Is there such a thing as innocent eyes? How do we see, and therefore know nature?

1. OEEDU5003 Connecting
with Nature
Week three
Ways of seeing, ways of knowing.

2. Contains complex ideas.

3. Seeing and understanding our
relationship to nature is cultural,
historical and personal
“landscape is comprised of not only
what lies before our eyes but what lies
within our heads.” (Meinig, 1979)

4. The
values we
see in
nature
therefore
depend
on our
capacity
to ‘see’.

5. Our culture and experience provides
the underlying essence or
interpretative framework we use to
make sense of what we see.

6. Old or
young?

7. Nice
flower?

8. clockwise = right brain
anticlockwise = left brain
Left
•uses logic,
•detail oriented,
•facts rule
•words and language,
•present and past,
•math and science,
•can comprehend,
•acknowledges
•order/pattern perception,
•knows object name,
•reality based,
•forms strategies,
•practical,
•safe
Right
•uses feeling,
•"big picture" oriented
•imagination rules,
•philosophy & religion,
•can "get it" (i.e.
meaning),
•believes,
•appreciates,
•spatial perception,
•knows object function,
•fantasy based,
•presents possibilities,
•impetuous,
•risk taking
Clockwise or Anti-Clockwise?

9. Our shared history influences our
values and how we see nature today…
…a potted history of Australian
culture & nature in 2 slides!!!

10. • European ancestry
• Middle ages, enlightenment = shift in HNR
• Descartes (1596-1650) ‘I think therefore I
am’ – separation of mind and body,
humans and nature. ‘Conquest of nature’
• An agricultural shift (enclosure) to urban
living (industrial revolution).

11. • Industrialisation
• Specialisation
• Urban development
• Mechanical time
• Wages - ‘the economy’
• The rise of science, the fall of
mystery
• Separation of church, state and
science
• Darwinism (Neanderthal,1856)
• The birth of consumerism/
advertising & work to for ‘better
lives’ (reduce hrs of work to
reduce consumption growth)

12. So today we ‘see’ nature through eyes shaped by
white anglo-saxon history, culture and
experience. Informed by science and moderated
by urban living.

13. Outdoor activity
gives us ‘Expert
eyes’, but also
blind us?

14. Nicholas Chevalier Mt Arapiles 1863
‘Sublime’

15. Romanticism and Luddites
In Britain, romanticism was a
reaction to industrialisation
(increasing alienation from nature
and the slow death of subsistence
community based enterprise).

16. Romanticism and Luddites
Romanticism = a turning back to
aesthetics and love of nature. (art,
poetry, literature, architecture.)
The sublime.

17. Poetry and art as a window in
the world.
Ye mountains! thine, O nature! Thou has fed
My lofty speculations; and in thee,
For this uneasy heart of ours, I find
A never-failing principle of joy
And purest passion.
Wordsworth 1797 Lyrical Ballads

18. Waterhouse (1849-1917)
Men as victims of nature.

19. Waterhouse (1849-1917)
Women as nymphs or part of nature (mythology).

20. How people saw
landscape?
Artist’s impressions often reflected
worldviews - ways of seeing nature.

21. Constable was one of the
first artists to try and
paint nature as he saw it.
"When I sit down to make a
sketch from nature, the first thing
I try to do is to forget that I have
ever seen a picture".

22. Constable was one of the
first artists to try and
paint nature as he saw it.
An attempt at innocent eyes? –
but how nature is seen and what
is attended to, is culturally
mediated.

23. European artists in Australia
– Glover - born England 1767 Paintings from
1840.
– Buvalot - born Switzland 1814 - arrived
Melbourne 1865 (painting from 1866)
– Streeton - born Australia 1867 (paintings from
1890)

24. Glover - born England 1767
Arrived in Aus. Age 64
Painting from 1840

25. Glover

26. Glover

27. Buvalot - born Switzland 1814
arrived Melbourne 1865
painting from 1866

28. Von Guerard 1860s
Kosciusko expedition as
scientific artist

29. Withers 1912

30. Streeton - born Australia 1867
(paintings from 1890)

31. Streeton