Abstract

Many environmental aestheticians--most prominently, Allen Carlson--have drawn a distinction between “arts-based” and “nature-based” approaches to the aesthetics of nature and have argued that the widespread practice of using arts-based theories and categories to understand the aesthetics of nature should be rejected in favor of a practice in which an aesthetics of nature based on a clear, scientifically grounded understanding of the environment is used to appraise nature. In this paper, I will challenge important parts of this argument through a discussion of an example often used by environmental aestheticians in developing their arguments: namely, landscape painting. I argue that much is wrong in this view. First, it is difficult, if not impossible, to draw a clear, general, theoretically sound and useful distinction between arts-based and nature-based aesthetics. Second, the example that Carlson uses to support his position involves a number of historical mistakes. Third, the rejection of arts-based aesthetics predisposes environmental aestheticians to ignore landscape painting as a source of insight into the aesthetics of nature; it implies that landscape painters have unintentionally contributed to the failure of aestheticians to understand the aesthetics of nature; and it predisposes environmental aestheticians to ignore landscape painting as a means by which to understand both nature and the aesthetics of nature.

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