The Symbolism of Habitat: An Interpretation of Landscape in the Arts
by: Jay Appleton

Hardcover. Seattle, University of Washington Press, 1st, 1990, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 113 pages, b&w illustrations. When architects create a landscape or building, when artists depict a landscape, and when poets write of nature, they recreate certain aesthetic elements observed in nature. Jay Appleton asserts in an insightful analysis that these aesthetic values in landscape are not found in an elevated philosophy of aesthetics or in a culturally bound artistic symbolism but in the biological and behavioral needs that we share with other animals. Thus, the aesthetics of landscape may be approached through other areas of human experience and science, especially the natural and behavioral sciences. They are expressed in symbolism drawn from a primal habitat in which all animals seek survival. Clean copy.