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