Benoît de Baere
30
horribilis, which is opposed to the locus amœnus in exactly the same
way that savage nature contrasts with a pleasure garden.
35
We will have cause to return later to this notion of locus horribilis, since it provides a link between the aesthetics of natural catastrophe – clearly an aesthetics of the sublime – and Buffon’s
philosophical anthropology. But first let us make the important assertion that the two approaches to natural catastrophe (the scientific and
the aesthetic) which we have so far considered are fundamentally incompatible. It is not that they suppose alternative visions of the same
natural phenomena, it is rather that each seeks something completely
different in nature itself. Therefore the incompatibility of scientific
and aesthetics approaches to catastrophe does not reside in the play of
emotions; the fundamental problem is that the force of the sublime resides in the unity and the uniqueness of the lived experience, whereas
a natural disaster can only become an object of knowledge on the condition that it gives up its quality of uniqueness and fits into a series of
comparable events whose differing causes can be analysed. The aesthete is captivated by a catastrophe which gives him the opportunity to
lose himself in the totality of a unique occurrence; the scientist, on the
other hand, is wary of this “observation-participation”, and is only interested in phenomena insofar as their activity follows a recognizable
pattern and their constituent elements are susceptible to analysis.
It is at this point that we should return to the notion of the locus horribilis. If this notion has such pertinence for our present study
of the Histoire naturelle it is because with Buffon nature in the raw, as
yet untamed by man, is invariably described as a “lieu d’horreur”. It
follows that the evocations of these terrible “sublime” cataclysms
found in the Histoire naturelle correspond precisely to its author’s
conception of brute nature and serve above all to illustrate this. To reinforce this point, we might also look at the “tableaux” acting as décor
in Buffon’s descriptions of certain exotic fauna, for he considers that
“ce n’est point en se promenant dans nos campagnes, ni même en parcourant toutes les terres du domaine de l’homme, que l’on peut connoître les grands effets des variétés de la Nature”;
36 in order to see
___________________________
35 See Yvon Le Scanff, Le paysage romantique et l’expérience du sublime (Seyssel:
Champ-Vallon, 2007).
36 Buffon, “Le Kamichi”, in Histoire naturelle des oiseaux (Paris: Imprimerie royale,
1780), VII, p. 336.
30
horribilis, which is opposed to the locus amœnus in exactly the same
way that savage nature contrasts with a pleasure garden.
35
We will have cause to return later to this notion of locus horribilis, since it provides a link between the aesthetics of natural catastrophe – clearly an aesthetics of the sublime – and Buffon’s
philosophical anthropology. But first let us make the important assertion that the two approaches to natural catastrophe (the scientific and
the aesthetic) which we have so far considered are fundamentally incompatible. It is not that they suppose alternative visions of the same
natural phenomena, it is rather that each seeks something completely
different in nature itself. Therefore the incompatibility of scientific
and aesthetics approaches to catastrophe does not reside in the play of
emotions; the fundamental problem is that the force of the sublime resides in the unity and the uniqueness of the lived experience, whereas
a natural disaster can only become an object of knowledge on the condition that it gives up its quality of uniqueness and fits into a series of
comparable events whose differing causes can be analysed. The aesthete is captivated by a catastrophe which gives him the opportunity to
lose himself in the totality of a unique occurrence; the scientist, on the
other hand, is wary of this “observation-participation”, and is only interested in phenomena insofar as their activity follows a recognizable
pattern and their constituent elements are susceptible to analysis.
It is at this point that we should return to the notion of the locus horribilis. If this notion has such pertinence for our present study
of the Histoire naturelle it is because with Buffon nature in the raw, as
yet untamed by man, is invariably described as a “lieu d’horreur”. It
follows that the evocations of these terrible “sublime” cataclysms
found in the Histoire naturelle correspond precisely to its author’s
conception of brute nature and serve above all to illustrate this. To reinforce this point, we might also look at the “tableaux” acting as décor
in Buffon’s descriptions of certain exotic fauna, for he considers that
“ce n’est point en se promenant dans nos campagnes, ni même en parcourant toutes les terres du domaine de l’homme, que l’on peut connoître les grands effets des variétés de la Nature”;
36 in order to see
___________________________
35 See Yvon Le Scanff, Le paysage romantique et l’expérience du sublime (Seyssel:
Champ-Vallon, 2007).
36 Buffon, “Le Kamichi”, in Histoire naturelle des oiseaux (Paris: Imprimerie royale,
1780), VII, p. 336.