Movement, Wildness and Animal Aesthetics

Abstract

The key role that animals play in our aesthetic appreciation of the natural world has only gradually been highlighted in discussions in environmental aesthetics. In this paper I make use of the phenomenological notion of 'perceptual sense' as developed by Merleau-Ponty to argue that open-ended expressive-responsive movement is the primary aesthetic ground for our appreciation of animals. It is through their movement that the array of qualities we admire in animals are manifest qua animal qualities. Against functionalist and formalist accounts, I defend and develop an account of expressive-responsive movement as the primary perceptual sense of animals. I go on to suggest that the primacy of movement in aesthetic appreciation of animals is also the primary sense of animal 'wildness' and that a key part of the rewilding paradigm should be the development of such appreciation.

Aesthetically Appreciating Animals: OnThe Abundant Herds

“…What he calls 'vital beauty' is our appreciation of 'the appearance of felicitous fulfilment of function in living things ' (1923: 183), where this is a sense of the organic, power-full and healthy 'happiness' of an individual creature living out its natural role. 16 An appreciation of the 'wildness' and essential movement of animals (Rolston 1987, Greaves 2019, their expressiveness (Brady 2014), or, most substantially, their embodied subjectivity (Vice 2017) recognise Ruskin's vitality and encourage appreciation of individuality. Yet, despite early, influential criticisms of a scientific functionalism (from, e.g.…”

Expanding Aesthetics

“…As Greaves comments: “ Very open-ended expressive-responsive movements of (animal) play do not primarily manifest as functionality. Yet they are prime occasions for aesthetic appreciation, both on our part and often on the part of animals themselves ” ( 119 ).…”

Normative implications of ecophenomenology. Towards a deep anthropo-related environmental ethics

“…Foltz (1995) and Zimmermann (2003). Merleau-Pontys work is important, amongst others: Abram (1996), Greaves (2019), Pelluchon (2021) and Booth (2021). Lévinas is being fructified for example by Llewelyn (1991) as well as Diehm (2003).…”