The wonderful and the ugly in nature

We compare nature with public ideals not as directly as the appearance and behavior of man, but also in the world of natural phenomena, beauty is nothing but the correspondence of the real with the ideal. So all attempts to discover the "secret" of the beauty of nature in its physical, mathematical or biological laws have been fruitless. From a naturalistic point of view, there is absolutely no difference between those animals and plants that we think are ugly, and those we find wonderful. Aesthetically, nature is valued by man, and it seems to him to be wonderful in nature that which corresponds to his ideals, but to what is contrary to them.

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The comparison of the real and the ideal in the beauty of nature is magnificently illustrated by the whole history of the world art. For example, primitive art does not know the images of nature. His chief and rare exception, the only hero is the animal. The primitive artist, with striking insistence, depicts debris and buffaloes on the rocks, but his beasts "live" in the empty space, in emptiness. In these images there is no hint of land, sky, water, grass and trees, even though the ancient artist has seen all these objects. But one thing is to see and to perceive aesthetically. All of these items were completely real to him, but they were not wonderful because they did not play an essential role in the life of the primitive hunter. Because of this, they did not fit into the ideal that formed in public consciousness. At that time, the "good life" of the tribe depended on whether hunters would be able to find, catch up and kill the beast, and stock up with food and fur for clothing. It is no wonder that the aesthetic emphasis of animals is determined by their connection to this ideal of "good life".

When the transition from hunting to farming later put people's lives in line with natural forces, people "discovered" the beauty of the earth and the sky, the sun and the rain. The glorification of the various natural phenomena and forces that arises at that time clearly enough shows how nature has been integrated into the public ideals of the people. Not only did the religions not interfere, but perhaps even favored the development of the aesthetic attitude of people towards nature, and the art of those ages was increasingly decisive and wider to portray the objects and phenomena of the world. Even the architectural forms and ornamentation contained motifs of the plant and animal kingdom: the columns of the ancient Egyptian temples were conceived as bundles of papyrus, and for the ornaments of the fabrics, vases, and the walls of the buildings were used the forms of the lotus flower and other plants. But when the pagan religions of the ancient world are replaced by Christianity, the aesthetic attitude towards nature is changing sharply. In medieval painting we will find only conditional schematic as if imposed by the need to mark the place of action images of trees, rivers and mountains. This is explained precisely by the fact that the Christian notions of the heavenly paradise created a disdainful attitude towards the earthly world, and along with that to human sensibilities. The ability of man to enjoy earthly beauty was condemned by Augustine the Blessed as "wicked temptation." And although for church fathers it was quite difficult to reconcile this attitude to nature with another cardinal thesis of theology - with the statement that nature was created by God and therefore can not be disgraceful but must be wonderful - yet Christianity cultivated in people a disgust for everything on earth, and therefore paralyzed the possibility of seeing beauty in nature, enjoying her enjoyment and singing in art.

The new aesthetic attitude to nature, which was formed in the Renaissance era, is an expression of the new social ideal. Mystical faith in the afterlife blossom changes from the belief that one should seek his happiness on the earth, not on the sky. Therefore, the most essential aspect of the ideal is the pursuit of the unity of man with nature, the pursuit of knowledge of nature and the enjoyment of it, because it is wonderful, as is the most perfect creation of nature - the man. Naturally, the Renaissance artists not only start to portray nature with unprecedented realistic details, love and insight, but also bring the image of nature to almost every work, even when the plot does not impose this: a picture of nature is also included in the portrait; in the scene where the action takes place in the interior, but nature still enters the picture through the specially open as if for that purpose windows Nowadays, with this constant distortion of the image of nature, as if it is no longer beautiful enough, does not fit our ideal. Maybe we're destroying it because we've lost the aesthetic pleasure of contemplation somewhere in time, and we just want to own it ...