Repository logo
 

Aesthetics of nature and the sacred

Date

2005

Authors

Rolston, Holmes, 1932-, author
Thoemmes Continuum Publishers, publisher

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Abstract

Confronting nature one experiences the archetypes of the world. A living landscape couples dynamism with antiquity and demands an order of aesthetic interpretation that one is unlikely to find in art and its artifacts. A visit to wildlands contributes to the human sense of place in space and time, of duration, antiquity, continuity, to the human mystery of being the sole aesthetician in a kaleidoscopic universe. One encounters "the types and symbols of Eternity" (Wordsworth). We reach the sense of the sublime. When beauty transforms into the sublime, the aesthetic is elevated into the numinous. Perhaps the supernatural is gone, but the natural can be supercharged with mystery. If anything at all on Earth is sacred, it must be this enthralling creativity that characterizes our home planet. Here an appropriate aesthetics becomes spiritually demanding.

Description

Includes bibliographical references (page 21).

Rights Access

Subject

aesthetics of nature
subjective and objective in aesthetics
symbols of eternity
nature
supernature
sacred in nature

Citation

Associated Publications