Beauty and the Eye of the Beholder

            There are many different ways of viewing our environment.  We can look for its beauty, its utility, a combination, or almost any point between.  In our reading of Sense and Sensibility, two positions have been brought forth by Austen, and further expounded upon by Jonathan Bate in The Picturesque Environment.  Bate regards Edward Ferrars as “an embodiment of Enlightenment man, who regards nature as something that must be tamed, ordered and made serviceable to the community.”  Marianne Dashwood’s view, although she “accepts Edwards’s critique of the jargon of the picturesque,” draws a contrast, insisting “anyone capable of feeling strongly – anyone of sensibility – will respond passionately to a wild landscape.”  These two ideas, for me, sound very much akin to the contemporary arguments we hear in the political arenas of environmentalism today.  One is basically about the economy, and ensuring we keep it afloat, regardless of the environmental consequences.  The other is interested in the environment for its beauty, its place in the ecological order of the planet, and a sense of moral obligation.

            I believe it is important to look at the characters through which Austen employs these differing ideas about the picturesque.  First, Edward Ferrars is a gentleman of no occupation, who, by the customs of English society, is to inherit his fortune at his mother’s discretion.  Interestingly enough, he is the one who presents the major concern for the utility of the land, and the good of the community.  Marianne, a young lady passionate down to the last detail, does not hold any rank or wealth in her society; yet, it is she who is passionate about nature, even in its most uncultivated condition.  The debate about what constituted ‘picturesque’ had already been initiated in Austen’s day, and I can’t help but wonder if perhaps, Austen chose the characters of Edward and Marianne to convey these environmental sentiments, for particular reasons.  Were the sentiments held by Edward and Marianne similar to those witnessed by Austen in society at large?  How would the readers have felt differently about these two stances, if, for example, Austen would have engaged the dialogue between Mr. Palmer and Mrs. Jennings?   

            We have all heard the saying that ‘beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder.’  Marianne could view an uncultivated field and see marvelous beauty.  Hegel, as Bate points out, “had argued in his Aesthetics that art is an attempt to overcome the deficiency of natural beauty.”  Adorno wrote, “First of all it focuses exclusively on nature as appearance, never on nature as the stuff of work and material reproduction of life, let alone as a substratum of science.”  Sir Uvedale Price says of the picturesque, “A temple or palace of Grecian architecture in its perfect entire state, and with its surface and colour smooth and even, either in painting or reality is beautiful; in ruin it is picturesque.”  Price’s idea of picturesque took into account the effect of weather and time on a landscape.  To some this effect produces a beautiful view of nature.  To others, the view must be skillfully touched by art, in order to look perfect and pleasing.

            In my opinion, all the schools of thought which Bate discussed held some points of truth.  Some also contained points with which I did not agree.  I believe it is vital for each person, as a citizen of the planet, to decide the perspective of beauty which they want to perpetuate on Earth.