Monday, November 06, 2006

Kierkegaard on seeing nature as art



"The Reason I cannot really say that I positively enjoy nature is that I do not quite realize what it is that I enjoy. A work of art, on the other hand, I can grasp, I can—if I may put it this way—find that Archimedean point, and as soon as I have found it, everything is readily clear for me. Then I am able to pursue this one main idea and see how all the details serve to illuminate it. I see the author’s whole individuality as if it were the sea, in which every single detail is reflected… The works of the deity are too great for me; I always get lost in the details. This is the reason, too, why people’s exclamations on observing nature: It’s lovely, tremendous, etc.—are so frivolous. They are all too anthropomorphic; they come to stop with the external, they are unable to express inwardness, depth."

-Søren Kierkegaard, Sept 11 1834 (Journals and Papers, Vol 1)

In modern times, I think surely this has to do with the loss of seeing the world as the free creation of God. Seeing it and knowing that it does not have to exist, and is held in existence by him. I have another post on this here, about the feeling of exploring a beautiful computer game vrs the real world.

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