Natural Landscape

"Look! The beauty--but that is nothing--look at the accuracy, the harmony. And so fragile! And so strong! And so exact!" 
Joseph Conrad

Imogen Cunningham
Banana Plant, late 1920s

Imogen Cunningham
Callas, about 1925

Imogen Cunningham
Ficus, 1953

Imogen Cunningham
Hydrangea, 1930s 

Kant believed that the natural world was more than beautiful- it was "sublime." Rather than some calculated presentation of beauty, like a painting or a made up face, the natural world isn't trying to impress us. It is beautiful without being interested. It just exists and we are moved. A vast group of clouds has no interest in our opinion of it. It is beyond "beautiful," Kant said, because its beauty is beyond comprehension. When we see a group of clouds, we are moved and reminded of concepts that we can't quite get our heads around - infinity, totality, etc. And while anyone can go to a museum and argue about the merit and aesthetics of a work of art, its rare that you hear someone say "no, in my opinion sunsets are not beautiful." Appreciation of nature is something humans seem to be born with, or at least evolved to have. It's innate.
It's hard to define beauty in nature because I think in my mind the two aren't separate entities. I've always thought that beauty = nature.
My great-grandma had a huge garden in the front of her house in the woody part of the countryside of Oregon. In the middle of the garden, there was a little pond and waterfall that was never cleaned so it was completely covered in green muck and lily pads. There was a bench painted purple nearby which I would sit on when I was little to just stare. I felt so overwhelmed by the beauty of that pond and the surrounding garden that I didn't know what to do. I told my religious grandma how much I loved it there, and she told me that my inner Eve felt like she was back in Paradise. When I was older I started taking pictures of the flowers and paths to try to capture the experience of being there. My great-grandma died this year, so I stole all the rocks out of the pond and now they're sitting on my bedside table.

The view from my great-grandma's house
Photo by me