Aesthetic Deep Time Experiences of Temporal Sublime Nature
Keywords:
Environmental Aesthetics, Deep Time, Temporal Sublimity, Aesthetic Resonance, AtmosphereAbstract
Deep time, encompassing the expansive temporal scale of Earth’s history, often evokes a sense of alienation due to its immensity. However, this estrangement can be mitigated through the aesthetic appreciation of the temporal sublime in nature, as found in ancient forests, geological landscapes, and the starlit sky. This paper aims to elucidate these aesthetic experiences and their significance. It posits that an emotional and aesthetic resonance with the awe-inspiring aspects of these ancient and enduring natural environments fosters a sense of elevation and humility. This feeling engenders a sense of belonging and comfort in the vast temporal continuum of the natural world. Central to this discourse is integrating “world time” with “life time” experience as the core of aesthetic deep time experiences.
References
Albritton, Claude C. (1980), The Abyss of Time. Changing Conceptions of the Earth’s Antiquity after the Sixteenth Century, Freeman, Cooper & Co: San Francisco.
Bjornerud, Marcia (2018), Timefulness. How Thinking Like a Geologist Can Help Save the World, Princeton University Press: Princeton and Oxford.
Bollnow, Otto F. (1942), Die Ehrfurcht, Klostermann: Frankfurt am Main.
Brady, Emily (2003), Aesthetics of the Natural Environment, Edinburgh University Press: Edinburgh.
Brady, Emily (2013), The Sublime in Modern Philosophy: Aesthetics, Ethics, and Nature, Cambridge University Press: Cambridge.
Brady, Emily (2021), ‘Global Climate Change and Aesthetics’, Environmental Values, 31 (1), pp. 27–46.
Brady, Emily and Jonathan Prior (2020), ‘Environmental Aesthetics: A Synthetic Review’, People and Nature, 2, pp. 254–266.
Capdevila-Werning, Remei and Sanna Lehtinen (2021), ‘Intergenerational Aesthetics: A Future-Oriented Approach to Aesthetic Theory and Practice’, Philosophical Inquiries, 9 (2), pp. 175–198.
Clewis, Robert R. (2021), ‘Why the Sublime is Aesthetic Awe’, The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 79 (3), pp. 301–314.
Cochrane, Tom (2012), ‘The Emotional Experience of the Sublime’, Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 42 (2), pp. 125–148.
Deplazes-Zemp, Anna (2022), ‘Are People Part of Nature? Yes and No: A Perspectival Account of the Concept of “Nature”’, Environmental Ethics, 44 (2), pp. 99–119.
Dewey, John (1934), Art as Experience, Minton, Balch: New York.
Grímsson, Ólafur R. (2009), ‘Listin í Náttúrunni’, [in:] K. I. Einarsson, The Essence of Iceland, Salka: Reykjavík, p. 5.
https://doi.org/10.1002/pan3.10089.
https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139018098.
https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199206179.003.0004.
https://doi.org/10.1093/jaac/kpab023.
https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190904876.001.0001.
https://doi.org/10.1353/cjp.2012.0003.
https://doi.org/10.2307/432254.
https://doi.org/10.23943/9780691184531.
https://doi.org/10.3197/096327121X16141642287683.
https://doi.org/10.3390/land3041251.
https://doi.org/10.4454/philinq.v9i2.343.
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5885561.
https://doi.org/10.5840/enviroethics202242736.
Kant, Immanuel (2000), Critique of the Power of Judgment, trans. P. Guyer and E. Mathews, Cambridge University Press: Cambridge.
Korsmeyer, Carolyn (2019), Things: In Touch with the Past, Oxford University Press: Oxford.
Krebs, Angelika (1999), Ethics of Nature. A Map, De Gruyter: Berlin and New York.
Krebs, Angelika (2014), ‘Why Landscape Beauty Matters’, Land, 3, pp. 1251–1269.
Krebs, Angelika (2017), ‘Stimmung: From Mood to Atmosphere’, Philosophia, 45, pp. 1419–1436.
Krebs, Angelika, (2018), ‘As if the Earth Has Long Stopped Speaking to Us: Resonance with Nature and Its Loss’, [in:] A. Ben-Ze’ev and A. Krebs (eds.), Philosophy of Emotion III: Morality, Aesthetics and the Emotions, Routledge: London, pp. 231–266.
Leopold, Aldo (1987), ‘Marshland Elegy’, [in:] A. Leopold, A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There, Oxford University Press: Oxford.
Levinson, Jerrold (2006), ‘Emotion in Response to Art’, [in:] J. Levinson, Contemplating Art. Essays in Aesthetics, Oxford University Press: Oxford, pp. 38–55.
McPhee, John (1981), Basin and Range. Annals of the Former World, The Noonday Press: New York.
Rolston III, Holmes (1998), ‘Aesthetic Experience in Forests’, The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 56 (2), pp. 157–166.
Schopenhauer, Arthur (1966), The World as Will and Representation, Volume 1, trans. E. F. J. Payne, Dover: New York.
Schuster, Stephanie (2021), ‘Schöne Natur und Zeiterleben’, [in:] A. Krebs in Zusammenarbeit mit S. Schuster, A. Fischer und J. Müller, Das Weltbild der Igel. Naturethik einmal anders, Schwabe: Basel und Berlin, pp. 113–128.
Scruton, Roger (2009), Beauty, Oxford University Press: Oxford.
Scruton, Roger (2011), ‘The Aesthetic Gaze’, [in:] M. Dooley (ed.), The Roger Scruton Reader, Continuum: London, pp. 137–151.
Simmel, Georg (2007), ‘The Philosophy of Landscape’, Theory, Culture & Society, 24, pp. 20–29.
Szécsényi, Endre (2021), ‘Remarks upon the Aesthetics of the Night Sky’, ESPES. The Slovak Journal of Aesthetics, 10 (1), pp. 51–63.
Talasek, J. D. (2014), ‘Imagining the Unimaginable: Deep Time through the Lens of Art’, Introduction for the exhibition Imagining Deep Time, National Academy of Sciences, Washington, [online] http://www.cpnas.org/exhibitions/imagining-deep-time-catalogue.pdf [accessed: 29 August 2023].
Wordsworth, William (2019), ‘The Sublime and the Beautiful’, [in:] R. R. Clewis (ed.), The Sublime Reader, Bloomsbury: New York, pp. 177–183.
Zumthor, Peter (2006), Atmospheres: Architectural Environments. Surrounding Objects, Basel: Birkhäuser.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2024 The Polish Journal of Aesthetics
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
