Western art gardens have enjoyed a chequered relationship with philosophical aesthetics. At different times, they have been both lauded and rejected as exemplars of art, and, for most of the last 150 or so years, they have been largely ignored. However, during the last 25 years, there has been a welcome resurgence of philosophical interest in such gardens. This study situates the work stemming from this revival of interest in its historical context and assesses its adequacy in accounting (...) for gardens in accordance with a range of pan-art criteria. The study argues that contemporary philosophical accounts of gardens are inadequate in some important ways, particularly with respect to gardens’ temporality, ontology, and arthood, and the ways in which gardens are experienced. In response to the arguments of Amie Thomasson, Dominic McIver Lopes, and some other contemporary philosophers, which advocate philosophical accounts of individual arts rather than pan-art accounts, the study develops a partial, new account of gardens that aims to remedy the perceived inadequacies in existing accounts. The new account claims that gardens are singular, not multiple, artworks and that they have an identity not unlike that possessed by humans and other animals; that, metaphorically speaking, our garden experiences may be helpfully illuminated by the application of theories developed in the context of contemporary, improvisatory dance; and that the “ordinariness” of many of gardens materials may be better understood in terms of Arthur Danto’s claim that esse est interpretari, that is, that meaning and value derive from the interpretative process. The new account also proposes personhood as a potentially useful heuristic for understanding how gardens are experienced and understood. The concept of “garden,” and the related constitutive garden aspects, features, and issues are established at the opening of the study with reference to an actual garden. Thereafter, the sources on which the study draws, and which it critiques, are all archival. They include recent philosophical monographs by Mara Miller (The Garden as Art), Stephanie Ross (What Gardens Mean), and David Cooper (A Philosophy of Gardens), and a range of historical and other contemporary monographs and papers written by philosophers, garden historians, and landscape architects and theorists. (shrink)

The standing screens on the title is the oldest work extant of KANO Motonobu's work as folding screens of thick colored flowers and birds with golden background. This thesis designates that the scenery and the motif of the work are in correspondence with both descriptions of the scenery of Pure Land in several Buddhist scriptures and the design of actual gardens. Firstly, a peacock on the right hand screen is focused to indicate the bird connotes the elements of auspicious (...) birds in Buddhism, such as Mahamayuri and Kalavinka.Secondly, the elements of the scenery in the work, such as the four seasons at the same time ∼ the depiction of perpetuity ∼ and the existence of a pond, are identified with the description of Pure Land in Kwan-mu-liang-shou-ching and Ta-wuliang-shou-ching. These elements of the garden in the work are placed similarly to the Pure Land style gardens, which are illustrated in "Center and Surrounds of Kyoto" 's. In consideration of the above factors, the conclusion that, in the work, KANO Motonobu succeeded to portray the ideal garden by combining the scenery of Pure Land and that of actual gardens, is drawn. (shrink)

The paper addresses the question of why there is no treatise on Japanese gardens in Arthur Schopenhauer's system. First, it is explained that the system philosophy of the 18th and 19th centuries aimed at completeness in conceptual representation. Schopenhauer therefore treats the national characteristics of the garden arts in Europe and Asia, among many other arts, and conceptually determines their similarities and differences. Due to the isolation of Japan, however, Schopenhauer had no knowledge of Japanese gardens. The last (...) part of the paper argues that Japanese gardens would have fitted well into Schopenhauer's system, as the Rock Garden, Pond Garden, Moss Garden etc. correspond well with the ideas that ground Schopenhauer's aesthetics. ###Extended and translated version of the paper "Der japanische Garten im System Schopenhauers" (2021).###. (shrink)

Anthony Daniels tackles the complex relation between good and bad art on the one hand and good and bad ideas on the other. He contrasts authors or artists whom he considers good with those he considers bad, and tries to explain why his opinion is not merely a matter of individual taste but is based upon reason as well. He argues judgment and discrimination (between good and bad, beautiful and ugly) are intrinsic to any conceivable human existence, indeed to thought (...) itself, and that the pretense that they are avoidable, that one can indefinitely suspend judgment, are merely a means by which bad or false judgments are smuggled into public life. (shrink)

A Japanese garden is an artistically shaped piece of the environment as well as a representation of nature. In the aesthetic experience of Japanese gardens it is possible to conceive of the relation between nature and art in a way different from anything accessible within the horizon of European aesthetics alone. In a Japanese garden the artificially shaped nature does not suffer a loss of its proper quality of naturalness, but seems to be even more natural according to the (...) criteria underlying the aesthetic appreciation of the beauty of nature itself. These gardens demonstrate human labor as something which does not necessarily collide with natural beauty. Here, a work of art can be experienced as bemg potentially reconciled with the very idea of nature in its most beautiful state of self-realization. (shrink)

Gardens provoke thought and engagement in ways that are often overlooked. This book shines new light on long-held assumptions about gardens and proposes novel ways in which we might reconsider them. The author challenges traditional views of how we experience gardens, how we might think of gardens as works of art, and how the everyday materials of gardens – plants, light, water, earth – may become artful. -/- The author provides a detailed analysis of Tupare, (...) a garden in New Zealand, and uses it as source material for his analysis of the philosophical issues art gardens raise. His new account of gardens highlights the polymodal, multi-sensual, and improvisatory character of the garden experience, it offers an ontological comparison between gardens and humans and other animals, and it explains how identical plants, and arrangements of plants, may be mundane when encountered beyond the garden but artful, meaningful, and aesthetically valuable when experienced within it. (shrink)

This handsomely produced volume contains 22 contributions from international scholars, which were originally presented at the 2000 Conference of the International Society for Phenomenology, Fine Arts, & Aesthetics. The papers center around the theme of gardens and include a wide range of topics of interest to phenomenologists but also, perhaps, to gardeners with a philosophical bent. A sampling of topics: Leonardo's Annunciation Hortus Conclusus and its reflexive intent; hatha yoga--a phenomenological experience of nature; the Chinese attempt to miniaturize the (...) world in gardens; conflating and compressing time in commodified space and architecture; constructing the deconstructive landscape (the ruin aesthetic); and a phenomenological-anthropological aproach to Zen gardens. The volume is lightly indexed by name (mostly philosophers). Annotation (c)2003 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com). (shrink)

The remarkable growth in interest in aesthetic gardens in the late Ming period has been recognized in Chinese garden culture studies. The materialist historical approach contributes to revealing the importance of gardens’ economic functions in the shift of garden culture, but is inadequate in explaining the successive burgeoning of small plain gardens in the 17th century. This article integrates the aesthetic and materialist perspectives and situates the cultural transition in the concrete social and cultural context in the (...) late Ming period. Beginning with describing a taste change and an expansion in the number of gardens, this article focuses on the small plain garden phenomenon by exploring the unique role that the arts (e.g., poetry and painting) played. A series of artistic criteria were established in the late Ming period. The application of these aesthetic rules to gardens enabled more people to own gardens. This is process that economic requirements for owning gardens were lowered, giving way to the aesthetic appreciation and exploration of literati individuals’ artistic talents. Gardens thus became more widely accessible and provided enhanced pleasure to the middle and lower class families. The conclusion is that the ‘major shift’ in garden culture was closely associated with the change of garden owners’ aesthetic tastes, in addition to the economic conditions in the Jiangnan area. In the increased popularity of gardens, the arts played a significant role. (shrink)

In this book Miller challenges contemporary aesthetic theory to include gardens in an expanded definition of art.

In the final sessions of the first year of his seminar on The Beast & the Sovereign, Jacques Derrida takes up the question of modernity as the epoch of biopolitics. In a remarkable close reading, he critiques Michel Foucault’s and Giorgio Agamben’s reflections on the threshold of biopolitical modernity, both in terms of conceptual content and, especially in the latter’s case, style. He takes as a prominent example the revolutionary transformation from princely menagerie to public zoological garden, as well as (...) Carl Hagenbeck’s subsequent “revolution” in zoo design, which inaugurate, he suggests, not a new biopolitical apparatus of power/ knowledge, but only a different form of the same fundamental structure of .. (shrink)

This study is an examination of gardens from the perspective of philosophy of art. Since gardens combine natural and constructed elements, utilize both existing and newly created environments, and engage visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory and kinesthetic senses, they provide an opportunity to explore the concept of art and to test the boundaries, usefulness, and general validity of the concept of art. ;In many cultures, gardens are works of art on a par with painting, architecture, and poetry. Twentieth-century (...) Western philosophies of art, however, ignore gardens completely. This study locates the reasons for this dismissal in theoretically generated preferences for arts which are unique and permanent, with a single final form, and under the control of one artist. Since gardens change constantly and involve interaction with nature rather than the simple assertion of the artist's control, they prove awkward for such theories. Moreover, since they are environments, gardens do not function as aesthetic objects, and violate the Kantian principle of aesthetic disinterest. This work considers several versions of disinterest with reference to gardens and other arts, and concludes that disinterest is neither specific to art nor adequate to its power to affect thought, feeling and action. In this light it is the theory which is inadequate to the full range of arts, including gardens. ;Relying on Cassirer's theory of symbolic forms and Langer's notions of significant form and semblance, the study turns to the question of the garden as "great art," that is, art with "significant human content." As vehicles for structuring thought, art in general and gardens in particular differ from language in important ways, and thus bear unique capacities for signification. In one case study, Renaissance knot gardens are shown to have had an important role in the clarification and dissemination of the newly-emerging scientific conception of space. (shrink)

My focus in this article is on a small group of German theorists, designers and patrons who thought extensively about the relationship between national identity and garden design: Christian Hirschfeld, Prince Franz von Anhalt-Dessau and his wife Luise, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and Prince Pückler. These garden enthusiasts knew one another through personal contact or their writings, and they responded to and developed their ideas in relation to the newly framed creative enterprise in German lands of “garden-landscape-art”. What they shared (...) was a conviction that garden forms affect feelings, with the role of the garden artist to determine paths that would alter and diversify the visitor’s experience of place. This essay explores how spontaneous emotions, elicited by movement through the garden, were linked with a growing sense of patriotism that contrasted with cosmopolitan judgments in the writings of Hirschfeld, Pückler, and Goethe. (shrink)

The Japanese dry landscape garden has long attracted—and long baffled—viewers from the West. While museums across the United States are replicating these "Zen rock gardens" in their courtyards and miniature versions of the gardens are now office decorations, they remain enigmatic, their philosophical and aesthetic significance obscured. _Reading Zen in the Rocks_, the classic essay on the _karesansui_ garden by French art historian François Berthier, has now been translated by Graham Parkes, giving English-speaking readers a concise, thorough, and (...) beautifully illustrated history of these gardens. Berthier's guided tour of the famous garden of Ryoanji in Kyoto leads him into an exposition of the genre, focusing on its Chinese antecedents and affiliations with Taoist ideas and Chinese landscape painting. He traces the roles of Shinto and Zen Buddhism in the evolution of the garden and also considers how manual laborers from the lowest classes in Japan had a hand in creating some of its highest examples. Parkes contributes an equally original and substantive essay which delves into the philosophical importance of rocks and their "language of stone," delineating the difference between Chinese and Japanese rock gardens and their relationship to Buddhism. Together, the two essays compose one of the most comprehensive and elegantly written studies of this haunting garden form. _Reading Zen in the Rocks_ is fully illustrated with photographs of all the major gardens discussed, making it a handsome addition to the library of anyone interested in gardening, Eastern philosophy, and the combination of the two that the _karesansui_ so superbly represents. Praise for the French edition: "A small book of rare depth, remarkably illustrated, on one of the most celebrated and beautiful rock gardens of the monasteries of Kyoto."—_L'Humanité_ "Through _Le Jardin de Ryoanji_, Berthier teaches us to read the zen in the rocks, to discover the language offered by the garden at Ryoanji. Enigmatic, poetic, and disconcerting, an enriching journey through a work of art of surprising modernity, _Le Jardin de Ryoanji_ is a work that will interest all the amateurs of Japanese art and Eastern philosophy."—_Lien Horticole_. (shrink)

Walker's essays and articles written between 1966 and 1982 discuss the concept and influence of art and the artist's life, criticisms of authors such as Jean Toomer and Zora Neale Hurston, studies in the civil rights movement and feminist movement, and her own ideas while writing her book "The Color Purple.".

Creating and caring for a garden is a long-term project whose success requires commitment and devotion and love and proper performance of a range of activities that involve virtues and sensibilities like attentiveness, carefulness, humility, imaginativeness, and sensitivity to the natures and needs of plants and animals. In this chapter, I elaborate this conception of gardens and explore its relationship to artistic activities, like composing poetry or performing music. My focus are Confucianism and Daosim and their accounts of the (...) relationships between cultured practices, ethics and the arts, and garden-practices. (shrink)

The Japanese dry landscape garden has long attracted—and long baffled—viewers from the West. While museums across the United States are replicating these "Zen rock gardens" in their courtyards and miniature versions of the gardens are now office decorations, they remain enigmatic, their philosophical and aesthetic significance obscured. _Reading Zen in the Rocks_, the classic essay on the _karesansui_ garden by French art historian François Berthier, has now been translated by Graham Parkes, giving English-speaking readers a concise, thorough, and (...) beautifully illustrated history of these gardens. Berthier's guided tour of the famous garden of Ryoanji in Kyoto leads him into an exposition of the genre, focusing on its Chinese antecedents and affiliations with Taoist ideas and Chinese landscape painting. He traces the roles of Shinto and Zen Buddhism in the evolution of the garden and also considers how manual laborers from the lowest classes in Japan had a hand in creating some of its highest examples. Parkes contributes an equally original and substantive essay which delves into the philosophical importance of rocks and their "language of stone," delineating the difference between Chinese and Japanese rock gardens and their relationship to Buddhism. Together, the two essays compose one of the most comprehensive and elegantly written studies of this haunting garden form. _Reading Zen in the Rocks_ is fully illustrated with photographs of all the major gardens discussed, making it a handsome addition to the library of anyone interested in gardening, Eastern philosophy, and the combination of the two that the _karesansui_ so superbly represents. Praise for the French edition: "A small book of rare depth, remarkably illustrated, on one of the most celebrated and beautiful rock gardens of the monasteries of Kyoto."—_L'Humanité_ "Through _Le Jardin de Ryoanji_, Berthier teaches us to read the zen in the rocks, to discover the language offered by the garden at Ryoanji. Enigmatic, poetic, and disconcerting, an enriching journey through a work of art of surprising modernity, _Le Jardin de Ryoanji_ is a work that will interest all the amateurs of Japanese art and Eastern philosophy."—_Lien Horticole_. (shrink)

Darwin and the Art of Science will consist of excerpts from six of Darwin's books, chosen and introduced by James Costa. The excerpts will be arranged by plant (rather than according to which book they're from) in order to make the most of extraordinary images provided by the Oak Springs Garden Foundation library. As a group, they will provide unparalleled access to Darwin's fascinating observations and musings about the world of plants and how their distinctive features have evolved.

Philosophy and gardens have been closely connected from the dawn of philosophy, with many drawing on their beauty and peace for philosophical inspiration. Gardens in turn give rise to a broad spectrum of philosophical questions. For the green-fingered thinker, this book reflects on a whole host of fascinating philosophical themes. Gardens and philosophy present a fascinating combination of subjects, historically important, and yet scarcely covered within the realms of philosophy Contributions come from a wide range of authors, (...) ranging from garden writers and gardeners, to those working in architecture, archaeology, archival studies, art history, anthropology, classics and philosophy Essays cover a broad spectrum of topics, ranging from Epicurus and Confucius to the aesthetics and philosophy of Central Park Offers new perspectives on the experience and evaluation of gardens. (shrink)

The paper describes an innovative structured workshop methodology in garden-based-learning called “Nature in Your Face” aimed at provoking a change in citizens behavior and engagement as a consequence of the emotional activation in response to disruptive artistic messages. The methodology challenges the assumption that the change needed to meet the carbon targets can be reached with incremental, non-invasive behavior engineering techniques such as nudging or gamification. Instead, it explores the potential of disruptive communication to push citizens out of their comfort (...) zones and into creative modes of re-creating futures. This is done by confronting us with consequences of consumption by means of art and eco-visualizations. The aim being to achieve awareness, mental flexibility, and spurring debate. Thus, we invite them to react – and act upon these reactions by communicating their feelings or thoughts. This is used as an entrance point for broader and/or deeper engagement in a structured three-step methodology; Framing: A disruptive element is introduced into the local environment. This triggers an emotional reaction, which then is taken up in a process of framing the problem and working with solutions. Twisting: in a guided process, the initial energy from the emotional confrontation is twisted into a creative exploration of innovative solutions, from the perspective of the children. Using: The last stage is using the developed solutions in the local social system. The methodology is being applied in cooperation with a primary school, and is iteratively adjusted and evaluated in a formative, action-research based approach scenario. NiYF is to stimulate societal engagement through deliberately confronting stakeholders with unexpected and potentially upsetting appearances of nature, climate effects, or carbon-neutral lifestyle scenarios. We have verified the practical usefulness and potential of the methodology and found that NiYF triggers societal engagement and transition, negotiating responsibilities and unlocking action potentials. We also found that eco-anxiety, denial, self-efficacy and cognitive dissonance form children’s understanding of plastic. The project marks a paradigm shift from creating knowledge to using knowledge to create action, and a focus on learning from evaluating and adapting the approach in the field. (shrink)

Why do gardens matter so much and mean so much to people? That is the intriguing question to which David Cooper seeks an answer in this book. Given the enthusiasm for gardens in human civilization ancient and modern, Eastern and Western, it is surprising that the question has been so long neglected by modern philosophy. Now at last there is a philosophy of gardens. David Cooper identifies garden appreciation as a special human phenomenon distinct from both from (...) the appreciation of art and the appreciation of nature. He discusses the contribution of gardening and other garden-related pursuits to "the good life." And he distinguishes the many kinds of meanings that gardens may have, from their representation of nature to their spiritual significance. A Philosophy of Gardens will open up this subject to students and scholars of aesthetics, ethics, and cultural and environmental studies, and to anyone with a reflective interest in things horticultural. (shrink)

This paper presents a case study of Gardens and Green Spaces (GGS), a resident-driven, grant-funded project in Cleveland, Ohio working toward community change. Through both placemaking and entrepreneurial strategies, the main grant objectives are to effect change at the intersection of food (and agriculture), arts, and culture in Kinsman, a 96% Black Neighborhood on Cleveland’s east side. While community development (CD) projects are often designed by outside ‘experts’ who inform the scope and focus of grant-funded projects, this project is (...) rooted in the hypothesis that a resident-driven approach to CD will lead to increased community buy-in and participation, resulting in more lasting and substantive community change. GGS works across sectors, integrating arts, culture, and food to promote placemaking and community-based entrepreneurial engagement as a path towards greater health, equity, and economic resilience. This paper argues that community-based and resident-driven development—although not without its own challenges—can result in more holistic community transformation across sectors, with the potential for greater resident participation, sustainability, and equity. The case study presented in this paper, including in-depth interviews and neighborhood surveys, is an examination of the pilot phase of GGS, and argues that both placemaking and entrepreneurialism represent a negotiation between market driven community development and a solely philanthropic model. It provides insight into more equitable and sustainable change that has the potential to shift the traditional paradigm of expert driven, or “outside-in” community development. (shrink)

The classic essay on the "karesansui" garden by French art historian Berthier has now been translated by Graham Parkes, giving English-speaking readers a concise, thorough, and beautifully illustrated history of Zen rock gardens. 37 ...

Eighteenth-century England saw the rise of a "peculiarly English" art form—landscape gardening—and a corresponding change in attitudes toward the antural world. While the French, who lived under tyranny, had a tightly organized, restrictive gardens, the "free" English enjoyed gardens where they were at liberty to wander. John Dixon Hunt examines eighteenth-century letters, literary and critical works, biographies, paintings, prints, and drawings to trace the gradual movement from formal regularity toward a carefully calculated naturalness.

In light of new historical evidence regarding ethnomycologist R. Gordon Wasson’s correspondence with art historian Erwin Panofsky, this article provides an in-depth analysis of the presence of entheogenic mushroom images in Christian art within the context of the controversy between Wasson and philologist John Marco Allegro over the identification of a Garden of Eden fresco in the 12th century Chapel of Plaincourault in France. It reveals a compelling financial motive for Wasson’s refusal to acknowledge that this fresco represents Amanita muscaria, (...) as well as for Wasson’s reluctance to pursue his hypothesis regarding the entheogenic origins of religion into Christian art and artifacts. While Wasson’s view – that the presence of psychoactive mushrooms in the Near and Middle East ended around 1000 BCE – prevailed and stymied research on entheogens in Christianity for decades, a new generation of 21st century researchers has documented growing evidence of A. muscaria and psilocybin-containing mushrooms in Christian art, consistent with ethnobotanist Giorgio Samorini’s typology of mushroom trees. This article presents original photographs, taken during fieldwork at churches and cathedrals throughout Europe and the Middle East, that confirm the presence of entheogenic mushrooms in Christian art: in frescoes, illuminated manuscripts, mosaics, sculptures, and stained glass windows. Based on this iconic evidence, the article proposes a psychedelic gospels theory and addresses critiques of this theory by art historians, ardent advocates, medieval historians, and conservative Catholics. It calls for the establishment of an Interdisciplinary Committee on the Psychedelic Gospels to independently evaluate the growing body of evidence of entheogenic mushrooms in Christian art in order to resolve a controversial question regarding the possible role of entheogens in the history and origins of Christianity. (shrink)

Eden In Iraq is an environmental design and water remediation project in the marshes of southern Iraq using design and wastewater as bio-art, to create a restorative garden for education, cultural memory, and contemplation. Earmarked for a 20,000 m2 site at Al Manar in the marshes between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, near a probable site of the historic Garden of Eden, Eden in Iraq is a project that brings, art, design, and technology together with culture and history. Drawing on (...) Islamic and Mesopotamian traditions originating in this historically and symbolically charged region, the Eden in Iraq Waste Water Garden is designed to be a syncretic container for ecological and cultural restoration and heritage after the time of war. This paper looks at this project from three inter-related activities, namely, treatment of wastewater suitable for growing a large scale garden, design of the garden starting from the Islamic garden design principles and thirdly, reviving the cultural heritage of the pre-Islamic, Mesopotamian art in contemporary forms.Graphic abstract. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Change and the Arts Time and the Arts Time and Change in Gardens Music Makes the Passage of Time Audible Gardens Make the Passage of Time Visible Notes.

This volume explores the deeply interwoven connection of education, art and nature in the context of East Asia. With contributions from authors in South Korea, Japan and Taiwan, the book considers unnoticed but significant themes involved in the interplay of nature, art, and education. It manifests how nature and art can educate, and how education and nature play the role of art. The chapters explore a range of themes relevant to East Asian characteristics, including skill acquisition, Japanese calendar arts and (...) ritual of feelings, garden architecture, the ritualised body, collaborative poetry art, translational language between humans and nature, the Confucian classical Six Arts, the artistic embodiment of the Kyoto School, and the heritage art based education in Korea. The authors examine these themes in novel ways to bring to light the relevance of the East Asian insights to the contemporary global world. This book is an outstanding resource to all researchers, scholars, and students interested in educational aesthetics, philosophy of education, East Asian studies, comparative education and intercultural education. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to suggest that one should think of gardens in terms of performances and not necessarily in terms of architecture, painting, or poetry, for it is possible to show that, strangely enough, gardens seem to share certain features with performance arts. Such an approach seems fruitful since it allows one both to grasp the fact that gardens combine culture and nature and to underline the role of the latter, which cannot be reduced (...) to a sheer medium as is traditionally done. The contention is that gardens should be treated more like a continuous, dynamic, partly planned process in which people can participate in different ways on a par with other non-human ‘actors’. Moreover, the category of performance seems to offer a useful framework helping to solve certain problems inherent in traditional ways of thinking about gardens. (shrink)

In the traditional sense, a work of art creates an illustration of the outside world, or of a certain text or doctrine. Sometimes it is considered that such an illustration is not literal, but is an interpretation of what is visible, or an interpretation of a certain literary or ideological message. It can also be assumed that a work of art creates its own visual world, a separate story or a separate philosophical statement. The Parc de La Villette represents the (...) last of these possibilities: it is a philosophical statement that develops the premises derived from poststructuralist philosophies and the philosophy of deconstruction. The uniqueness of its being status, however, is that it does so not only at the level of the theoretical assumptions, but also through its functioning as an active philosophical work. This means that a park is a happening philosophy. Its activity, however, does not refer only to the present tense, but is also an attempt to penetrate the future, all otherness and impossibility. This kind of activity assumes that the work, in a sense, does not yet fully exist, but is also still produced in the processes of its interpretation. The theoretical foundations of the park included texts by Bernard Tschumi, in which he questioned traditional ways of creating a work of architecture, postulating in return the use of a long series of negations, which were comparable to the crisis of metaphysics characteristic of contemporary philosophy. It is therefore no coincidence that the publication containing Tschumi’s theoretical text on Parc de La Villette was accompanied by an essay by Jacques Derrida developing some of the architect’s concepts. The next step in integrating philosophy into the process of park design was a series of discussions between Peter Eisenman and Derrida, who completely moved the creation of the park into the world of thoughts, without accentuating the need for their realization in the material reality. The main topic of these discussions was the problem of the chôra, which was taken up by later commentators and used to interpret the park as a work in which the philosophy of the beginning is manifested relating to issues of politics, morality and religion. The park was therefore interpreted as a space of invention within the scope of creating new rules of functioning of the community and democracy. Thinking about the political future may, however, exceed the horizon of ordinary expectations. Although philosophical thought is always connected with contemporary problems and metaphysics sometimes intertwines with current politics, yet at the same time the customs of philosophy also include crossing horizons and thinking about absolute otherness and impossibility. Initially, the chôra, différance, Absolute Otherness (tout autre) and the Impossibile were concepts of pure philosophy of atheistic character, but with the further development of the discussion, more and more theological motifs began to emerge. One of the reasons for this phenomenon was the fact that radical negations of all being, which were contemplated in contemporary philosophy (by Heidegger and Derrida, among others), had previously been manifested in negative and apophatic theologies (by Master Eckhart, among others). Also the category of the “Other”, taken from Emmanuel Levinas, was clearly connected with the thought about God. A further reason for connecting the chôra with the theological thought was the interest in the philosophy of deconstruction expressed by some theologians. Caputo in particular managed to persuade Derrida to participate in discussions on the current status of religion. In the late period of Derrida’s writing, further statements on religious topics appeared. All these reasons led to posing a question about the identity of the chôra and God. Although there were no satisfactory conclusions on this issue, the discussion was also important to create an interpretation of the park as a place of worship. The chôra, representing, according to Plato, the preoriginal emptiness is the place of every beginning, but it turns out that it is not neutral to the being created in it. The chôra deposits itself in every being as an irremovable beginning that interferes with its stability. The chôra, therefore, forces us into a palintropical movement, but it also turns out to be a pure compulsion, an erring necessity and a fundamental force from which, in the human perception, motifs useful to the individual and to the community are extracted. All definitions of this force, including its anthropomorphisation, are formulated in such a way that they allow for building private and collective morality upon them. Such definitions are changed depending on variable political situations. It is difficult to determine whether in the processes of changes in the formulation of “God’s names” any essential value is retained, which is not subject to change. The current definitions of the chôra (God?), which can be found, for example, in the philosophy of Caputo, stress that she is a combination of various and contradictory forces. This characteristic inherits much of Plato’s concept, reminds us of Master Eckhart’s views on Gottheit and, at the same time, is not unfamiliar to Tschumi, whose essays were an apologia of contradictions. The current concept of chôra, transferred into the sphere of politics, is the praise of social diversity and the protection of the difference from the forces of order. In the Parc de La Villette, the future community and democracy were elevated as a system of safe existence of individuals in all their singularity. The park is a temple of a future community in which individual beings have nothing in common. (shrink)

In comparison with classroom settings that are more accessible to the scrutiny of researchers and institutional monitoring, the one-to-one setting of instrumental and vocal studio teaching has been...

The Garden of Leaders explores two related questions: What is leadership? And what sort of education could prepare young people to be leaders? Paul Woodruff argues that higher education--particularly but not exclusively in the liberal arts--should set its main focus on cultivating leadership in students. Woodruff advances a new view of liberal arts education that places leadership at the root of everything it does, so that students will be prepared to lead in their lives and careers--and not necessarily in management (...) roles. Woodruff views the contemporary university as sorely lacking an emphasis on leadership, and presents three core sets of recommendations for how they can and should foster it. First, Woodruff posits co-curricular groups, activities, and projects as essential activities for students to gain confidence and leadership skills. Administrations should encourage students to engage in activities outside the classroom, convert coached sports teams into student-led clubs as far as possible, and discourage social organizations that are segregated by race or sex. Second, Woodruff advocates for a different curriculum for all undergraduates, no matter their major-arguing that they need to be taught leadership in the forms of key skills including communication, as well as exposure to key material in history literature, social science, and ethics. Students should be asked to consider the hardest ethical dilemmas that leaders face, toggling between Machiavelli and great ethical thinkers such as Confucius and Socrates. Third, Woodruff calls for the teaching methods used by instructors to re-orient themselves around the question of leadership, particularly by emphasizing teamwork. Professors should respect their students' independence, avoid tyrannical teaching, and remember that all teachers teach ethics simply by the examples they set in dealing with students. Whether in engineering, music, or classics, The Garden of Leaders advances leadership as a core value that should be at the heart of the educational enterprise-contending that while a college campus can be many things, it should at the very least be a ground upon which new leaders can grow. (shrink)

In the traditional sense, a work of art creates an illustration of the outside world, or of a certain text or doctrine. Sometimes it is considered that such an illustration is not literal, but is an interpretation of what is visible, or an interpretation of a certain literary or ideological message. It can also be assumed that a work of art creates its own visual world, a separate story or a separate philosophical statement. The Parc de La Villette represents the (...) last of these possibilities: it is a philosophical statement that develops the premises derived from poststructuralist philosophies and the philosophy of deconstruction. The uniqueness of its being status, however, is that it does so not only at the level of the theoretical assumptions, but also through its functioning as an active philosophical work. This means that a park is a happening philosophy. Its activity, however, does not refer only to the present tense, but is also an attempt to penetrate the future, all otherness and impossibility. This kind of activity assumes that the work, in a sense, does not yet fully exist, but is also still produced in the processes of its interpretation. The theoretical foundations of the park included texts by Bernard Tschumi, in which he questioned traditional ways of creating a work of architecture, postulating in return the use of a long series of negations, which were comparable to the crisis of metaphysics characteristic of contemporary philosophy. It is therefore no coincidence that the publication containing Tschumi’s theoretical text on Parc de La Villette was accompanied by an essay by Jacques Derrida developing some of the architect’s concepts. The next step in integrating philosophy into the process of park design was a series of discussions between Peter Eisenman and Derrida, who completely moved the creation of the park into the world of thoughts, without accentuating the need for their realization in the material reality. The main topic of these discussions was the problem of the chôra, which was taken up by later commentators and used to interpret the park as a work in which the philosophy of the beginning is manifested relating to issues of politics, morality and religion. The park was therefore interpreted as a space of invention within the scope of creating new rules of functioning of the community and democracy. Thinking about the political future may, however, exceed the horizon of ordinary expectations. Although philosophical thought is always connected with contemporary problems and metaphysics sometimes intertwines with current politics, yet at the same time the customs of philosophy also include crossing horizons and thinking about absolute otherness and impossibility. Initially, the chôra, différance, Absolute Otherness (tout autre) and the Impossibile were concepts of pure philosophy of atheistic character, but with the further development of the discussion, more and more theological motifs began to emerge. One of the reasons for this phenomenon was the fact that radical negations of all being, which were contemplated in contemporary philosophy (by Heidegger and Derrida, among others), had previously been manifested in negative and apophatic theologies (by Master Eckhart, among others). Also the category of the “Other”, taken from Emmanuel Levinas, was clearly connected with the thought about God. A further reason for connecting the chôra with the theological thought was the interest in the philosophy of deconstruction expressed by some theologians. Caputo in particular managed to persuade Derrida to participate in discussions on the current status of religion. In the late period of Derrida’s writing, further statements on religious topics appeared. All these reasons led to posing a question about the identity of the chôra and God. Although there were no satisfactory conclusions on this issue, the discussion was also important to create an interpretation of the park as a place of worship. The chôra, representing, according to Plato, the preoriginal emptiness is the place of every beginning, but it turns out that it is not neutral to the being created in it. The chôra deposits itself in every being as an irremovable beginning that interferes with its stability. The chôra, therefore, forces us into a palintropical movement, but it also turns out to be a pure compulsion, an erring necessity and a fundamental force from which, in the human perception, motifs useful to the individual and to the community are extracted. All definitions of this force, including its anthropomorphisation, are formulated in such a way that they allow for building private and collective morality upon them. Such definitions are changed depending on variable political situations. It is difficult to determine whether in the processes of changes in the formulation of “God’s names” any essential value is retained, which is not subject to change. The current definitions of the chôra (God?), which can be found, for example, in the philosophy of Caputo, stress that she is a combination of various and contradictory forces. This characteristic inherits much of Plato’s concept, reminds us of Master Eckhart’s views on Gottheit and, at the same time, is not unfamiliar to Tschumi, whose essays were an apologia of contradictions. The current concept of chôra, transferred into the sphere of politics, is the praise of social diversity and the protection of the difference from the forces of order. In the Parc de La Villette, the future community and democracy were elevated as a system of safe existence of individuals in all their singularity. The park is a temple of a future community in which individual beings have nothing in common. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This article attempts to situate land art in the deserts of the US Southwest in terms of the works’ relation to and rupture with more traditional genres (seventeenth to twentieth centuries) of parks, gardens, and landscape architecture. It argues that the earlier works provide implicit answers to questions concerning Earth’s meaning and offer models of flourishing habitation. In contrast, the more recent works, all constructed in the era of the great acceleration (the Anthropocene), pose questions having to do (...) with new challenges posed by climate change and the devastation of the Earth. (shrink)

Analysis of Chinese landscape design offered a challenge to test the concepts of environmental aesthetics developed in the West. With comparative approach we improved our understanding of art and environment, and of different strategies in designing forms of Chinese gardens. In order to describe the "hidden" symbohsm of Chinese landscape design we applied various concepts and metaphors: completeness, large and small, mirror and mirroring, garden as entrance and separate reality, disclosure and concealment, and returning to the source.

In the Renaissance the beauty of a garden was for people a source of energy, it nurtured their inherent love of plant life, enchanted them and gave them a sense of pure aesthetic contentment. This fascination with nature and the values nurtured by the emerging culture of the garden also had broader reasons than just the desire for subjective experience. They can be sought in the belief that the style of an epoch is reflected not only in all the forms (...) of pure art, but also in the sphere of applied art. The aesthetic criteria which determined the early-Renaissance conception of the garden were at least twofold: first, the then-emerging culture of the garden co-formed the identity of the entire era as one of the few enclaves of a rising trend away from the classical tradition. The culture of the garden contested the adulation of the Antique that was common at the time and ruled supremely in art. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:A Philosophy of GardensRonald MooreA Philosophy of Gardens, by David E. Cooper. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006, 173 pp., $35.00 cloth.It is very likely that more people devote more aesthetic attention to gardens and their contents than they do to any other set of objects in the art world or in natural environments. Despite this, however, there has been very little philosophical writing devoted specifically to (...) the aesthetics of the garden experience. Mara Miller (The Garden as an Art, 1993) and Stephanie Ross (What Gardens Mean, 1998) have written important studies of gardens from the philosophical point of view. John Dixon Hunt has written several philosophically informed studies from the historical point of view (The Figure [End Page 120] in the Landscape: Poetry, Painting, and Gardening during the Eighteenth Century, 1976; Gardens and the Picturesque: Studies in the History of Landscape Architecture, 1992; Garden and Grove: The Italian Renaissance Garden in the English Imagination, 1600-1750, 1996). But apart from this valuable handful of discussions, the subject area has received scant scholarly attention. David Cooper's new book, A Philosophy of Gardens, is a very welcome addition to this underscrutinized field of inquiry.Cooper makes it clear at the outset that he does not aim to answer the questions regarding gardens that have attracted most philosophical attention to date, questions like "How do we define 'garden'?" "What are the standards of comparative aesthetic garden quality?" and "Should gardens be regarded as chiefly works of art or as products of nature?" Such questions are both important and quite predicable in the context of late-twentieth-century Anglo-American philosophy. Cooper aims to redirect attention to what he calls the deeper question of the significance of gardens, a question that turns out ultimately to be about the way in which gardens represent a serious contribution to "the good life." The good life, as he speaks of it, is neither la dolce vita nor the life of strict moral virtue. Rather, it is something approximating Aristotelian eudaimonia, a life in which inculcated capacities and strengths of character lead to informed and appropriate ways of acting, feeling, and evaluating.This is an attractive and unconventional project, one that spills over from aesthetics into ethics, philosophical anthropology, and (ultimately) theology. The clever argument that Cooper develops makes the project intriguing and informative, even in a few areas where its conclusions are not altogether convincing. Key to Cooper's distinctive approach is his insistence on regarding gardens not merely as focal objects of aesthetic regard and appreciation but also, and more importantly, as settings in which people engage in a range of distinctive, virtue-inducing practices. Some of these practices (for example, planting, cultivating, and pruning) foster personal virtues by requiring the submission to the discipline of caring and informed superintendence. Others (for example, conducting garden parties, swimming in a garden pool, indulging in solitary reverie) foster both personal and communal virtues by locating human pursuits in a setting that itself exemplifies vitality, change, and thriving. Cooper insists that it is only through the infusion of human activity in working cooperatively with nature to create them and then in dwelling in them appreciatively that gardens reveal their true meaning.The proper notion of garden meaning, Cooper argues, does not conform to either of the two canons of appreciation that have dominated discussion to date—the art model and the nature model. The art model fails because, in its effort to align the appreciation of gardens with that of landscape painting and other familiar aesthetic artifacts, it neglects gardens' fundamental condition as places where living, growing things call upon us to tend them and cooperate in their vitality. The nature model fails because gardens are unlike meadows and mountains in that they are—to some extent—contrived by humans and imbued with purpose by them. Moreover, Cooper argues, the distinctive meaning of gardens cannot be captured by combining (or "factorizing") the two models, that is, by regarding gardens as mixed phenomena of art-and-nature. This is because there is nothing in the two, taken separately, that can account for what is peculiar to our experience of garden aesthetics when they... (shrink)

Seeing things as they are -- "A garden of every kind of people": newar Buddhists in Hindu Nepal -- Buddhist modernism and the revival of "pure Buddhism" -- What makes a Theravada Buddhist? -- Becoming "pure Buddhist" (Part 1): practices of personhood -- Becoming "pure Buddhist" (Part 2): Vipassana meditation and the Theravada care of the self -- The best Dharma for today: post-Protestant Buddhism in neoliberal Nepal -- Conclusion: The Buddhist art of living, in Nepal and elsewhere.

Often overlooked by historians, specialist gardeners with an expert understanding of both native and exotic plant material were central to the teaching and research activities of university botanic gardens. In this article various interrelationships in the late Georgian period will be examined: between the gardener, the garden, the botanic collection, the medical school and ways of knowing. Foregrounding gardeners’ narratives will shed light on the ways in which botanic material was gathered and utilized for teaching and research purposes, particularly (...) for medical students, as well as highlighting the importance of the garden as a repository of botanic material for the classroom. In this way, the blurred lines between art and science, skill and scholarly activity, and shared pedagogic practices between botany and anatomy will be revealed. (shrink)

Inscriptions of Assyrian kings disclose that these rulers maintained and improved the land near the palace. This paper brings together the pictorial versions of what may be described as the “Assyrian royal landscape,” that is, outdoor scenery designed for royal purposes and represented on the stone panels that lined the walls of the palaces at Nimrud, Nineveh, and Dur-Sharrukin. The royal landscapes differ from reign to reign, since they each reflect some aspect of the particular king’s rule. The description and (...) discussion of the individual scenes also take into account the rationale behind their creation. Textual and archaeological data are supportive additions, and the previous studies of other scholars are also considered. The discussion of scenes carved on the stone panels follows in chronological sequence the reigns of four Assyrian kings: Ashurnasirpal II, Sargon II, Sennacherib, and Ashurbanipal. The chronological presentation demonstrates that royal landscape imagery in the sculptural arts progressed as a method of documentation by the Assyrian kings. (shrink)

Recent work in environmental ethics has seen a pragmatic turn that emphasises the importance of developing positive relationships with nature through practices involved in, for example, ecological restoration and community gardens. This article explores whether environmental and land art-making encourages positive aesthetic-moral relationships between nature and humans. It critically examines a particular type of aesthetic objection to these kinds of artworks and defends the work of Robert Smithson and Andy Goldsworthy, among others, against this charge. It is argued that (...) rather than constituting an 'aesthetic affront' to nature, some forms of environmental and land art show 'aesthetic regard' for nature. (shrink)

Abstract:With the development of literati gardens during the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), the layout and design level of gardens reached an unprecedented height. As the representative of Suzhou gardens, The Humble Administrator's Garden (Zhuozhengyuan, 拙政园, 1530) has unique natural conditions and mature garden design, and its water management art is particularly exquisite. The best-preserved graphic information of The Humble Administrator's Garden are the poems and paintings by Wen Zhengming (文徵明, 1470–1559), including Thirty-One Scenes of The Humble Administrator's Garden (...) (拙政园三十一景图, 1533), thirty landscape poems, and the biography Wang's Humble Administrator's Garden (王氏拙政园记, 1533). As the research object, this article aims to restore the image of The Humble Administrator's Garden by analyzing the water scene of the garden, summarizing its water technique and art, and extracting "Source of inflowing water" (为有源头活水来), "Esteem the mountain, revere the water, imitate the heaven and earth" (敬山畏水, 象天法地), "Fusion of the imitation of nature and the subjective ideas of the artist" (外师造化, 中得心源), and "Free and unfettered, enjoy the joy of leisure" (逍遥自得, 享闲居之乐) as the water aesthetic thoughts of the garden. In addition, this article provides some reference for the current landscape design. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Journal of Aesthetic Education 40.2 (2006) 105-117 [Access article in PDF] Art and Failure Daniel A. Siedell Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery and Sculpture Garden The Genius Decision: The Extraordinary and the Postmodern Condition, by Klaus Ottmann. Putnam, CT: Spring Publications, 2004, 181 pp., $18.50 paperback. Random Order: Robert Rauschenberg and the Neo-Avant-Garde, by Branden Joseph. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003, 450 pp., $34.95 hardcover. The most optimistic ethics (...) have all begun by emphasizing the element of failure involved in the condition of man; without failure, no ethics. Simone de Beauvoir, The Ethics of Ambiguity1Failure is an inescapable part of the human condition. It is also an inescapable part of extraordinary human achievement. In fact, it is because failure is woven so deeply into their fabric that makes certain endeavors, like the arts, philosophy, science, and even sports, so extraordinary, so compelling, and ultimately so meaningful. There is therefore a close—but often underexamined—connection between extraordinary achievement and failure in the history of the arts and culture in the West. Two very different books, one a work of philosophy and the other a work of art history, converge on the presence of failure in extraordinary human achievement. New York-based art critic and independent curator Klaus Ottmann offers a philosophical study of genius from a postmodern perspective entitled The Genius Decision: The Extraordinary and the Postmodern Condition. Art historian Branden Joseph, who is assistant professor at the University of California-Irvine, offers a revisionist interpretation of Robert Rauschenberg's aesthetic project in Random Order: Robert Rauschenberg and the Neo-Avant-Garde. The Genius Decision offers an illuminating philosophical framework within which to read Random Order.Ottmann begins his study with the following question: "How does one account for those extraordinary and exceptional works of art and literature that set one artist apart from the others; works that most artists, however skilled, would never be able to produce; that exert great influence on others" (13). Ottmann answers this question by interpreting the work of Franz Kafka, [End Page 105] Spinoza, Søren Kierkegaard, Friederich Nietzsche, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and Martin Heidegger through a postmodernist lens provided in part by Jean-François Lyotard, Julia Kristeva, and other theorists. For example, he reads Kafka through Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari; Spinoza's Ethics through Deleuze; Kierkegaard through Adorno; Nietzsche through Derrida, Jean-Luc Nancy, and Heidegger; and Wittgenstein through P. M. S. Hacker. Foundational for Ottmann's thesis is theorist Julia Kristeva's concept of the Abject and its relationship to Jouissance—meaning "enjoyment," often connoting a sensual, even sexual pleasure—which has entered philosophical discourse via literary theorist Roland Barthes and psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan. For Kristeva, the Abject is the pressing of the "Unrepresentable" that requires a "sacrifice" of Jouissance; that is, a leap toward or a response to the inability to represent or give adequate form to this primordial ground of pure experiential bliss. For Ottmann, extraordinary achievement in art and philosophy consists of intentional and absolute leaps into certain failure in giving representation to what cannot be represented—despite its impossibility. This is what Ottmann calls the "Genius Decision." In contrast to passive explanations of extraordinary achievement, such as "accidental genius" and "physical genius," in which the individual can claim fortuitous circumstances or innate talent, the Genius Decision involves intentionality; it is a "decision" of some kind. But what kind of decision is it? Ottmann argues that it is an "active-passive" one. He then analyzes each of these influential thinkers as offering unique manifestations of the Genius Decision in their attempt to represent the Unrepresentable.Key to the Abject-Jouissance relationship is Ottmann's understanding of postmodernism. Rather than viewing it as a historical movement, Ottmann, following Jean-François Lyotard, regards it as a "condition," that is, as a nascent state within modernism. Ottmann characterizes the modern as recognizing and dwelling in the Abject, while the postmodern leaves the ambiguity of the Abject behind for the "certainty of failure" (49). The Genius Decision, then, comes out of a postmodern awareness of the impossibility of its... (shrink)