Environmental aesthetics: A synthetic review

Abstract

Environmental aesthetics has emerged in the last 50 years from the philosophical fields of aesthetics and environmental philosophy. The questions and issues which shape this subfield have been drawn principally from the Western philosophical tradition. Other disciplinary perspectives have also shaped environmental aesthetics, including landscape architecture, human geography, restoration ecology and empirical studies on landscape preferences in developmental and environmental psychology. This review and synthesis mainly addresses the theoretical approaches and concepts that provide a framework to the key debates in the field, but also considers, to some extent, how empirical approaches have shaped recent developments, and how conceptual issues arise with respect to empirical cases. We note that our expertize and, thus, the expertize of this review, is primarily confined to UK, European and North American scholarship. Abstract 1. The main aim of the article is to provide up-to-date knowledge of environmental aesthetics for an interdisciplinary audience, and to signal the importance of research in this area for studying people-nature relationships. 2. Environmental aesthetics has emerged in the last 50 years from the philosophical fields of aesthetics and environmental philosophy. Other disciplinary perspectives have also shaped environmental aesthetics, including landscape architecture, human geography, restoration ecology and empirical studies on landscape preferences in developmental and environmental psychology.3. This review and synthesis mainly addresses the theoretical approaches and concepts that provide a framework to the key debates in the field, but also considers how empirical approaches have shaped recent developments, and how conceptual issues arise with respect to empirical cases. 4. We outline the background and context of environmental aesthetics, its key concepts, and provide a critical review of contemporary theories in the field. We then consider how aesthetics features in issues pertaining to the conservation, preservation, and restoration of nature.5. Finally, we identify some new directions for environmental aesthetics scholarship that can productively contribute to ongoing debates regarding various relationships between people and nature.

Experiences of Ugliness in Nature and Urban environments

“…Another phase in this study involved informed participants and their reported experience(s) of ugliness. It showed that ugliness triggered a myriad of meanings, seeping through psychoanalysis and folk psychology to semiotics and philosophy (Bayley, 2012; Brady, 2020; Eco, 2007; Hagman, 2003; Küplen, 2011; Wenzel, 1999). Their observations nested roughly into the meanings of ugliness posited by Henderson (1966): sensory, moral, visceral and adjudicative.…”

“…punk), as well as the environment (e.g. arid volcanic landscapes) (Brady, 2020; Cook & Furnham, 2012; Goldman & Waymer, 2014; Kieran, 1997). The experience of ugliness also seems distinct from that of beauty in evolutionary and emotional terms.…”

“…The experience of ugliness also has an emotional dimension. Artworks can evoke a wide range of emotions with different levels of valence and arousal (Leder et al., 2004; Marković, 2010), but most studies in empirical aesthetics focus on the pleasurable end of the aesthetic experiences, neglecting to address more complex forms of aesthetic engagement linked to ugliness (Brady, 2020). Henderson (1966) understood the inherent complexity in notions of ugliness and proposed at least four types to encompass its myriad of emotional and cognitive meanings (“sensory”, “moral”, “visceral”, “adjudicative”).…”

Co-creating ecological restoration experiences at Aotearoa (New Zealand) eco-sanctuaries: An environmental philosophical approach

“…While the field has continually expanded its scope, its connections with environmental ethics (i.e. whether and to what extent aesthetic appreciation of the natural environment may support relevant moral attitudes) have drawn much attention from environmental philosophers (Brady and Prior, 2020). For example, it is contended that the care and respect for nature can be grounded in and facilitated by the discovery of natural beauty (Hargrove, 1989; Rolston, 2002).…”

Ecology and Esthetics, Esthetic Ecology and the Ecological Esthetic in the Landscape: Contributions to the Apparent TongueTwister

“…The interest in the esthetic appreciation of natural environments was renewed in the twentiethcentury following Hepburn's essay and positive esthetics emerged, which consider nature as essentially beautiful insofar as it is untouched by humans. Nowadays the debate revolves around cognitive and non-cognitive views [18].…”