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- Title
Park Aesthetics Between Wilderness Representations and Everyday Affordances.
- Authors
Lobo, Tea
- Abstract
Scholars criticize privileging aesthetics over social and ecological considerations in park design. I argue that the real culprit is not aesthetics, but aestheticism. Aestheticism treats aesthetic objects as if they were ontologically distinct from everyday objects. Aestheticism in park design—treating parks like artworks to be admired like paintings—dovetails into treating parks like representations of a romanticized wilderness: of pristine, untouched landscapes. I argue that aestheticism is a means of constructing an ontological distinction between the beholder and the beheld, for landscapes are not truly pristine if they are sullied by human presence. As an alternative, and while drawing on the works of John Dewey and Yuriko Saito, I argue for a continuity between everyday objects and aesthetic objects. I also draw attention to the question of whose every day is privileged and propose to introduce Wittgenstein's concept of multi-aspectivity in the analysis of everyday affordances.
- Subjects
SCHOLARS; PARK design; AESTHETIC movement (Art); WORKS of art in art; DEWEY, John
- Publication
British Journal of Aesthetics, 2023, Vol 63, Issue 3, p369
- ISSN
0007-0904
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1093/aesthj/ayac063