Loci Amoeni: The Meaning and Aesthetics of Sites

Abstract The perception and aesthetic experience of places concerns the appreciation of what is recognised as a site. It presupposes readability. A place is here, surrounded by other, similar places, that are there. Beyond, elsewhere, there is always a hinterland: beyond my world, is the World. One can only imagine the World, but the World can announce itself here, as an aspect or element of what we effectively perceive, such as a view onto a distance or the horizon. A (meaningful) environment acquires, moreover, an aesthetic quality when the successful structuring of the interplay of Place and World suggests an image to the aesthetic view: when the site is recognised as exemplifying the “topos” of a “lovely place,” or a locus amoenus: an enclosed, secret garden (“paradise”), or a “House before the Distant.”