Sensory exploration and Böhme’s aesthetic nature theory in The Long Silence of Mario Salviati

Abstract

In the novel The long silence of Mario Salviati, by South African author Etienne van Heerden, the natural landscape is powerfully integrated with the theme of art. Ingi Friedländer, employee at an art museum, departs from the city to purchase a painting by a reclusive artist in a village in the Karoo, a semi-desert natural region of South Africa. The purpose of this study is to explore how Ingi’s background in art studies and her career experience in the art world impact on her visual exploration of the landscape and in what extraordinary ways Ingi interacts with this landscape during her sojourn in the Karoo. The paper focuses on Ingi’s visual perceptions in order to show similarities to those of a photographer who, in planning a landscape photograph, selects and arranges artistically what is perceived through the lens. This process of arranging is argued to be particularly meaningful with regard to the aesthetic appreciation of nature, as the unbounded and diverse character of the natural world entails a process of perceptual arrangement – through selection, emphasis and composition – which engenders in the perceiver appreciation of nature at the aesthetic level. Principles from the world of art and (art) photography are woven into the exploration of the novel in order to examine and better understand Ingi’s visual relationship with the natural landscape of this region. Further, the portrayal of Ingi’s interaction with nature – in which the role of the body and the senses is prominent – finds resonance with the aesthetic nature theory of the German philosopher Gernot Böhme. Ingi’s perception implies an experience of co-presence with the natural objects of the Karoo as well as a powerful bodily sensory presence in this landscape – a state which Böhme calls “ecological embodiment” and which offers proof that Böhme’s nature theory finds unique application in this novel