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Notes
1 1 An exception is Hjort (2016), who considers connections between filmmaking and recent views in nature aesthetics. Note that by “nature film” I have in mind film where nature is the central subject, and not simply employed as a dramatic backdrop, or a device used to further the story, set a mood, or convey things about particular characters or events (on these other cinematic uses of landscape, see Helphand 1986; Lukinbeal 2005). So conceived, nature film includes the traditional nature documentary, but also the work of ecologically oriented filmmakers, such as Knut Eric Jensen (see Hjort 2016), as well as avant-garde works of filmmakers such as Stan Brakhage (for an overview, see Sitney 1993).
2 2 One example, Allen Carlson, is discussed below.
3 3 Tellingly, Carl Plantinga illustrates the point that documentary film may be deceptive with the specific example of nature film (2015, 113).
4 4 Discussion of the general idea of mediated appreciation is rare in the literature; two exceptions are Semczyszyn (1999). Whereas the latter is concerned with photographs specifically, Semczyszyn’s discussion considers a range of different representations. I draw heavily on her treatment here; on Friday’s views, see n15 below.
5 5 This will remind some of Kendall Walton’s infamous claim that photographs are transparent, in the sense that we literally see, when we look at a photograph, the subject of the photograph (1984). However, the claim I am concerned with—the claim that I can appreciate Grant’s looks by examining this representation of him—is distinct from Walton’s transparency claim. The transparency claim entails appreciative aptness, but appreciative aptness does not entail transparency. Say you deny Walton’s claim that we see Cary Grant when we look at a photograph of him: perhaps we see merely a likeness of Grant in the photograph. Nonetheless, you may still grant that the photograph is appreciatively apt for Grant: by looking at this likeness or representation, we manage to come away with a valid appreciation of Grant’s features.
6 6 Elsewhere Carlson writes sympathetically about what he calls “nature art” (photography is not included), but in much the same fashion as Heyd: “This kind of access to environments through the arts can heavily influence how we experience and thus how we value them…” (Carlson and Berleant 2004, 25).
7 7 Berleant refers here only to traditional art that, involving notions like disinterestedness, requires a kind of “distance” between the appreciator and the art object.
8 8 Regarding this image, Waugh remarked: “I understood this shoot had to be all about shape, patterns and abstract ideas”.
9 9 Interestingly, most philosophical discussion of photography has tended in the opposite direction, worrying that appreciation of photographs is always appreciation of the subject of the photographic image, rather than the image itself, and is therefore inartistic (Scruton 1981).
10 10 Expressionist painters went even further in this direction: Franz Marc, for instance, represented animals and the landscape in fantastical colors, carefully chosen for what he took to be their specific emotional qualities.
11 11 On the Picturesque, see Hussey (1927); for a short overview of the Claude glass, see Hunt (1994).
12 12 For a critical look at the use of photograph measurement as a way of quantifying the aesthetic value of landscapes, see Carlson (1977). A recent perspective on scenic quality assessment in general is Daniel (2001).
13 13 On the importance of considering objects as well as environments see Moore (2008, 113) and Budd (2002, 135–6).
14 14 These two issues seem, furthermore, to be connected, in the sense that the particularly immersive character of film seems to allow it to engage the imagination to a degree that other representations (e.g., photography) do not.
15 15 In his discussion of photographs, Friday sees these two issues as related: so long as the expressive element of an image does not completely divert attention from the environment it depicts, it counts as a quality of that environment, rather than something projected onto it. Such expressive qualities found in images are thus, Friday concludes, environmental, not pictorial (1999, 33). However, these are distinct issues: an image might impart an expressive quality to an landscape that has nothing whatever to do with it, while still allowing us to pay some attention to that landscape (Marc’s fantastical landscape paintings, mentioned earlier, provide an example).
