Undestanding Aesthetic Experiences in the Landscape

 The authors of this article explore the challenges of interpreting the value, preferences, and experiences associated with natural scenic landscapes.  To read the entire article, visit http://nrs.fs.fed.us/pubs/jrnl/1990/nc_1990_chenoweth_001.pdf

Authors:

Richard Chenoweth – Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  He has a Ph.D. degree in social psychology, is a member of the faculty of the Institute for Environmental Studies, and holds an appointment with the Center for Resource Policy Studies and Programs in the School of Natural Resources.

Paul Gobster – A Research Social Scientist with the U.S. Forest Service.  He holds degrees in recreation planning, landscape architecture, and environmental studies from the University of Wisconsin.

The authors of this article have confidence in “The assumption that aesthetically pleasing environments provide valued experiences that can improve people’s quality of life underlies many government landscape policies and their resultant assessment procedures” (pg. 1).  They emphasize that “Beauty has been considered to be a legitimate purpose of public landscape management, even to the point of being translated into public policy (Zube, Sell, and Taylor 1982)” (pg. 1).  This article describes the importance of beautiful landscapes, and the unique opportunities they provide to those seeking a “special kind of experience often called ‘aesthetic’, that are highly valued and less likely to occur in less-beautiful places” (pg. 1).  The aim of this paper is to identify and define the characteristics of these aesthetic experiences, reveal how subjectively they are expressed, how they fluctuate across space and time, how they relate to the impartial environment, and “what value they have to the individual” (pg. 2).

The first of these values is the “philosophy and the nature of the aesthetic experience” (pg. 2).  This value refers to the subjective feelings, thoughts, and emotions expressed by each individual during the experience.  The authors refer to the work of Osborne (1970), Stolnitz (1969), and Beardsley (1970) to support the idea that aesthetic experiences have a unity – a completeness – that distinguish them from the ordinary experiences and the routine of everyday life.  These experiences are said to be intrinsically gratifying, allowing the observant to derive a satisfying pleasure from viewing a landscape.  Simply by beholding a landscape it can give us a special experience.  Popular literature works that describe and appreciate this experience are written by John McPhee, John Muir, Aldo Leopold, and Henry Thoreau.  The authors argue that unlike art, landscapes are dynamic as people are in the landscape and the experience changes as observer’s gaze shifts.

The second of these values is the “psychology and the nature of aesthetic experience” (pg. 2).  The authors use work by William James (1890) to describe the conscious experience “as a flow or ‘stream of consciousness’ combining multisensory environmental inputs, mental imagery, and affective response” (pg.2).  They explain that the peaks and flows associated with these experiences are characterized as having a richness not found in the experiences of routine life, and provide relief from the everyday events.  The authors also cite work by Hevner (1937) that outline the “principle elements of the aesthetic experience” (pg. 3).  Hevner concentrated on the experience’s attributes, effects, and conditions as well as the feelings that manifest in the observer.  She also focused on the intensity of the experience and the importance of its memorability.

Next, the authors discuss the object of the aesthetic experience.  Two decades have been spent investigating and identifying the attributes associated with the aesthetic experience in the landscape and how it affects people’s preference.  The authors suggest that there are many factors surrounding aesthetic experiences.  The three major categories include work by Hull, Buhyoff, and Cordell (1987) on physical attribute preferences such as topography and vegetation;  research by the USDA Forest Service (1974) on formal and artistic attributes like line, form, color, and texture; and Kaplan and Kaplan’s work (1982) on psychological attributes including mystery and legibility.  Others like Tuan (1974) and Lowenthal (1985) suggest that additional attribute categories including landscape symbolism and past associations significantly influence landscape preferences.  Many other researchers have also chosen attributes based on their own landscape preferences and theories.  The authors explain that “Past reliance on photographic surrogates in landscape preference research has constrained the scope of questions that investigators could ask about the aesthetic qualities of landscapes” (pg. 3).  Photographic simulations cannot reveal specific preferences to a single element or the landscape as a whole, nor determine whether the emotion in the landscape is permanent or temporary. 

As part of the methods, the authors use pocket size diaries to record 10 aesthetic experiences of 25 graduate and undergraduate students at the University of Wisconsin (1983-1984) (pg. 4).  The authors cite a portion of the aesthetic experience diary used in the study to explain the aesthetic experience:

The aesthetic experience seems to isolate both us and that which we are experiencing aesthetically, from the flow of daily experience.  We feel as though life had suddenly become arrested, for we are absorbed in the object of our attention and abandon any thought of its utility or function.  We do not classify it, study it, judge it, nor consider it for any ulterior purpose it may serve.  We are wholly in the present with no thought of the past or the future.  There is no purpose or motivation behind our experience for its own sake (pg. 4)

They explain the value of the aesthetic experience often relies on the estimated value that the scenic landscape has for the observer.  Landscape assessments routinely depend on a rating scale approach to estimate this value.  Two measures the authors examined to achieve their goals were “the value of the aesthetic experience relative to other significant life events and the changes in the overall mood of the individual as a result of the experience” (pg. 4).  The authors hoped that by utilizing both measures that they could better understand the values of the observer.  The study revealed that

Landscape objects responsible for aesthetic experiences tend to be ‘dynamic’ (51%) and ‘ephemeral’ (53%) rather than ‘static’ (35%) and ‘permanent’ (29%).  In addition, many more experiences were related to natural objects (65%) than man-made ones (20%).  In most cases, the aesthetic experience was not due to a specific object in the landscape (38%) seen at a micro scale; the object tended to be the whole landscape (54%) seen in a macro perspective (51%). (pg. 6).

The preferred object of the experience was consistently dynamic natural landscapes, which supports the authors’ claim that many government landscape policies and evaluation procedures trust that the public values aesthetically pleasing landscapes.  The authors also suggest that part of this value may reside in the idea that people typically achieve a special experience in aesthetically pleasing places than anywhere else.

I like how the article discusses a variety of characteristics, preferences, and emotions associated with the aesthetic experiences in the landscape.  This article reminded me how important the relationship between man and nature is, especially in regard to creating memorable experiences in which we can escape our day to day lives.   People need landscapes where they can be inspired by something greater than ordinary places or routines.  This article reinforces the idea that vistas and other natural scenic areas are valuable, and should be restored and protected so that they may provide visitors with the aesthetic experiences they were intended to.