreciate a rock or a piece
of driftwood in the same way we appreci-
atea Brancusi: we may actually or imagi-
natively remove the object from its
surroundings and concentrate on its sen-
suous and possible expressive qualities.
Natural objects often are appreciated in
preciselythis way; think of mantelpieces
littered with rocks and pieces of drift-
wood. Moreover, the model fits the fact
that natural objects, like nonrepresenta-
tionalsculpture, have no representational
tiesto the rest of reality.
Nonetheless, in many ways the Object
Modelis not suitable for an aesthetic ap-
preciation of nature. Santayana notes the
natural environment's indeterminateness,
and he also observes that nature contains
objects that have determinate forms. But
when we direct our appreciation specifi-
callyto them, we no longer have a genuine
aestheticappreciation of nature. 4 Santaya-
NATURAL ENVIRONMENT
na's observation marks a distinction be-
tween appreciating nature and appreciating
the objects of nature. In fact, one under-
standing of the Object Model is that when
the objects of nature are appreciated in this
way, they become "ready-mades" or "found
art." That is, the natural objects are granted
what is called artistic enfranchisement,and
they, like such artifacts as Marcel Duch-
amp's urinal, which he enfranchised as a
work called Fountain (1917),become works
of art. 5 In this way, the questions of what
and how to aesthetically appreciate are an-
swered, but for art rather than for nature;
the appreciation of nature is lost in the
shuffle. Appreciating a sculpture that once
was driftwood is, therefore, no closer to
appreciating nature than is appreciating a
purse that once was a sow's ear.
The Object Model does not, however,
have to turn natural objects into art ob-
jects. It may examine the objects of nature
simply by actually or imaginatively remov-
ing them from their surroundings. We
need not appreciate the rock on our man-
telpiece as a ready-made sculpture; rather
we can appreciate it only as an aesthetically
pleasing physical object. In this case, our
appreciation focuses on the object's sensu-
ous qualities and a few expressive qualities:
our rock has a wonderfully smooth and
gracefully curved surface and expresses so-
lidity. Nonetheless, the Object Model re-
mains problematic when removing natural
objects from their surroundings. That is,
the model is suitable for self-contained art
objects, whose environments of creation or
display are not aesthetically relevant. Con-
versely, natural objects are a part of and
have been formed in their environments of
creation by natural forces at work within
them. Thus, natural objects' environments
of creation are aesthetically relevant, and
their environments of display are equally
121
 NATURE AND AESTHETIC
relevant, by being either the same as or
different from their environments of
creation .
To appreciate the extent of the Object
Model's problem, consider our rock again:
on the mantelpiece, it seems gracefully
curved and expressive of solidity, but in its
environment of creation , it has more and
different aesthetic qualities-qualities re-
sulting from the connections between it
and its environment. The rock reflects the
forces that shaped and continue to shape it
and displays for aesthetic appreciation its
place in and its relationships to its envi-
ronment. In addition, it may not express
those qualities , such as solidity, that it ap-
pears to express on the mantelpiece. The
problem for the Object Model is a di-
lemma: either we remove the object from
its environment or we leave it where it is. If
we remove the object, the model can an-
swer the questions of what and how to ap-
preciate the rock, but this will result in the
appreciation of a limited set of aesthetic
qualities. But if we do not remove the ob-
ject, the Object Model will not be suitable
for much of the appreciation that is possi-
ble. The model also will not be able to an -
swer the what and how questions. In either
case, the Object Model is a poor paradigm
for an appreciation of nature.
A second art-based approach to aes-
thetic appreciation of nature may be called
the Landscap e Model. In one of its senses,
land scape means a prospect - usually an
imposing prospect-seen from a specific
standpoint and distance. 6 Landscape
painting traditionally represents such
prospects, and the Landscape Model is
closely tied to this genre. In appreciating
landscape painting, the focus is typically
not on the actual object, the painting, or
the represented object-the prospect-
but on the representation of the object
122
VALUE
and its features . Thus, our appreciative
emphasis is on qualities essential to repre-
senting a prospect: the visual qualities re-
lating to line, color, and overall design.
Such features are central to landscape
painting and are the focus of the Land-
scape Model. By directing our apprecia-
tion to the artistic and scenic qualities of
line, color, and design, this model encour-
ages perceiving and appreciating nature
as if it were a landscape painting, an im-
posing prospect to be viewed from a spe-
cific position and distance.
Historically, the Landscape Model has
been significant in the aesthetic apprecia-
tion of nature. 7 It is the direct descendant
of the eighteenth-century concept of the
picturesque. Picturesque literally means
"picture-like" and suggests a mode of ap-
preciation that divides the natural world
into scenes, each aiming at an ideal dic-
tated by art, especially landscape paint-
ing. The concept guided the aesthetic
appreciation of early tourists as they pur-
sued picturesque scenery with the help of
the "Claude-glass. " Named for the famous
landscape painter Claude Lorrain, this
small, tinted, convex mirror was designed
for viewing the landscape as it would ap-
pear in a landscape painting. Thomas
West's popular guidebook to the Lake
District (1778) says of the glass that
where the objects are great and near, it
removes 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 perspectives.8
In a similar fashion, modern tourists
frequently show a preference for the Land-
scape Model by visiting ((scenic view-
 AESTHETIC APPRECIATION OF
points" where the actual space between
tourist and prescribed "view" constitutes
"a due distance" that aids the impression
of "soft colours of nature, and the most
regular perspective the eye can perceive."
The "regularity" of the perspective is en-
hancedby the position of the viewpoint it-
self. Modern tourists also look for "the
finishedpicture, in highest colouring, and
just perspective," whether this is the
"scene"framed and balanced in a camera
viewfinder or the result in the form of a
color print. Such prints and the "artisti-
cally" composed postcard and calendar
reproductions of the "scene" often receive
more appreciation than does what they
"reproduce." Geographer Ronald Rees
points out that "the taste has been for a
view,for scenery, not for landscape in the
original ... meaning of the term, which
denotesour ordinary, everyday surround-
ings. The average modern sightseer ... is
interested not in natural forms and pro-
cesses,but in a prospect." 9
The Landscape Model's answers to the
whatand how questions cause a number of
thinkers some uneasiness. The model dic-
tates appreciation of the natural environ-
ment as if it were a series of landscape
paintings. It requires dividing nature into
scenes,each to be viewed from a specific
position by a viewer separated by an ap-
propriate spatial (and emotional?) dis-
tance. It reduces a walk in the natural
environment to something like a stroll
through an art gallery. Consequently, some
people, like the human ecologist Paul
Shepard,find the Landscape Model so mis-
guided that they doubt the wisdom of any
aesthetic approach to nature. 10 Others re-
gard the model as ethically and environ-
mentally worrisome. For example, after
contending that modern tourists are inter-
ested only in prospects, Rees concludes
THE NATURAL ENVIRONMENT
that the picturesque "simply confirmed
our anthropocentrism by suggesting that
nature exists to please as well as to serve us.
Our ethics ... have lagged behind our aes-
thetics. It is an unfortunate lapse which al-
lows us to abuse our local environments
and venerate the Alps and the Rockies.""
The Landscape Model is questionable
also on aesthetic grounds, as it construes
the environment as if it were a static, es-
sentially "two-dimensional" representa-
tion; it reduces it to a scene or a view. But
the natural environment is not a scene,
not a representation, not static, and not
two dimensional. In short, the model re-
quires appreciating the environment not
as what it is and for the qualities it has,
but as something it is not and for quali-
ties it does not have. The model is un-
suited to the actual nature of the object of
appreciation. Consequently it, like the
Object Model, not only unduly limits
appreciation-in this case to certain artis-
tic and scenic qualities-it also misleads
it. Philosopher Ronald Hepburn puts the
point in general terms:
Supposing that a person's aesthetic educa-
tion ... instills in him the attitudes, the
tactics of approach, the expectations proper
to the appreciation 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
Some Alternative Approaches to
Appreciating Nature
If traditional art-based approaches to
aesthetic appreciation of nature, like the
123
 NATURE AND AESTHETIC
Object Model and the Landscape Model,
either unduly limit or mislead apprecia-
tion, how should we deal with Santaya-
na's indeterminate natural environment?
How can we correctly decide what and
how to appreciate aesthetically? Perhaps
we can learn from the failures of the art-
based approaches, which limit and mis-
lead appreciation largely because they do
not adequately acknowledge the true na-
ture of the object of appreciation. This
object is our natural environment, both
natural and an environment. But in fo-
cusing on particular natural objects, the
Object Model overlooks the environmen-
tal dimension, and in focusing on artistic
and scenic features, the Landscape Model
downplays the natural dimension . Aware-
ness of these failures has inspired other
approaches to appreciating nature that
acknowledge that such an appreciation
must recognize the true nature of its ob-
ject and cannot simply be assimilated to
an aesthetic appreciation of art.
One alternative, aware of the problems
of appreciation governed by the idea of the
picturesque and underwritten by the
Landscape Model, is skeptical of aesthetic
approaches to nature in general. Indeed, it
simply denies the possibility of an aes-
thetic appreciation of nature . This posi-
tion accepts the traditional account of
aesthetic appreciation of art but empha-
sizes that nature is natural, not art, and
not our creation. It argues that aesthetic
appreciation necessarily involves aesthetic
evaluation, which judges the object of ap-
preciation as the achievement of its cre-
ator. Therefore, because nature, unlike art,
is not our creation, indeed is not the prod-
uct of any designing intellect, our appreci-
ation of it is not aesthetic. One version of
this position is called the Human Chau-
vinistic Aesthetic. Environmental philoso-
124
VALUE
pher Robert Elliot elaborates this view,
claiming that our appreciative responses
to nature do not "count as aesthetic re-
sponses." He holds that a "judgemental el-
ement in aesthetic evaluation serves to
differentiate it from environmental evalu-
ation .... [For] ... [e]valuating works of
art involves explaining them, and judging
them, in terms of their author's
intentions; . .. locating them in some tra-
dition and in some special milieu . . . .
[but] ... Nature is not a work of art." 13
A second alternative to the art-based
approaches to appreciating nature is more
troubled by the limitations of the Object
Model and concentrates on the environ-
mental dimension of our natural environ-
ment. It argues that traditional art-based
approaches, as exemplified by the Object
Model and, to a lesser extent, by the Land-
scape Model, presuppose a dichotomy be-
tween subject and object involving an
isolating, distancing, and objectifying
stance, which is unsuitable for an aes-
thetic appreciation not only of nature but
of art as well. It suggests that this stance
wrongly abstracts both natural objects
and appreciators from the environments
in which they properly belong and are ap-
propriately appreciated. Thus, this posi-
tion proposes replacing abstraction with
engagement, distance with immersion,
and objectivity with subjectivity, calling
for a participatory aesthetics of nature.
One version of this position is termed the
Aesthetics of Engagement and was devel-
oped by philosopher Arnold Berleant :
The boundlessness of the natural world
does not just surround us; it assimilates us.
Not only are we unable to sense absolute
limits in nature; we cannot distance the
natural world from ourselves.... [When we
perceive] environments from within, as it
 AESTHETIC APPRECIATION OF THE
were,looking not at it but being in it,
nature ... is transformed into a realm in
whichwe live as participants, not observ-
ers.... The aesthetic mark of all such times
is ... total engagement, a sensory immer-
sionin the natural world. 14
By highlighting the natural environ-
ment's natural and environmental dimen-
sions, the Human Chauvinistic Aesthetic
and the Aesthetics of Engagement address
many of the shortcomings of the tradi-
tional art-based models. These two ap-
proaches, however, have problems of their
own. The Human Chauvinistic Aesthetic
runs counter to both the orthodox view
that everything is open to aesthetic appre-
ciation and the commonsense idea that at
least some instances of appreciation of
natural things, such as fiery sunsets and
soaring birds, are paradigmatic cases of
aesthetic appreciation. 15 The Aesthetics of
Engagement is problematic as well. First,
because at least some of the subject/object
dichotomy seems integral to the very na-
ture of aesthetic appreciation, rejecting it
entirely may necessitate rejecting the aes-
thetic itself, thereby reducing the Aesthet-
ics of Engagement to a version of the
Human Chauvinistic Aesthetic. Second,
the Aesthetics of Engagement seems to
contain an unacceptable degree of subjec-
tivity in its aesthetic appreciation of both
nature and art. 16 The main problem with
both positions is that they do not ade-
quately answer the questions of what and
how to aesthetically appreciate nature. To
the what question, the Human Chauvin-
istic Aesthetic's answer is "nothing," and
that of the Aesthetics of Engagement is
"everything." Consequently, about the
how question, the former view has noth-
ing more to say, and the latter apparently
recommends "total immersion," an an-
NATURAL ENVIRONMENT
swer offering less guidance than we might
wish.
A Natural Environmental Model for
Appreciating Nature
Despite the problems inherent in the Hu-
man Chauvinistic Aesthetic and the Aes-
thetics of Engagement, both positions '
emphases on the natural and the environ-
mental point toward a paradigm for ap-
preciating nature. This paradigm is
exemplified in the following description
by geographer Yi-Fu Tuan:
An adult must learn to be yielding and
careless like a child if he were to enjoy
nature polymorphously. He needs to slip
into old clothes so that he could feel free to
stretch out on the hay beside 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, substitut-
ing confusion for order, and yet be wholly
satisfying.17
Tuan's characterization of how to ap-
preciate nature accords with the Aesthetic
of Engagement's answer to what to appre-
ciate, that is, everything . This answer, of
course, is not acceptable. We cannot ap-
preciate everything ; our appreciation of
nature must have limits and emphases
just as the appreciation of art has. With-
out limits and emphases, our experience
125
 NATURE AND
of the natural environment would be only
"a meld of physical sensations" without
any meaning or significance, what philos-
opher William James characterizes as a
"blooming buzzing confusion." 18 Such an
experience would indeed substitute "con-
fusion for order" but, in contrast to what
is claimed by both Tuan and the Aesthet-
ics of Engagement, would be neither
"wholly satisfying" nor aesthetic. It would
be too far removed from aesthetic appre-
ciation of art to merit the label aesthetic or
even appreciation.
Consider again the case of art: The
boundaries and foci of aesthetic signifi-
cance for works of art are functions of the
type of art of which they are instances:
paintings end at their frames, and their
lines and colors are significant. Our
knowledge of such matters is based on the
fact that works of art are our creations.
But here we encounter the point empha-
sized by the Human Chauvinistic Aes-
thetic: The natural environment is
natural, not a work of art, not our cre-
ation. Consequently, it has no boundaries
or foci of aesthetic significance offered by
our creation, and we do not know what
and how to appreciate in the natural envi-
ronment owing to any involvement in its
creation. Indeed, nature itself seemingly
has no such boundaries or foci. 19 Must the
what and how questions therefore remain
unanswered? Must nature remain inde-
terminate, promiscuous, and beyond aes-
thetic appreciation?
I suggest not. The fact that the natu-
ral environment is natural - not our
creation - does not mean that we can have
no knowledge of it. We can discover things
about nature independent of any involve-
ment in its creation. Even though we did
not create the natural world, we may know
126
AESTHETIC VALUE
much about it. This knowledge, essentially
common sense and scientific knowledge,
is a plausible candidate for playing the role
in appreciating nature that our knowledge
of art forms, types of works, and artistic
traditions plays in appreciating art. Con-
sider again Tuan's example: We experience
a "meld of sensations" -the smell of hay
and of horse dung, the feel of the ant, the
sound of cicadas and of distant traffic.
However, if our response is to be aesthetic
appreciation rather than just raw experi-
ence, the meld cannot remain a "bloom-
ing buzzing confusion." Instead, it must
become what philosopher John Dewey
calls a consummatory experience: one in
which knowledge and intelligence trans-
form raw experience by making it deter-
minate, harmonious, and meaningful. 20
For example, we must recognize the smells
of hay and horse dung and perhaps distin-
guish between them; we must feel the ant
at least as an insect rather than as, say, a
twitch. Such recognizing and distinguish-
ing generate foci of aesthetic significance,
natural foci appropriate to the particular
natural environment . Likewise, knowl-
edge of the environment may yield appro-
priate boundaries and limits; the sound of
cicadas may be appreciated as a proper
part of the environment, but the sound of
distant traffic excluded, much as we ignore
coughing in the concert hall.
Moreover, common sense and scien-
tific knowledge of natural environments
are relevant not only to what to appreciate
but also to how to appreciate. Tuan's case
may exemplify a paradigm of nature ap-
preciation, something like a general envi-
ronmental act of aspection. But because
natural environments differ in type, just
as works of art do, different natural envi-
ronments require different acts of aspec-
 AESTHETIC APPRECIATION OF
tion. And as with the question of what to
appreciate, a knowledge of different par-
ticular environments indicates how to ap-
preciate, that is, the appropriate act or acts
of aspection. Ziff tells us to look for con-
tours in the Florentine school, for light in
a Claude, and for color in a Bonnard and
to survey a Tintoretto and to scan a Bosch.
Likewise,we must survey a prairie, look-
ing at the subtle contours of the land, feel-
ing the wind blowing across the open
space, and smelling the mix of prairie
grasses and flowers. But these acts of as-
pection have little place in a dense forest.
Here we must examine and scrutinize, in-
specting the detail of the forest floor, lis-
tening carefully for the sounds of birds,
and smelling carefully for the scent of
spruce and pine. Similarly, in addition to
characterizing environmental acts of as-
pection in general, Tuan's quotation also
describes the act of aspection suitable for
a particular type of environment, perhaps
best classified as pastoral. For an appro-
priate aesthetic appreciation of nature, as
for that of art, classification, as Ziff says,
is of the essence.2 1
The questions of what and how to aes-
thetically appreciate the natural environ-
ment thus may be answered in the same
way as parallel questions about art are.
The difference is that with natural envi-
ronments, the relevant knowledge is the
common sense and scientific knowledge
that we have discovered about the envi-
ronments in question. Such knowledge
yields appropriate boundaries of appreci-
ation, particular foci of aesthetic signifi-
cance, and relevant acts of aspection. If
we must have a knowledge of art forms,
classifications of works, and artistic tra-
ditions in order to appreciate art appro-
priately and aesthetically, then we must
THE NATURAL ENVIRONMENT
have a knowledge of different natural en-
vironments and their different systems
and elements in order to appreciate na-
ture appropriately and aesthetically. Just
as the knowledge provided by art critics
and art historians enables us to aestheti-
cally appreciate art, that provided by nat-
uralists, ecologists, geologists, and
natural historians equips us to aestheti-
cally appreciate nature. 22 Thus the natu -
ral and environmental sciences are
central to an appropriate aesthetic appre-
ciation of nature. 23
A position that considers natural and
environmental science to be the key to the
aesthetic appreciation of the natural envi-
ronment may be termed the Natural Envi-
ronmental Model. Like the Human
Chauvinistic Aesthetic and the Aesthetics
of Engagement, this model stresses that
the natural environment is both natural
and an environment. Unlike the Object
Model and the Landscape Model, it does
not assimilate natural objects to art ob-
jects or natural environments to scenery.
Unlike the Human Chauvinistic Aesthetic
and the Aesthetics of Engagement, the
Natural Environmental Model does not
reject the general and traditional struc-
ture of the aesthetic appreciation of art as
a model for the aesthetic appreciation of
the natural world. In fact, it directly ap-
plies that structure to nature, making
only those adjustments necessary for the
nature of the natural environment. In do-
ing so, it avoids the absurdity of deeming
the appreciation of nature to be nonaes-
thetic while promoting an aesthetic ap-
preciation of nature for what it is and the
qualities it has. Thus, it encourages us not
to, as Hepburn puts it, "either pay very lit-
tle aesthetic heed to natural objects or else
heed them in the wrong way," not to
127
 NATURE AND
"look-and of course look in vain-for
what can be found and enjoyed only in
art."
Further Ramifications
The Natural Environmental Model ac-
knowledges Santayana's assessment of
the natural environment as indetermi-
nate and promiscuous, so rich in diver-
sity, suggestion, and vague stimulus that
it must be composed in order to be ap-
preciated. Moreover, the Natural Envi-
ronmental Model suggests that to achieve
appropriate aesthetic appreciation or, as
Santayana says, to find nature beautiful,
the composition must be in terms of
common sense and scientific knowledge.
In addition to answering the central
problem of the aesthetics of nature, this
suggestion has other ramifications.
Some of these ramifications concern
what is called applied aesthetics, specifi-
cally the popular appreciation of nature
as practiced not only by tourists but also
by each of us in our daily pursuits. As
noted, such appreciation is frequently
based on art appreciation models, espe-
cially the Landscape Model. The pictur-
esque, however, does not have a monopoly
on applied aesthetic appreciation but
competes with a somewhat different ap-
proach. This other mode of appreciation
has grown out of the tradition of such
thinkers as Henry David Thoreau and
achieved its paradigmatic realization in
the thought of John Muir. For Muir, ev-
erything in the natural world, all nature
and especially all wild nature, is aestheti-
cally beautiful, and ugliness exists only
where nature has been despoiled by hu-
man intrusion. 24 This conception, which
may be called positive aesthetics, is closely
128
AESTHETIC VALUE
tied to the idea of wilderness preservation
and to the appreciation of nature often
associated with environmentalism. The
Natural Environmental Model is relevant
to positive aesthetics because the model
provides the theoretical underpinnings of
this mode of appreciation. When nature
is aesthetically appreciated in terms of a
knowledge of the natural and environ-
mental sciences, positive aesthetic appre-
ciation is singularly appropriate. On the
one hand, pristine nature-nature in its
natural state-is an aesthetic ideal. On
the other hand, science increasingly finds,
or at least appears to find, qualities such
as unity, order, and harmony in nature,
and when it is appreciated in light of such
knowledge, nature itself appears even
more beautiful. 25
Other ramifications of the Natural En-
vironmental Model are more clearly envi-
ronmental and ethical. As noted, the
traditional art-based models and, by im-
plication, other aesthetic approaches, are
frequently condemned as totally anthro-
pocentric, as not only antinatural but also
arrogantly disdainful of environments not
conforming to artistic ideals. The source
of these environmental and ethical con-
cerns is that art-based approaches do not
encourage an appreciation of nature for
what it is and the qualities it has. Con-
versely, the Natural Environmental Model
bases aesthetic appreciation on a scientific
view of what nature is and the qualities it
has. The Natural Environmental Model
thereby gives the aesthetic appreciation of
nature a degree of objectivity that helps re-
fute environmental and moral criticisms,
such as that of anthropocentrism. More-
over, the possibility of an objective basis
for an aesthetic appreciation of nature also
holds out the promise of some direct prac-
tical relevance in a world increasingly en-
 AESTHETIC APPRECIATION OF THE
gaged in environmental assessment. 26
Those people making such assessments,
although typically not worried about an-
thropocentrism, are frequently reluctant
to acknowledge the relevance and impor-
tance of aesthetic considerations, regard-
ing them, at worst, as subjective whims or,
at best, as relativistic, transient, and soft-
headed cultural and artistic ideals. Recog-
nizing that an aesthetic appreciation of
nature has scientific underpinnings helps
dispelsuch doubts.
Another consequence concerns the
discipline of aesthetics itself. In rejecting
artistic models in favor of a dependence
on a common sense and scientific knowl-
edge of nature, the Natural Environmen-
talModel provides a blueprint for aesthetic
appreciation in general. This model sug-
gests that an aesthetic appreciation of
anything, be it people or pets, farmyards
or neighborhoods, shoes or shopping
malls, must be centered on and driven by
the object of appreciation itself.27 In all
such cases, what is appropriate is not an
imposition of artistic ideals but, rather,
appreciation that is dependent on and
guided by knowledge, scientific or other-
wise,that is relevant to the thing in ques-
tion.28 This turn away from artistic
preconceptions and toward the true na-
ture of objects of appreciation points the
way to a general aesthetics, an aesthetics
NOTES
This essay is a substantially modified ver-
sionof "Appreciation and the Natural Envi-
ronment," Journal of Aesthetics and Art
Criticism37 (1979): 267- 76.
1. George Santayana, The Sense of Beauty:
Beingthe Outline of an Aesthetic Theory (1896)
(NewYork:Collier,1961), p. 99.
NATURAL ENVIRONMENT
that expands the traditional conception
of the discipline, which narrowly identi-
fies aesthetics with the philosophy of art.
Instead of simply an aesthetics of art, the
result is a more universal aesthetics-an
aesthetics frequently termed environmen-
tal aesthetics.
Finally, by initiating a more universal
and object-centered aesthetics, the Natural
Environmental Model helps align aesthet-
ics with other areas of philosophy, such as
ethics, epistemology, and philosophy of
mind, which are increasingly rejecting ar-
chaic, inappropriate models in favor of a
dependence on knowledge relevant to the
particular phenomena in question. For ex-
ample, environmental aesthetics parallels
environmental ethics in the latter's rejec-
tion of anthropocentric models for the
moral assessment of the natural world and
the replacement of such models with para-
digms drawn from the environmental and
natural sciences.
In light of these various ramifications,
it becomes clear that the challenge implicit
in Santayana's remarks-that we confront
a natural world that allows great liberty in
selecting, emphasizing, and grouping and
that we must therefore compose it in order
to appropriately aesthetically experience
it-holds out an invitation not simply to
find the natural world beautiful but also
to appreciate its true nature.
2.Paul Ziff, "Reasons in Art Criticism,"
in Philosophical Turnings: Essays in Concep-
tual Appreciation (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell
University Press, 1966), p. 71. I examine
Ziff's notion of appreciation more fully in
"Critical Notice of Ziff, Antiaesthetics: An
Appreciation of the Cow with the Subtile
129
 NATURE AND
Nose," Canadian Journal of Philosophy 17
(1987):919-33.
3. Ziff, "Reasons in Art Criticism," p. 71.
4. Santayana, The Sense of Beauty, p. 100.
5. See Arthur Danto, "The Artworld," Jour-
nal of Philosophy 61 (1964):571-84. On issues
about turning objects into art, see the institu-
tional theory of art; the classic account is
George Dickie, Art and the Aesthetic: An Insti-
tutional Analysis (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Uni-
versity Press, 1974).
6. See Yi-Fu Tuan, Topophilia: A Study of
Environmental Perception, Attitudes, and Val-
ues (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall,
1974), pp. 132-33.
7. For a good brief discussion, see Ronald
Rees, "The Scenery Cult: Changi ng Land-
scape Tastes over Three Centuries," Landscape
19 (1975):39-47.
8. Thomas West, Guide to the Lakes (1778),
quoted in J. T. Ogden, "From Spatial to Aes-
thetic Distance in the Eighteenth Century,"
Journal of the Histor y of Ideas 35 (1974):66-67.
For an introduction to picturesque apprecia-
tion, see Malcolm Andrews, The Search for the
Picturesque (Stanford, Calif .: Stanford Uni-
versity Press, 1989).
9. Ronald Rees, "The Taste for Mountain
Scenery," History Today 25 (1975):)12.
10. Paul Shepard, The Tender Carnivore
and the Sacred Game (New York: Scribner,
1973), pp. 147- 48.
11. Rees, "Mountain Scenery," p. 312. Ethi-
cal concerns are also expressed by Tuan,
Topophilia, chap. 8; and by R. A. Smith and C.
M. Smith, "Aesthetics and Environmenta l
Education," Journal of Aesthetic Education 4
(1970):125-40. Smith and Smith find "a spe-
cial form of arrogance in experiencing nature
strict ly in the categories of art ."
12. Ronald W. Hepburn, "Aesthetic Ap-
preciation of Nature," in Aesthetics and the
Mod ern World, ed. H. Osborne (London:
Thames & Hudson, 1968), p. 53. Hepburn
130
AESTHETIC VALUE
suggests that aesthetic appreciation of nature
is enhanced by "realizing" that an object is
what it is and has the qualities it has (see pp.
60-65). For a more substantial version of
this essay, see Ronald W. Hepburn, "Co n-
temporary Aesthetics and the Neglect of
Natural Beauty," in British Analytical Philos-
ophy, ed. Bernard Williams and Alan Monte-
fiore (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul,
1966); repr. in R. W. Hepburn, Wonder and
Other Essays (Edinburgh: Edinburgh Uni-
versity Press, 1984).
13. Robert Elliot, "Faking Nature," Inquiry
25 (1982):90. The label is from Don Manni-
son, "A Prolegomenon to a Human Chauvin-
istic Aesthetic," in Environmental Philosophy,
ed. D. Mannison, M. McRobbie, and R. Rout-
ley (Canberra: Australian National Univer-
sity, 1980). I examine the Human Chauvinistic
Aesthetic more fully in "Nature and Positive
Aesthetics," Environmental Ethics 6 (1984):s-
34 (editors' note: see selection 13 of this vol-
ume). Elliot has now rejected this position in
favor of one closer to what is called positive
aesthetics; see Robert Elliot, Faking Nature:
The Ethics of Environmental Restoration (Lon-
don: Routledge, 1997).
14. Arnold Berleant, "The Aesthetics of Art
and Nature, " in Aesthetics of Environment
(Philadelphia: Temple University Press , 1992),
pp. 169-70 (emphasis in original). See also
Berleant's Living in the Landscape: Toward an
Aesthetics of Environment (Lawrence: Univer-
sity Press of Kansas, 1997); and Aesthetics and
Environment: Variations on a Theme (Alder-
shot: Ashgate, 2005). For a somewhat related
position, see Noel Carroll, "O n Being Moved
by Nature : Between Religion and Natural
History," in Landscape, Natural Beauty and
the Arts, ed. S. Kemal and I. Gaskell (Ca m-
bridge : Cambridge University Press, 1993),
pp. 244-66 (editors' note: see selection 11 of
this volume). I consider this view in "Nature,
Aesthetic Appreciation, and Knowledge,"
 AESTHETIC APPRECIATION
journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 53
(1995):393-400.
15. For a powerful statement of the ortho-
doxview, see Paul Ziff, "Anything Viewed," in
Antiaesthetics:An Appreciation of the Cow
with the Subtile Nose (Dordrecht: Reidel,
1984),pp. 129-39.
16. I discuss problems with the Aesthetics
of Engagement in "Aesthetics and Engage-
ment," British Journal of Aesthetics 33
(1993):220-27; and "Beyond the Aesthetic,"
Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 52
(1994):239-41.
17.Tuan, Topophilia, p. 96.
18. William James, The Principles of Psy-
chology(1890) (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
UniversityPress, 1981), p. 462.
19. This point suggests further problems
forthe Landscape Model insofar as that model
encourages formalistic aesthetic appreciation.
If boundaries and foci do not exist in nature
itself,it is difficult to see how it can have sig-
nificant formal aesthetic properties. I pursue
this idea in "Formal Qualities and the Natu-
ral Environment," Journal of Aesthetic Educa-
tion13 (1979):99-114.
20. See John Dewey, Art as Experience
(1934) (New York: Putnam, 1958), especially
chap.3, "Having an Experience," pp. 35-57.
21. For an account of the role of classifica-
tion in art appreciation, see Kendall Walton,
"Categories of Art," Philosophical Review 79
(1970):334-67. I develop a Walton-like view
for nature appreciation in "Nature, Aesthetic
Judgment, and Objectivity" Journal of Aes-
theticsand Art Criticism 40 (1981):15-27 .
22. Perhaps the paradigmatic exemplifica-
tion of aesthetic appreciation enhanced by
natural science is Aldo Leopold's A Sand
CountyAlmanac (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1949) (editors' note: see selection 6 of
this volume). Leopold's aesthetic views are
elaborated in J. Baird Callicott, "The Land
Aesthetic," Companion to A Sand County Al-
OF THE NATURAL ENVIRONMENT
manac, ed. J. B. Callicott (Madison: Univer-
sity of Wisconsin Press, 1987), pp. 157-71. See
also his updated version of this essay in Chris-
topher Key Chapp le, ed., EcologicalProspects:
Scientific, Religious, and Aesthetic Perspectives
(Albany : State University of New York Press,
1994), pp. 169-83 (editors' note: see selection 7
of this volume).
23. The centrality of scientific knowledge
in aesthetic appreciation of nature is chal-
lenged in some recent essays such as Stan
Godlovitch, "Icebreakers: Environmentalism
and Natural Aesthetics," Journal of Applied
Philosophy 11 (1994):15-30 (editors' note: see
selection 9 of this volume); Emily Brady,
"Imagination and the Aesthetic Appreciation
of Nature," Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criti-
cism 56 (1998):139- 47; and Thomas Heyd,
"Aesthetic Appreciation and the Many Stories
About Nature," British Journal of Aesthetics 41
(2001):125-37. However, it is also defended;
see, for example, Holmes Rolston, "Does Aes-
thetic Appreciation of Landscapes Need to Be
Science-Based? " British Journal of Aesthetics
35 (1995):)74-86; and Marcia Eaton, "Fact and
Fiction in the Aesthetic Appreciation of Na-
ture, " Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism
56 (1998):149 - 56. A number of essays address-
ing this issue are collected in Allen Carlson
and Arnold Berleant, eds., The Aesthetics of
Natural Environments (Peterborough, Ont.:
Broadview Press, 2004).
24. John Muir's view is well exemplified in
his Atlantic Monthly essays collected in Our
National Parks (Boston: Houghton Mifflin ,
1916). See also works such as his A Thousand-
Mile Walk to the Gulf (Boston: Houghton Mif-
flin, 1916); and The Mountains of California
(New York: Century Company, 1894) (editors'
note: see selection 4 of this volum e). For an
introduction to his aesthetic views, see P. Ter-
rie, "John Muir on Mount Ritter: A New Wil-
derness Aesthetic, " Pacific Historian 31
(1987):135-44.
131
 NATURE AND
25. I consider positive aesthetics and its re-
lationship to the rise of science in "Nature
and Positive Aesthetics" (editors' note: for a
full discussion of positive aesthetics, see part
3 of this volume).
26. I discuss objectivity in appreciation of
nature in "Nature, Aesthetic Judgment, and
Objectivity," and "On the Possibility of Quan-
tifying Scenic Beauty," Landscape Planning 4
(1977):131-72.
27. I apply these ideas to other kinds of
cases in, for example, "On Appreciating Agri-
132
AESTHETIC VALUE
cultural Landscapes," Journal of Aesthetics
and Art Criticism 43 (1985) :301-12; "Existence,
Location, and Function: The Appreciation of
Architecture," in Philosophy and Architecture,
ed. M. Mitias (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1994), pp.
141-64; and "On Aesthetically Appreciating
Human Environments," Philosophy and Ge-
ography 4 (2001):9-24.
28. I develop the idea of an object-centered
aesthetics in "Appreciating Art and Appreci-
ating Nature," Landscape, Natural Beauty, and
the Arts, pp. 199-227.