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Paradoxes And Puzzles: Appreciating Gardens And Urban Nature, Stephanie Ross

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

To explore our appreciation of gardens and urban nature, I propose a recursive definition of original or wild nature together with guidelines for discerning degrees of naturalness. Arguing (contra Robert Elliott) that nature can be restored as well as degraded, I characterize four varieties of urban nature - interrupted, altered, constructed, and virtual. I build on Stan Godlovitch's comments about scale to suggest two modes of appreciation - macroscopic and fine-focused. I close by discussing some particular examples - parks, environmental art, gardens - and drawing some conclusions for the appreciation of vernacular gardens.[1]