James Turrell: The level of illumination
Appreciating art and nature
Master Art History:
Modern and Contemporary Art Faculty of Humanities University of Amsterdam July, 2016 Mylene Jankowski 10663495
Supervisor: Dr. Anja Novak Co-reader: Dr. Miriam van Rijsingen
Table of contents
Introduction 4 1. James Turrell and the evolution of light art 6 1.1. Turrell’s installations in the realm of a genre 6 1.2. Ideas, motives and strategies of Turrell: Land Art and beyond 9 2. Illustrations of artworks using artificial and natural light 13 2.1. Light in indoor art 13 Projection Pieces 13 Wedgework Series: Wedgework III 14 Space Division Constructions 14 Ganzfeld: Double Vision 15 2.2. Light in Land Art 16 The Color Inside 18 Roden Crater 19 Hemels Gewelf 20 3. Discourse on aesthetics of art and nature 21 3.1. Contemporary debate on appreciating art and nature 22 Environmentalist thinking 23 Nature art 24 3.2. Arnold Berleant: One aesthetic theory 25 Aesthetic experience: Berleant compared to Kant 25 The sublime and aesthetics of engagement 27 3.3. Allen Carlson: Two models of aesthetics 29 Appropriate aesthetic appreciation 29 Experience in terms of knowledge 31 4. Berleant’s and Carlson’s perspectives applied to Turrell 33 4.1. Berleant: Aesthetics of engagement 334.2. Carlson: Scientific knowledge and experience 36 5. Conclusion 37 Bibliography 42 Images 46 Image sources 56
Introduction
During my bachelor studies and particularly while writing the thesis for that degree, I became interested in interdisciplinary research, combining art history with neuroaesthetics. The subject for my thesis was Mark Rothko’s (1903-1970) paintings and how the colors he used were perceived by viewers. Color and art perception has always had my special interest and that is why I was attracted to James Turrell’s (1943) artworks to which I was introduced during a MA art history module on Land Art in September 2015. His artworks are closely related to Rothko’s paintings by means of the (spiritual) experience evoked in the viewer, albeit achieved through a different medium. Rothko already created ‘light’ by means of his meticulous painting technique and by focusing on the expression of feelings in diffused colors on a monumental sized canvas. Turrell developed this sensitive and experiential approach even further by actually making light the medium for his artistic expression and using diffused, and serene colors as the substance of his installations: no canvas, no matter involved. After encountering the installations by Turrell at different locations such as on the University of Texas campus in Austin and in the dunes along the Dutch coast, I wished to continue exploring more of Turrell’s works through developing a case study of the American artist in this thesis. His artworks combine artistic expression with the ‘pure’ natural environment. He makes works inside museums and cultural institutions, as well as artworks in public environments, in the outdoors, and independent of commissioned work. Light, both natural and artificial, is the primary source with which he works. He is mainly concerned with the aesthetical effects that light creates, indoors and outdoors. His work is about the spectator’s way of seeing, perceptions and experiences, and he is interested in the sense of the viewer’s presence in time and space.1 History suggests that aesthetics often has a secondary role in the discourse on contemporary art, for example, regarding conceptual art that emerged in the 1960s: a movement claiming that the idea behind the work is more important than the actual finished art object. Today, the lesser role of aesthetics can also be seen in relation to participatory art; Claire Bishop puts it this way: “we slide into a sociological discourse – what happened to aesthetics?”2 Participatory projects are perceived to be worthwhile precisely because of their non-artistic quality. The aesthetic elements are not even brought into consideration. Art is there to reveal social conditions. The tendency of socially collaborative art in the twenty-first century is to view the aesthetic as merely visual. Concerning these thoughts on contemporary, participatory art, it is interesting to further investigate Turrell’s art that is not just aesthetically appealing per se but also demands an active and engaged role of the viewer.3 The viewer is emerged in a light-experience in order to reach a strictly 1 James Turrell. <www.jamesturrell.com>. See also The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, 2013. <http://web.guggenheim.org/exhibitions/turrell/>. 2 Bishop 2012: 17. 3 Ibidem: 11-41.personal level of higher consciousness, and to turn inwards, in a meditative state of mind. The act of experiencing light goes beyond the merely visual aesthetics of light and color. Turrell uses light as a main source in his spatial artworks, which on first impression creates the aesthetic qualities of the art installations, located in both the white cubes as well as in rugged nature. For this reason it is relevant to look at what role is given to the medium light in the current discussion on appreciating art and nature. I will explore the aesthetic of the natural, outdoor environment in relation to the aesthetics of indoor artworks by Turrell. My research question contains two interrelated parts: (1) What kinds of experiences do light installations by James Turrell evoke within the viewers? (2) To what extent do the domains of art and nature merge in both the experiences of Turrell’s light art and the ongoing debate on appreciating their aesthetic qualities? As an interdisciplinary undertaking, my master’s thesis incorporates an art historical as well as a philosophical perspective. In Turrell’s works light is the connecting element between making the viewer experiencing aesthetic qualities of art and nature on a higher spiritual level. Through this approach, he is converging the inner and outer lives of the viewer. I propose light as an added value in the ongoing discussion about how to appreciate art and nature. I will demonstrate that light, as applied by Turrell, is most relevant in creating awareness by means of integrating immaterial art, creating an experience, and natural elements and could be considered a binding factor in this discussion. I will investigate whether and to what extent the viewer’s perception and experience are aesthetically different regarding these two aspects of the discussed artworks. There are three sub-questions to the above research question: 1) What role has the artist assigned to light, artificial as well as natural, and how does one assess this confrontation to his light installations in an outdoor and indoor environment? 2) What are the differences in theoretical approaches in terms of aesthetics of arts and of nature in the ongoing debate, in particular as expressed by Arnold Berleant and Allen Carlson? 3) How is Turrell’s work and view comparable to the previously discussed concepts on aesthetics? To address my overall research question I will first elaborate on Turrell’s strategy as an artist. Turrell has outspoken ideas about his artworks and I will examine these in order to place his working method in the ongoing debate. He has made all kinds of different works integrating art and nature: works in the public spaces of museum environments, as well as those combining the inner and outer space, what he calls ‘Skyspaces’. Light plays a central role in all of Turrell’s oeuvre, and that will be my main focus. In order to contextualize that aspect, I will also examine the development of light art in the course of art history and Turrell’s position on this development. Second, I elaborate on my own experiences with different light art pieces by Turrell: I have seen works in different cultural and architectural contexts, in the Netherlands and abroad. The different environmental settings and other aspects provide contrasting situations and a variety of experiences: the in- or outdoor settings and architectural spaces built. Also, for example, when nature and natural light are part of the work, particular meteorological circumstances become part of the experience of the artwork. The light, independent of both types of settings, is the major protagonist, influencing the perception
of the spectator. His art pieces, stirred by the silence of nature, bring about a certain psychological state, a contemplative frame of mind, within the viewer and we are offered different perspectives on light and life. I integrate my perceptions on and my personal experiences of Turrell’s work and light while being in situ: in Tilburg, Oslo, Kijkduin, and Austin. Third, I set out a theoretical framework that facilitates understanding the relation between nature and art aesthetics. There is an ongoing discussion on how art and nature should or can be appreciated. The different theories, views and perspectives, from contemporary aesthetics, will be critically presented through comparison of the contradictory ideas of two theorists: Arnold Berleant and Allen Carlson. The discussion on the difference in aesthetically appreciating art and nature is especially of interest in the modern philosophy of art. The debate on nature and its aesthetics is ongoing and involves, for example, environmental art and addresses environmentalism.4 The emergence of this field coincides with the rise of interest in environmental issues, and is a contemporary social theme. Fourth, I compare and contrast the theories of Berleant and Carlson with Turrell’s artworks and strategy. The ideas by the two theorists can both be viewed in and juxtaposed to Turrell’s artworks. These two theorists are discussed to set and frame Turrell’s art in a theoretical perspective.
1. James Turrell and the evolution of light art
In the movie A Beautiful Mind (2001) the leading character playing the mathematician John Nash said: “God must be a painter because he gave us so many colors.” Not only paint brings about artistry with colors, but so does the medium light in a spatial sense. Turrell represents the very end of the evolution of light art and he has been investigating new ways of creating three-dimensional colorful spaces entirely consisting of, in many cases fluorescent, light. First, the development of light as an art medium in modern and contemporary art will be explored. The position of Turrell in this development in art history is part of that exploration. The second part of this chapter addresses James Turrell’s working method and ideas. Turrell’s artist’s strategy is introduced. The aim of his artworks is discussed and what he tries to establish with the viewer. 1.1. Turrell’s installations in the realm of a genre The basic principles of and foundation for Light Art in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries stem from the avant-garde films in the 1920s and in particular from material painting. Around 1915, Cubism in France and Constructivism in Russia began to introduce new materials into painting, such as newspaper cuts, wood and rubber, often found in daily life. Later, they used steel, aluminum, glass, plexiglas and mirrors as elements of panel 4 Berleant 2004: 76.paintings; thus a genre of material painting emerged that already produced so-called light reflections. The Constructivist design of an image depended on the variety of materials used. Since then, all kinds of materials have been the basic elements of modern art, resulting in paintings becoming primarily objects. Then an aesthetically pleasing art object was not the intended final result: the focus was mainly on the reflecting materials used. Protagonists of the light experiments of the 1920s and 1930s include filmmaker and photographer László Moholy-Nagy (1895-1946), who created diverse mobile light reflections (Image 1), and light-kinetic artist, painter and sculptor Zdeněk Pešánek (1896-1965). The transformation from material boxes that included aluminum and glass for example, to light boxes and from material reliefs to light reliefs, can be considered the actual basis for the use of light in art.5 Through engaging with new materials, such as plexiglas and aluminum, and with new media like film and photography (lens based art forms), artists developed actual movement (kinetics) and existing daylight into Light Art. Naum Gabo (1890-1977) was a Russian-American painter, sculptor and designer. His sculpture Kinetic Construction No. 1 (1919/1920) (Image 2) is exemplary for this development. A later example around 1960 in relation to this development is the ZERO movement, involving Günther Uecke (1930), Otto Piene (1928) and artists associated with them. They made light the central theme and medium of their art with their reflecting reliefs and their light machines as seen, for example, in Piene’s work Light Ballet (1961); see Image 4.6 In relation to this dematerialization of art, a trend toward the immaterial had already emerged in the 1920s. Light possesses structural features that differ in essentials from any other form of matter. Light space is dynamic and has atmospheric qualities. Light is a highly suggestive material offering a wide range of possibilities through its use and through the sculptural and spatial effect of body and space.7 The nineteenth-century revolution in color and paint, which triggered many of the declarations of independence in modern art (the independence of color, of surface and of form), resulted finally in the dethroning of color. In the concept of the figurative and abstract artwork, oil paint became merely a materiality. Just as the ‘absolutization’ of color led to its abdication, the ‘absolutization’ of materiality finally led to the end of its primacy, and immateriality was born: real light entered into the realm of art. The way toward dematerialization in the direction of white light was paved by the ‘white manifestos’, from the painter Kazimir Malevich (1879-1935) to conceptual artist Lucio Fontana (1899-1968). These white images, white canvases like Fontana’s Concetto Spaziale: Attese (1960) (Image 5), were to float in the flow of light in front of the museum wall, to dissolve while being observed, and to become immaterial. The pictorial field and museum environment tended to blend into what was defined as an optical Ganzfeld or ‘overall field’ in which eventually the art-of-time-and-space of James Turrell was to establish itself. This 5 Weibel, Jansen 2006: 27, 99. 6 Ibidem: 111, 114-115. 7 Ibidem: 100-101, 108.
particular phenomenon is elaborated in the following chapter. In the end, light constructions completely replaced the painted panel picture, with which the development of light art started.8 The development went from the transparent image reliefs in which materials reflected light rays towards light boxes and large light-screens of the 1960s. From 1960 entire spaces in museums and galleries were filled with light and considered artworks, such as Green Light Corridor (1970) by Bruce Nauman (1941). The development of Light Art is codetermined by the application of technical innovations: from the light bulb via the neon tube, cinematographic film, laser beam, ultraviolet lamp and LEDs to the latest technological developments in light such as electroluminescent strings and plates.9 In considering the possibilities of fluorescent light and space, it is useful to focus on how the pioneering work of Dan Flavin (1933-1996) reveals that illumination is always more than representational. Flavin’s supposedly minimalist work expanded the use of color by artists, intensifying its application and mixing of colors across space, tinted walls and floors and human skin, and molding with the illuminated color cast by other lights and daylight. In the 1960s he pursued the artistic possibilities of fluorescent light: The artist limited his materials to commercially available fluorescent tubing, extracting banal hardware from its utilitarian context and inserting it into the world of high art, developing room-size environments of light (Image 6 a). As Walter Benjamin remarks, “(W)hat, in the end, makes advertisements so superior to criticism? Not what the moving red neon light says – but the fiery pool reflecting it in the asphalt”.10 Light glows and radiates, it transcends the cognitive and moves into the non-representational, the realm of the affective and sensual. Flavin accentuated the relationship between his sculptures and the spaces they inhabited (Image 6 b), which we will see is closely related to Turrell’s perspective on the medium of light and the utilized environment.11 The viewer is submerged into an interrelated dimension of light-space-and-time. Light is a medium, a medium of perception. Clarification is a perceptual process in which one can learn to notice, observe, and sense the feats accomplished by light – that is, grasp something inconspicuous in the link between light, space and perception. All light works are therefore experiences and exercises in perception.12 Light art is about the process of seeing per se and focus on the phenomenon of perception, taking into consideration that it is a highly subjective experience, requiring an active and conscious participant rather than a passive observer. Observers ‘see themselves seeing,’ experiencing themselves in the act of experiencing at the moment of doing so. Turrell’s oeuvre is to be situated at the high end of this development of and evolution in light art. Turrell constructs his artworks in a specific environment and particular space, which is in the first instance brought forth by light, and 8 Ibidem: 116-117. 9 Ibidem: 28. 10 Quoted in: Benjamin, Walter. One way street and other writings. London: Verso, 1997, p. 476. 11 Edensor 2015: 139. 12 Ibidem.
light alone. The difference between Turrell and the light artists previously mentioned is that light in Turrell’s art is no longer about a representation of reality, nor is it an object. The American artist has added a new dimension to the genre: the level of illumination. This aspect can be regarded as literally the illumination by the omnipresence of, for example, deep pink, natural blue or soft green light in his pieces, and as figuratively in relation to the ‘illuminated’ experience created within the viewer’s being.13 In all cases of seeing, light “gets inside and saturates our consciousness to the extent that it is constitutive of our own capacity to see or feel”.14 1.2. Ideas, motives and strategies of Turrell: Land Art and beyond The American artist James Turrell is one of the more famous international artists whose work is largely emblematic of the genre ‘Land Art’, an approach that mainly strives to realize art outside museum walls and in relation to nature and/or the public environment. By incorporating natural environments and natural light in his installations, Turrell is often considered part of this artistic movement. Also the notions of space and time, which Turrell focuses on in both natural settings and in indoor works, can be related to Land Art. Nature and art are blended into one in his artworks. Land Art is a contemporary development of several previously established and diverse art forms. We can trace contemporary Land Art to Conceptualism and the installation and performance art of the 1960s. Regarding content and medium, Land Art has commonalities with nature writing, landscape painting, informal and formal gardens, film, and photography. Land Art is also rich and varied in form, taking the shape of large or small works, site-specific permanent sculpture, works made from natural materials and exhibited in galleries, architectural projects, marks in or on the land, performance art, site-specific conceptual art, activist art, and art that functions as an agent of environmental change. Frequently, the work is either short-lived or inaccessible and is documented via photography, film, sketches, or text.15 Photographs and films are often the only means to appreciate and retain Land Art pieces. Photographic and film records, in the context of Land Art, provide evidence of the art’s (possibly ephemeral) existence. They have a causal history such that they are reliable sources of information in addition to being possible objects of aesthetic interest.16 Turrell’s works are not necessarily short-lived, in contrast to examples of the environmental works by Christo (1935) and Jeanne-Claude (1935-2009) such as monumental outdoor sculptures, like Wrapped Coast – One Million Square Feet (1968-1969). These works could only be viewed in situ for a limited period of time. For this reason the artworks are 13 Weibel, Jansen 2006: 116-117. 14 Edensor 2015: 141. Quoted in: Ingold, Tim. Being alive: Essays on movement, knowledge and description. London: Routledge, 2011. 15 Lintott 2007: 264. 16 Ibidem: 265.
mostly known from photographs.17 Some art pieces by Turrell are less accessible than usual, an approach advocated by other Land Art practitioners.18 Turrell’s artworks, mainly his Skyspaces, are not found in museums or institutional buildings and take extra effort to come across. In particular, the work acknowledged as his life achievement is in a highly remote area, Roden Crater, and is discussed in a later section. Most of the experience of these Land Art pieces are found in getting there, along with the journey and the setting. Such an experience is not achieved in a museum space or in the viewing of photographs. Finding the artworks is also a way of discovering desolate nature. This aspect is, in my opinion, the most basic feature of Land Art. Turrell primarily focuses on light and space, be it in his Land Art pieces or his light art sculptures. Moreover, he concentrates in his work on the interaction with and the involvement of the viewer and becomes the orchestrator of the experience. In short, Turrell’s installations are more about the perception and experience evoked with the viewer than about the end result, the artwork itself.19 According to Turrell, “[light is] a thingness that occupies space and has presence”.20 He creates ‘objectless’ art, e.g. in a crater in the middle of the dunes, or looking at a colored space with an unknown source that is made solely of light. Turrell’s main purpose is therefore the experience of light; only, his work is not about light, but the light is the work – the physical presence of light made manifest and palpable in sensory form.21 As Turrell says, “the work is often a general koan22 into how we go about forming this world in which we live, in particular with seeing”.23 Turrell raises questions about how to express light in an art form. “It doesn’t form like clay; where you form it with the hand; it doesn’t form like hot wax or you don’t carve it away like with wood or with stone. So, getting to work with it is almost like making the instrument that helps you form it. It is almost more like sound, like music.”24 Turrell is mainly interested in the scanning of the boundaries of perception. He wants the viewer to look and experience what light amounts to and the resonation of light in a specific space, the environment where the spectator is present. He says he wants the viewer to feel “the joy of sensing” in his work. “And that is often missed in descriptions of my work 17 Kaldor Public Art Projects. Christo and Jeanne Claude. <http://kaldorartprojects.org.au/projects/project-01-christo-and-jeanne-claude>. 18 Exhibition ‘Expeditie land art’, on show from September 19, 2015 until January 3, 2016 in the Kunsthal KAdE in Amersfoort, presented the idea how art pieces can be made outside the established institutions and that a journey can be considered an artwork. <http://www.kunsthalkade.nl/tentoonstelling.php?item=2691>. 19 Unpublished paper for the course Land Art, Jankowski: 2015. Used source: Stroom. James Turrell, Hemels Gewelf. <http://www.stroom.nl/nl/kor/project.php?pr_id=2125635>. 20 Turrell, James. Personal interview by Charlie Rose. July 1, 2013. 21 Author unknown 2005. 22 Definition of ‘koan’: a paradoxical anecdote or riddle without a solution. <http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/koan>. 23 Quoted in: Govan, Michael. ‘James Turrell’. Interview Magazine. June 30, 2011. June 15, 2016. <http://www.interviewmagazine.com/art/james-turell#_>. 24 Turrell, James. Personal interview by Charlie Rose. July 1, 2013.
that it is sensual and even emotional. […] The description has more to do with how it happens and what it is; that doesn’t seem to bother me much.”25 Turrell wants to notify what higher cosmic phenomena there are to perceive and he states that after encountering his work you will experience life in a different way. This distinguishes Turrell from other light artists and participatory art; his work is not merely visually attractive. The artist says, “perceiving is something you can learn, it is a cultural phenomenon. And what you have learnt, changes your perception for good.”26 On the contrary, the essence of pure being does not only count for art, but for life in general.27 Art plays with the idea about what we are, stretching the boundaries of perception.28 This idea of Turrell is closely related to the notion of the ‘sublime’, posed in the theory by Immanuel Kant (1724-1804): One experiences nature, and the feeling experienced goes beyond the intellect; it ‘overwhelms’ us. Nowadays, the word sublime – like ‘terrific’ and ‘awesome’ in previous eras – is more likely to describe the flavor of an ice cream than the sights of limitless nature. We get occasional glimpses of the sublime in big-budget, special effects-laden cinema, in games and other simulated environments, but it is rare to find this in art except as a vague historical reference point. Turrell’s work invokes the historical concept of the sublime in a way that feels effortless. One could argue the experience is vaguely religious, but more than that it is an evocation of the infinite that ultimately defeats language itself; it represents the true sublime.29 Turrell invites viewers in his installations to experience such a sublime state of being. Kant outlines the sublime as a notion that can apply only to the mind, rather than an object that attempts to represent the boundlessness of an experience.30 Turrell’s installations confound our perceptions by using light to create quiet and tranquil and cosmic spaces. Space, in the work of Turrell, often seems infinite and warm, like a womb. The viewer must allow his/her eyes and mind to grapple with the spatial uncertainties created by light and vacillation between two-dimensional and three-dimensional forms. It has a purpose; Turrell has a motive for creating such off-balance experiences. Rather than creating a representation of the sublime, Turrell engenders a sublime experience beyond the viewer’s identification with a body-mind-perception.31 Turrell does not find it interesting that the viewer understands his work – there is nothing to understand, nor to believe – but rather is able to be in awe, stay amazed, just for a little while, of his/her true nature. The artist is interested in working with the non-verbal, mystical experience, which will be clarified and elaborated through discussing specific 25 Ibidem. 26 Willems 1996: 93. 27 Ibidem: 27. 28 Griffin 2005: 289-95. 29 Frost 2014. 30 In Kant’s Critique of judgment, trans. Pluhar (1987) the sublime is outlined in chapter nine, ‘Judgments about the Sublime’. The Critique of judgment was originally published in 1790. 31 Bernshausen 2001 <http://www.deutsche-guggenheim.de/e/pressephotos16.php>.
examples of his artworks.32 In that sense Turrell’s work has with a relation to spirituality. In sum, Turrell works with entities associated with the essence of reality, in particular with light and nature. Turrell does not provide recognizable objects or points of reference; everything is what it is: sky, light, space, color, silence. In this way he emphasizes the limits of perceiving, of not-seeing and the limitations of that which is learnt: knowledge and memories.33 “The idea that we do a large part of forming our reality – that's something people are not too aware of,” he says. “We actually give the sky its color as well as its shape. It's what's behind the eye that forms this reality we create. We like to think that this is the rational world we're receiving through our senses, but that isn't the way it works. We form our reality. All of the work I do is gentle reminders of how we do that.”34 In fact we de-form reality, and Turrell helps us to become aware of that state of mind. In doing so, he pulls the viewer into the here-and-now, a sphere where words do not matter. At this point it becomes clear that Turrell draws on a background of not only spirituality, but psychology and mathematics as well, which is somewhat unusual in the art world. More than most artists he pushes the boundaries between science and art. At Pamona College in the 1960s he majored jointly in mathematics and perceptual psychology, which emphasized optics and visual phenomena, and later pursued a master’s degree in art history. As result of this background, he integrates psychological effects and state-of-the-art technology in his art, integrating aspects of both. He exploits how our mind processes images to reveal that at a fundamental level, everything we see in his light installations are purely mental representations.35 Further, some of Turrell’s inspiration seems to come from previous activity as a trained pilot in his late teenage years. His observations from the cockpit were an important source of inspiration for his light installations. For example, he recalls the changes in light and color that take place during a change of course in the twilight. Turrell: “While the light glides past, the color changes. […] You can feel things with your eyes. Observations are much closer to thinking than words.”36 While being a pilot he found ways of conveying the most perplexing aspect of this visual phenomenon: when we experience an undifferentiated visual field – for example, in an aircraft – the airspace ahead of us appears to be filled with an immaterial ‘mist’. This impression does not diminish upon entering the region. Instead, the optical texture appears to fill the airspace close to our eyes.37 Overall, Turrell creates experiential art pieces that challenge the boundaries of our perception. When the viewer is engaged in the timeless and self-less perceiving, the viewer merges with the art piece. Turrell creates sublime moments in secluded spaces, and sends 32 Adcock 1990: 127. 33 Saad-Cook 1988: 131. 34 Tomkins 2003. 35 Ferro 2013: <http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-07/james-turrell-psychology>. 36 Description of the artwork Wedgework III. Museum De Pont, Tilburg. 37 Beveridge 2000: 307.
viewers into the experience of the unknown and indefinable. The light itself is the artwork, without usage of other material, which situates him at the end of the development of Light Art. According to Turrell, all that matters is consciously experiencing and reflecting on what one is perceiving rather than what the artist has seen: “Instead of being mere observer, the viewer becomes a participant. This is direct perception with a work that is about your seeing, not mine.”38
2. Illustrations of artworks
using artificial and natural light
After having looked at the establishment and development of light from a single artistic expression to a discipline in modern art, the following sub-question is addressed: What role is assigned to light, artificial as well as natural, in Turrell’s art and how does one assess this in an outdoor and indoor environment? In the following paragraphs these two different sources of light will be explored. Turrell’s well-choreographed indoor works will be contrasted to his Land Art projects, located in a natural environment, in order to illustrate differences in the use and expression of light as a medium. Where it concerns the input of nature, the artist has no control: The effects of natural light, or the absence of it, are arbitrary – out of his hands – depending on the season, the climate, the hour of the day. However, Turrell does choose locations for, specifically, his Skyspaces in relation to the natural light. 2.1. Light in indoor art Artworks that utilize light are the kind of installation closest to the concept of sculpting space, which is most evident in Turrell’s work. This mode of going beyond the boundaries a framed artwork is structured in two ways: on the one hand, by properties that can be derived from the material quality of light, in terms of constituting works, and, on the other hand, with reference to the character of the aesthetic experience. Viewers’ movements, their points of viewing and perspectives in a space are always potentially significant, forming a process of ‘embodying’ light and space, which is so relevant to Turrell’s use of light in his work. Spatial organization and configuration have priority in the oeuvre of the artist Turrell. The artist creates perceptual places that allow light to become the sole configuring element. Turrell brings about a fusion of the concept of ‘space’ and the concept of the artwork, resulting in the exhibition room and art piece merging together into an ontological entity.39 Projection Pieces His early work, the series Projection Pieces, are light sources projected on the museum wall or floor. For example, one work from this series, Afrum (Pale pink) (1968) (Image 7), consists 38 James Turrell quoted in: Torres 2004: 61. 39 Weibel, Jansen 2006: 474.of a rectangle that was perceived at a distance as a cube because it was projected into a corner of the room so that it appeared to hover above the floor while seemingly attached to the corner. The sculptural quality of Projection Pieces results from the play on perspective: foreshortening projection lines in the room and varying with different shapes from vertical to triangle projection and colors, which seem to reify light into matter and make it physically present. From a particular point of view the entire arrangement of the room seems dislocated and tilted into three dimensions: it is created by projecting a single controlled beam of light from the opposing corner of the room. As a result, any spatial unevenness can cause the collapse of the image. This series is developed further into the Wedgework Series (1969).40 Wedgework Series: Wedgework III Turrell experimented with choosing positions of light sources and of placing partition walls in his studio. The Wedgework Series came about by reducing the partition in width and using it to cover a side-wall usually to the left of viewers as they entered the room. Due to this location of the partition and the placement of the fluorescent fixtures at an oblique angle to it, the resulting light formed an immaterial plane running diagonally across the space: spatial calibration is achieved by means of the spatial wedge.41 I experienced Wedgework III (Image 8) in Museum De Pont in Tilburg myself and will describe this personal experience to elaborate the feeling of this type of ‘light-experience-artwork’ better. In short, this is an installation with fluorescent violet light in a secluded space. The installation is about the complexity of the perception of light. As a visitor you enter a bigger museum space via a dark hallway, a light barrier. This wide, enlightened space emphasizes the feeling as if you just stepped into a different, a kind of outer space, world. One’s eyes are stimulated by, what seems like, a monumental violet light plane. First of all it is hard to see where the light source originates; it seems shielded. And, further, you wonder if there is a tangible space behind the light plane. The geometric museum space seems to progress diagonally to the back end on the left side of the space in the light surface, but it is distorted. From a different perspective it seems as if a light ‘curtain’ has been draped down. Besides it seems, while being there, as if the color is subtly changing: the violet changes in various shades of blue and purple. This way Turrell creates a three-dimensional space with light, resulting in light as an object. We see a volume of fluorescent violet light that looks like a tangible geometrical form.42 Space Division Constructions From 1976 onwards Turrell developed Space Division Constructions, a series of works based on precisely calculated manipulations and constructions of space in a gallery environment. 40 Ibidem: 474, 477. 41 Beveridge 2000: 306. 42 Description and personal experience of the artwork Wedgework III. Museum De Pont, Tilburg.
Wall projections seem to dematerialize in space, dissolving the wall and creating a passage to an unknown space beyond. Light is emitted from dimmed spotlights, as a solid plane, directed away from each other onto the two sidewalls: for example, this way of working is executed in the permanent installation Dawning (1992) in Magasin III in Stockholm (Image 9). This way of using artificial light sources was scattered in all directions and some of it beamed right into the partitioned space.43 The Space Division Constructions consist of a large, horizontal aperture, which appears to be a flat painted surface or a LED screen but is in fact a light-emitting opening to a seemingly infinite room basking in light and beyond. The installation room is darkened and divided into a perception space with changing colors (the actual light space) and an observation space, from where the viewer can see the light plane. The convergence of the two spaces is perceived as a surface, in a certain shape, different for each installation, and looks as if it has been molded on the wall. The actual light source is not visible and the colored haze is infinite. This is, however, a materialization of light since actually there is a large open area between the two spaces. The quality of the light appears uniform and seems a homogeneously colored haze. This resulted in the viewer seeing, from the entrance, an opaque film of light spread across the aperture of the exhibition space. Viewers also discover that the qualities of this seemingly substantive plane do not dissolve when approached. If somebody moves up close to the opening where the light comes from, they find that the curtain of light does not yield, but opens up into a ‘mist’ of color that seems to recede back into the partitioned space.44 The premise for these works is the calculated calibration of the exhibition rooms and the titanium white coating of the walls. Only in the case of a white room with Turrell’s art, into which color (again, various and changing) flows as diffuse light, does projected light in color seem to fill the space as a grainy surface without ‘sticking’ to the walls. The technical aspect of Turrell’s art pieces, however, is consistently concealed. The light installation created by Turrell has thus become an extension of the perfect white cube: the neutral and sterile gallery space, from which all external interfering phenomena have been eroded.45 Ganzfeld: Double Vision What occupies Turrell in particular is the phenomenon termed in perception psychology Ganzfeld, which is a German word to describe the phenomenon of the total loss of depth perception as in the experience of a white-out. In the case of a Ganzfeld the spectator only sees a diffuse field of homogeneous light in a space, where nothing can be distinguished concretely (Image 10). In the case of Turrell’s Ganzfeld artworks, the only thing one sees is the color and intensity of the light: one falls, so to say, in a bright colored cloud.46 When being in a Ganzfeld space by Turrell, like the one seen in Image 10, the eyes and the mind 43 Beveridge 2000: 308. 44 Weibel, Jansen 2006: 477. 45 Ibidem: 474-475, 477, 480. 46 Adcock 1990: 131-132.
have no grip on what they perceive and all kinds of possible interpretations are triggered: viewers question whether they are experiencing special effects on their own retinas, or whether they are discerning a homogeneous field of colored light at a distance from their eyes. In psychological terms, it becomes difficult for viewers to know if the stimuli impinging on their retinas were proximal or distal. The artwork exists as well thanks to the grace of the viewers’ perception field as the homogenous light. These works make viewers attentive to states of receptivity and the masking effects of colors.47 I experienced myself one of these Ganzfelds in Oslo in the Ekeberg Park. Turrell used the old water reservoir in town as location-specific work for Ganzfeld: Double Vision (2013) (Image 11). The work explores the way colors affect our senses. After entering a dark room you are asked to take off your shoes and walk on the natural stone tiles. In the middle of the work there is a path of tiles going through to the Skyspace that is in the next room (Image 12). Visitors are invited to gather on one side of the room and not to get too close to the end of it, since you cannot see the abysm and the ‘end’ of the room and the light source itself. Inside the art installation we stare in a beam of diffuse light, slowly changing colors. Focusing and trying to mark the dimensions of the space, the end of the wall, one starts to see other spots of lights. However, after ten minutes of staring in totally colored light, the irises of the eyes, like a stage curtain slowly opening, very gradually begin to dilate, slowly enabling the eyes to focus on the defining dimensions of the room. Colors congeal and spread, shapes are taking form and connect with each other, distances and proximities are adjusted to the eyes and finally settle. The eyes are trapped in an illusion and it feels as if you are in trance. The light and space encompassed me as a viewer – caught in the act of perceiving and, for me, in an aesthetic experience.48 The optical phenomena in all of Turrell’s installations raise questions about the nature of color. It is unclear whether the visual textures seen in his pieces, such as seen from the entrances to the Space Division Pieces, are perceptions of diffuse light in these spaces. Alternatively, these textures might stem from psychological illusions. In circumstances of sensory deprivation, it is well known that visual sensations obtrude on our awareness. Nevertheless, the textures that make up an impression of a ‘mist’ in Turrell’s pieces are colored and they invite us to contemplate on questions about the nature of visual sensations. Turrell intends to convey the idea that we do see light in the air and we see light as light, rather as illumination on objects.49 2.2. Light in Land Art After looking at Turrell’s indoor installations, solely using artificial light, he has also created Land Art ‘installations’ that involve only natural light. But first, there is an intermediate stage in which elements of indoor works as well as Land Art are incorporated in what Turrell calls 47 Edensor 2015: 140. 48 The Color Beneath. A Skyspace by James Turrell. <http://ekebergparken.com/en/kunst/skyspace>. 49 Adcock 1990: 2, 144.
Skyspaces: they generally consist of a rectangular incision in the ceiling of an interior that gives access to the sky (Image 13). The oculus in the ceiling is designed to turn the sky’s changing light into a physical presence, like a membrane that viewers feel they could touch. Turrell refers to this effect as ‘bringing the sky down’ and that it makes viewers very aware of participation in the space.50 By merely watching the sky go by, viewers also become aware of the time passing by: time and space collide. The spectator looks at natural as well as artificial light in these installations. Turrell has made many Skyspaces during his career, located in many parts of the world.51 In general, during dusk or dawn there are light sequences around the oculus of the Skyspace. As one sits quietly under the opening, a rectangle framed section of the sky changes for example from deep cerulean blue to subtly darkening shades of purple which seem increasingly tangible as they verge into soft, velvet-like black. Turrell lit the interior space below the incision with fluorescent fixtures concealed in crevices located either high up near the ceiling or lower down on top of high-backed benches pushed up against the walls. Looking upward, viewers may well be unaware that there even is an incision, or oculus, in the ceiling. First, the color lit within the aperture seems different from the color of the sky outside the installation. Second, when you start to realize you are actually looking at the sky, it appears to be very distant, almost infinite. In these interior spaces, however, a small cross-section of the color screen appears to be just a few meters above the observers’ heads. The segment is drawn up in the same horizontal plane as the border of the aperture. Thus, it appears to fill the aperture and enclose the space rather than open it up.52 Turrell: “The big thing about a Skyspace,” […] “is that the sky is no longer ‘out there’. It’s brought down into our territory.”53 By making the immaterial sky and light appear perceptually material, the experience of a Skyspace seems to challenge us to explore their very nature. Based on my own experience, I share one commentator’s response, that “it is as if I am suddenly being shown how to look at the sky. I have lived under it all my life, and yet I have been either too busy or too distracted to notice it”.54 Turrell had noticed that our perception varies in common daily situations as well. At dusk a red flower will appear darker and blacker, while a blue one will appear brighter. This is because when light is present, our sight relies on the cones of the retina (photopic vision); in darkness, it depends upon the rods (scotopic vision). When the shift between cones and rods occurs, human vision is compromised, leaving us virtually colorblind. And in total darkness, other senses are triggered and awareness is heightened. In a light artwork it becomes “about your seeing,” Turrell noted. “Light is responsive to the viewer.”55 Thus his Skyspace serves as a metaphor for entering a meditative state. The higher state of mind is 50 Hay 2001. 51 Tomkins 2003. 52 Beveridge 2000: 308. 53 Tomkins 2003. 54 Quoted in: Bright, Richard. James Turrell: Eclipse. London: Michael Hue-Williams Fine Art, 1999, p. 10. 55 Ferro 2013: <http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-07/james-turrell-psychology>.
not about the material light, but more about the enhanced inner experience. This way, Turrell offers more than a merely visual aesthetical experience.56 The Color Inside I have visited a light sequence entitled The Color Inside (2013), the eighty-fourth Skyspace by James Turrell in an elliptical white-plaster tower at The University of Texas in Austin, where this change in light and color is very explicit (Image 14). During sunrise and sunset, colored lights illuminate the walls and contrast the natural skylight in the oculus. This affects the way we observe the sky and results in the experience Turrell wishes to establish. The sequence lasts for approximately an hour and I visited this Skyspace at sunset. The place is an oasis of tranquility with sounds of street life during a Friday night and church bells playing on the background: the interior of the Skyspace echoes sounds made by visitors or catches and amplifies birdsong, wind or the buzz from the street. Some people visiting that evening felt so calm inside the Skyscape that they even fell asleep.57 First the lights projected onto the wall changed subtly in color. Later on the color transitions became more obvious and fresh; brighter colors were introduced. To me, the color yellow, for example, seemed, to ‘bend’ the ceiling downward: it was not ‘flat’ anymore but three-dimensional. The skylight, seen through the oculus, gradually changed in color because of the nightfall. But it also seemed to be influenced by the transitioning colors projected on the wall. The sky itself appeared in all kinds of colors, which implies that our eyes adjust to the light sequences and our perception is fooled (Image 15). If you stare long enough at the oculus, the sky and its light become almost tangible. The only moving objects in the sky were an airplane or a flock of birds passing by, which pulls one right back into reality, out of mystification. These external elements, such as when rain falls through the opening, are out of Turrell’s artistic control, but are still part of the artwork and experience. The sheer luminosity of the color spectrum that occupies the sharp-edged circular opening dominates the experience of being inside the structure. The apparent thickness of this concentrated light transforms our perception, by way of isolating the senses with which we see: our eyesight. All we do as spectators is look at the skylight that is situated outside the construction, but it is re-contextualized so that it becomes the focus of attention, instead of merely acting as the medium with which we normally perceive everything else in the world around us.58 In directing our focused attention on the light of the sky, Turrell fosters an unfolding apprehension of those light effects that are “normally encrypted in the perceptual noise of the day-to-day and lost in the general disregard”.59 Isolated as such, as an integral element of everyday experience, Turrell makes “visible light visible”. He detaches light from the general ambient array and making it part of our aesthetic experience. In this case the artificial as well as the natural skylight are fundamental parameters for the 56 Hay 2001. 57 Personal observations of The Color Inside. A Skyspace by James Turrell. <http://turrell.utexas.edu>. 58 Edensor 2015: 140-141. 59 Adcock 1990: 206.
aesthetic appreciation and experience of the artwork, in this spatial setting created by Turrell.60 In addition to this, the light in the rooms continually shifts according to the angle of the sun, the time of the day, the season, and the prevailing weather conditions. Accordingly, Georges Didi-Huberman, French art historian and philosopher, describes this phenomenon: “The sky is no longer the neutral background of things to be seen, but the active field of an unforeseeable visual experience (…). The sky is no longer vaguely “around” or “above” us, but exactly there, on top of us and against us, present because it is changing, obliging us to inhabit it, if not to rise up to meet it.”61 The sky is transformed to appear matter-of-fact and close by, which challenges us to focus more profoundly on the sky’s qualities. We are in awe and puzzled at the same time. What is so uncommon is that inside the Skyspace, the sky is our focus of attention while being nothing else than part of the general visual plane. ‘Landscape’, in this case, thus constitutes merely the sensibilities with which we see, rather than a static pictorialism. The light and sky, as shown by Turrell in the series Skyspaces, are made part of a unique aesthetic experience.62 Roden Crater Turrell’s ultimate life achievement, on which he has been working on since 1979, can be considered an enlargement of a Skyspace, but with use of artificial light. His professional career has been centered on the effort to turn an extinct volcano on the western edge of the Painted Desert, in Northern Arizona, into a naked-eye observatory. It is meant for observing celestial and cosmic events and phenomena with natural light stemming from the sun, the moon, and the stars: Roden Crater (Image 16). For example, the design of these spaces is aimed at the viewer experiencing the slightest movement of the North Star, the light from Jupiter, and camera obscura projections of the clouds, the moon and stars. In the crater he has built nine underground chambers and one huge outdoor space (the crater’s bowl) “to capture and apprehend light” – and also to demonstrate how we diverge and re-form our perceptions of the visible world.63 The difference between the night-sky viewing at Roden Crater and any other Skyspace is that there is no man-made interference. In 1997, Turrell persuaded the authorities of Coconino County to pass a "dark sky" ordinance, ruling out any upward-directed lighting, commercial or domestic, within thirty-five miles of Roden Crater. Also, the Roden Crater itself is a modest creation, showing very little interference with its natural surroundings. Turrell: “It's a powerful geological form. […] I wanted to keep the strength and beauty of that form. This is different from the land art of Smithson and the other Land artists. They strive for a man-made creation in the landscape. Of course, Roden Crater is that 60 Ibidem: 208. 61 Edensor 2015: 142. Quoted in: Didi-Huberman, Georges. “The fable of the place”. In J. Turrell, P. Noever, and D. Birnbaum (ed.). James Turrell: The other horizon. New York: HatjeKantz, 2001, p. 51. 62 Ibidem: 144. 63 Saito 2011: 507.
– now, you do feel that. But I don't want it not to be a volcano. I don't want to take that away.”64 What Turrell was really aiming at is the assimilation of art and nature. At the volcano’s center are four massive limestone platforms that surround the opening to the Crater's Eye. The position of the limestone is such that you must lie down on one of these on your back, so, that the platform inclines such that your head is lower than your feet. The experience is the perceptual phenomenon called celestial vaulting. As in case of other sky oriented installations by Turrell, he invites the viewer to look at the sky and its natural light: aiming at aesthetically and mystical appreciation of the natural phenomena. We can feel a similar sensation by standing in an open field, but at a certain distance above the ground and from the position of celestial vaulting it becomes much more intense. According to Turrell, it has something to do with our yearning for "closure" – for closed sets, finite dimensions, a human scale. What he was looking for when he discovered Roden Crater, back in 1974, was a place to make the experience of celestial vaulting available to all of us. Turrell is not interested in giving people his personal interpretation of natural events – he wants us to experience them firsthand. “My art,” he says, “is about your seeing.”65 Hemels Gewelf Turrell has created a celestial vault on smaller scale in Kijkduin, near The Hague in The Netherlands. Hemels Gewelf (1996) (Image 17) is a specific example. For its realization the artist was inspired by a publication by a famous natural scientist, Marcel Minnaert (1893-1970), and the artwork is expressing the same idea as at the Roden Crater. Visitors of the artwork are supposed to lie down in an unusual position, the head tilt backward lower than the rest of the body, and look at and experience the arching sky. The ‘doming of the sky’ is an effect that was described by the Belgian-Dutch astronomer Marcel Minnaert in his book De natuurkunde van ’t vrije veld (Physics of the Open Space) published in 1937. Minnaert discusses everyday, natural phenomena: he shows how rays of light reverberate and he describes how the moon looks bigger when we tilt backward in a rocking chair. The astronomer believes that many of these kinds of observations are psychological phenomena, which obey the laws of nature. The doming of the sky is such a psychological phenomenon. We look at the everyday reality that we create ourselves.66 Minnaert poses that when we are outside looking at the sky, in general we are not aware that there exists an infinite orbit space above us. We also do not realize that there is a half Arcadian arch stretched above the earth (Image 18). It looks more like a vault, “of which the height above our head is much lower than the distance from us to the horizon”.67 This apparent flattening of the celestial vault depends, according to Minnaert, on various circumstances: “it increases if the sky is cloudy and at dusk, it decreases with a dark starry 64 The Color Inside. A Skyspace by James Turrell. <http://turrell.utexas.edu>. 65 Ibidem. 66 Smallenburg 2015: 109-110. 67 Minnaert 1937: 146.
sky.” 68 But according to Turrell the flattening of the vault is not only dependent on external circumstances, but also individual differences between observers. “Observation is a culturally determined prejudice. In Japan the space is perceived differently than in Australia. Japanese live in a landscape on a different scale, they are used to smaller enclosed spaces. In Australia the space is overwhelming.”69 Further, the form of the celestial vault is related to the viewing direction of our eyes. We are better set to view right in front of us than when leaning our heads backwards and looking upwards, and this aspect influences the ability to estimate distances and dimensions. Image 19 illustrates that one’s downwardly directed and forwardly directed view, in relation to body position, are approximately equal. At the same time, the view pointed upwards makes the objects seem compressed. The more the viewer points one’s head backward the more the bulging of the sky increases.70 Hence, Turrell, who was fascinated by Minnaert’s publication Licht en kleur in het landschap (Light and Colour in the Landscape), invites visitors of his celestial vault to bend backwards; in that position the viewing experience of the sky and its natural light is best and ensures our aesthetic experience. Again, Turrell goes beyond the viewer’s visual aesthetical experience: he activates the viewer’s perception ability about what is real and what is not.71
3. Discourse on aesthetics of art and nature
In this chapter I introduce the ongoing debate in philosophy on the difference in the aesthetics of nature and of art, and I juxtapose two different theoretical approaches. Three components are mentioned in relation to each other: aesthetics, art and nature. A range of theories have been offered that aim to provide more appropriate ways of understanding the aesthetic response to nature. These are often characterized as taking either a ‘cognitive’ or a ‘non-cognitive’ approach. Parallel to this are debates about the role of knowledge in our interpretation of art. Cognitive approaches suggest that other contextual knowledge such as ecology, geology or meteorology can replace the knowledge of art to guide and enrich our aesthetic response to nature. The following idea also develops from the cognitive approach: the aesthetic experience of nature under the guidance of scientists and naturalists will, furthermore, be ecologically sensitive. This entails that through the aesthetic appreciation of nature we will also become aware of its ecological value, value that must be invoked in justifying the preservation of nature.72 Non-cognitive approaches emphasize the role that immediate perceptual experience plays, along with imagination and other non-scientific narrative contexts such as a myth or memory. This characterization is a brief sketch meant to 68 Ibidem. 69 Willems 1996: 77. 70 Ibidem: 154. 71 Smallenburg 2015: 110. 72 Saiko 1984: 35.introduce two major contributors who represent these approaches: Allen Carlson and Arnold Berleant. It is important to note that to view the debate in terms of a strict dualism between objectivity and subjectivity, between thinking and feeling, would be to oversimplify the positions. Knowledge is a feature in both theoretical approaches. However, each of them presents different phases on the role and necessity of scientific knowledge in aesthetic experience.73 The two theorists do not focus specifically on light in their discussion on appreciating art and nature. Still, they are applicable and relevant to understand Turrell’s light art. Namely, in Turrell’s work emphasis is given to the experience evoked and in that experience there is a tension between nature and art: the natural and artificial both seem to play an important role. Thus, I seek affiliation between this philosophical debate on art, on the one hand, and nature on the other. I address the question: What are the differences in theoretical approaches in terms of aesthetics of arts and of nature in the ongoing debate, in particular as expressed by Arnold Berleant and Allen Carlson? A theoretical framework is presented that facilitates understanding the relation between nature and art aesthetics and will later be applied to the artworks of Turrell.
3.1. Contemporary debate on appreciating art and nature There exists an ambiguity in the possibility of obtaining aesthetic satisfaction from both works of art and from nature. The usual course is to recognize that aesthetic value exists in both domains but, for historical and philosophical reasons, the kind of appreciation is sometimes considered differently. The question arises whether there is one aesthetic or two, a single aesthetic that encompasses both art and nature, or one that is distinctively artistic that identifies the appreciation of natural beauty. And another question arises as to whether there are parallels in the debates in the discourse of art and the debates within environmental aesthetics. This provokes some central concerns like the nature of art, the identifying features of aesthetic appreciation, and the larger connections of the theory of appreciation with other philosophical issues.74 The ideas posed by John Fisher, professor in philosophy at the University of Colorado with an interest in environmental aesthetics, suggest a more broad perspective on the appreciation of nature and art, namely, that nature should be appreciated with the same assumptions as we appreciate art. The beauty of nature adds prominently to why we value nature. If we believe that we ought to respect nature, part of respecting nature appropriately is aesthetically valuing it. Aesthetics is therefore important for the protection of nature and illuminates nature and our relation to it.75 In this section I present two points: the appreciation of nature and of ‘nature art’. This elaboration provides a basis for 73 Clark 2010: 355. 74 Berleant 2004: 76. 75 Fisher, John. ‘Ned. Natural Beauty and Env. Value/Philosophy: An Introduction to Environmental Aesthetics’. January 31, 2016. <http://hettingern.people.cofc.edu/Natural_Beauty/Ch_1_Why_Env_Aes.htm>.
examining the more ‘radical’ theories on aesthetics of nature and art posed by Berleant and Carlson. Environmentalist thinking Fisher states that over the last third of the twentieth century, there has developed a concern about the natural environment and he has even reintroduced nature as a significant topic in aesthetics. Environmentalist thinking has posed questions about how we conceptualize our aesthetic interactions with nature, the aesthetic value of nature, and the status of art about nature. The environmental roots began in the romantic era: nature was represented by poets and painters as comprising landscapes in their own wild beauty and valuable objects in their smallest natural detail. The Darwinian revolution also played a role in this changing perspective of ecological thinking; namely the notion that elements of nature are thoroughly interdependent. This interrelation of natural elements shows that nature is regarded not as an adversary or resource to be subdued and exploited, but as something with an autonomous and worthy existence in itself. Wilderness is regarded as something aesthetically admirable.76 Or more specifically, nowadays, environmental works of art are works that are in or on the land in such a way that a part of nature constitutes a part of the relevant aesthetic object. In this manner, the site itself becomes an aspect of the work.77 In the twentieth century, the practice of aesthetics persistently ignored nature in favor of the theories based on the arts. However, environmental thinking has begun to relate the aesthetic concepts, drawn from the arts, to nature and everyday life. Fisher argues that there is more disagreement about the aesthetic quality of artworks than about ascribing positive aesthetic qualities, such as beauty or grandeur, to individual objects (certain animals) and to places in nature. What is accepted about artworks is that they have value, an intrinsic value. Environmentalist thinking impacts aesthetics in the thought that nature should be treated in the same way. Just as we accept an obligation to preserve beautiful artworks, we have obligations to preserve aesthetically valuable areas of nature. That is why, according to Fisher, the same sort of critical discourse that applies to arts appropriately applies to nature; the same patterns that lead us to conclude artworks have high aesthetic quality can be applied to parts of nature.78 Furthermore, Fisher states that “preservationist reasoning implies that the aesthetic value of undeveloped or wild nature is superior to that of developed nature.”79 An artificial lake, for example, will not possess the aesthetic value of the canyons that were flooded to make it. This implies that it is unlikely that mere formal features, such as shapes and colors, will fully account for the aesthetic value of nature. What then, poses Fisher, needs to be added to these formal properties and where and how do we draw the line between nature 76 Fisher 2005: 667-668. 77 Lintott 2007: 269 78 Fisher 2005: 669. 79 Ibidem: 669.
and artifact? We are led to ascribe different properties to the object: it is aesthetically important to perceive an object under the category to which it belongs, as either an artifact or the product of natural forces, just as it is aesthetically important to perceive an artwork in its true art historical category. The most important question environmentalists pose is whether nature can be appropriately appreciated with the same methods and assumptions with which we appreciate art. Fisher states that the model of appreciation at the heart of standard art aesthetics constitutes an interpretive judgment of a demarcated object based on a conventionally circumscribed perception of it. General actions can be considered aesthetic when they, first of all, are responses to objects and situations and, secondly, when the response is founded upon an aesthetic perception of the situation.80 Nature art Fisher presents ‘Nature Art’, which is closely related to the artworks by Turrell, as art that is about nature. Nature Art are representations of nature in any art medium that has nature as its main subject. These types of artworks show the appreciation of nature, but can they exhibit the aesthetic qualities of the nature represented? To appreciate nature, we must regard nature as environment and as natural, but not as art. This means that we cannot, as with an object, remove objects from their respective environments. If we do so, we change their aesthetic qualities. Especially Land Art can be observed in relation to aesthetic and ethical qualities. It is the nature of the relationship between art and nature in Land Art that distinguishes it from other art. The interaction between the aspects of art and nature is part of the aesthetics of these works. Art can become a resource that mediates between the ecologist and the industrialist. Art can help to provide the needed dialectic between ecology and industry. Robert Smithson, land artist, reiterates his conviction that art, Land Art, can help expose the world as it is: “The artist, ecologist, and industrialist must develop in relation to each other, rather than continue to work and produce in isolation […]. Yet, art, ecology, and industry as they exist today are for the most part abstracted from the physical realities of specific landscapes or sites […]. The artist must come out of the isolation of galleries and museums and provide a concrete consciousness for the present as it really exists, and not simply present abstractions or utopias.”81 Earthworks and Land Art are not justified in traditional manners; they are able to urge us to question commonly accepted justifications for human intrusions in the land. However, there are some cases of Land Art where the artist violates nature for construction of an earthwork. Purely for the sake of one’s artwork the artist deconstructs nature: the artwork is more important than the nature exploited in the process of creation. Ethical 80 Ibidem: 672. 81 Quoted in: Flam, J. (ed.) ‘Untitled’ (1971), Robert Smithson: The collected writings, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1996, p. 376.
evaluation is therefore of importance in Land Art: focusing on the means, the message, and the ends of art.82 Concerning the ideas by Fisher, in my opinion, the Land Art works by Turrell respect nature as nature and therefore can be regarded as aesthetically adequate to nature, reflecting nature’s actual aesthetic qualities. But, the question remains why the aesthetic interest in nature can be recognized only if it is first framed as art. Environmental art explores our ideas about nature and our changing relations with it. Such art leads the viewer to notice aspects of nature that had escaped his or her attention. These artworks can raise questions about how we can interact with nature aesthetically while at the same time respecting nature for what it is.83 Nature is obdurate and will not disappear. Our sense of environment is understood differently through cultures and times. For these reasons, it is difficult to find an aesthetic theory for all our experiences of nature. The previously stated points are notions central in the discussion on how to aesthetically appreciate nature and art and will be elaborated in the following sections. 3.2. Arnold Berleant: One aesthetic theory Aesthetic experience: Berleant compared to Kant Now, having provided a general introduction to aesthetics in relation to art and nature, I will elaborate on the theory of appreciating art and nature by Arnold Berleant. Also I will compare Kant’s ideas in relation to Berleant. ‘Non-cognitive’ approaches to the aesthetic appreciation of natural environments tend to emphasize the immediacy of perception in aesthetic responses, and the fullness of our participation in experience. As part of this approach Berleant’s ‘aesthetics of engagement’ is characterized by an embodied, phenomenological approach to experience. In his aesthetics of engagement the appreciator is actively involved in generating the aesthetic experience: the environment of the art object is being experienced.84 Arnold Berleant, American professor of philosophy and leading figure in the field of environmental aesthetics, investigates whether there is one aesthetic theory or two: an aesthetic theory that encompasses both art and nature or an aesthetic theory that is distinctively artistic and one that distinctively identifies the appreciation of natural beauty. He suggests a move towards a naturalizing of aesthetics. An aesthetic judgment is not grounded on knowledge and therefore not a rational idea. Aesthetic judgment is based on feeling. A universal aesthetic theory, according to Berleant, should acknowledge the differences and diversity of individual experiences and divergent cultural factors.85 82 Ibidem: 271-273. 83 Fisher 2005: 673-676. 84 Clark 2010: 356. 85 Berleant 2004: 230-234.
