Emerson essay

Here's my Emerson essay. Prompt:  use Frederic Edwin Church's painting Heart of the Andes as a jumping board for Emerson's thoughts on nature in his essay "Nature" or other essays. I received a B+ on the paper, since my paper was under the page limit.

My abstract: Both Emerson and Church show that nature is but an illusion to an average man.  An educated man, one that is skilled in lessening Reason to see Beauty, will see images of nature whether in nature or on canvas, and in his own mind will translate these sights into the divinity that nature encapsulates.    

My essay:

Finding Grace

Emerson’s man may not find truth in nature, but with open eyes he may see the landscape of God’s grace.  Emerson’s essay “Nature” is littered with references to inaccessible points of beauty—inaccessible not for lack of availability, but impermeable due to an educated man’s overly complex Reason.  A single innocent child, one without developed reason in his head, has a better chance at seeing the grace in nature than a mob of men. However, Emerson argues that a truly educated man with an open mind to may find nature’s “kindred impression”.   A truly educated man will translate the images of beauty and find not their secrets, but their divine grace.

Emerson is dismissive of most men, for, “To speak truly, few adult persons can see nature (5).”  On the contrary, Federic Edwin Church ushered in thousands of these adult persons to see his version of nature.   The Heart of the Andes was the most widely seen painting in Church’s era, and it’s no accident that his painting depicts a far away land while it was stationed squarely in America.  Church offers up a hyperreal depiction of nature, one that audiences could view in a dark room and be transported in their minds to a land where fairy tales might reside.  His vision of nature is a nature that few of the viewers would ever attempt to travel in person to see, though of course, his depiction of nature is not of a real singular place.  This exhibit of nature was a commodity; a chance to travel without leaving one’s neighborhood.  Emerson might have believe that these thousands of customers were not truly experiencing nature for what nature can be for, “Nature never [becomes] a toy to a wise spirit (5)”.   An Emersonian educated viewer of The Heart of The Andes would not see it as a representation of land and trees and lakes, but would experience the painting with a sort of reverence of nature’s divine spirit.

  Nature is godly.  Emerson touches on every aspect of nature’s self, from its colors, to form, to motion, to its chemical make-up, to texture, to its morality to show that within nature there are “the laws of right and wrong, and echo the Ten Commandments. Therefore is nature ever the ally of Religion: lends all her pomp and riches to the religious sentiment (21).”  These codes of ethics within nature, as well as its beauty, display the decrees of God.   Emerson’s highest hope for a man, a man educated in the ways of nature, will see these systems of right and wrong and the cycle of life as a sign of God’s presence.  Emerson taunts his readers, “Is not the landscape, every glimpse of which hath a grandeur, a face of Him? (34)” as if to challenge any dissenters that the sublimity of nature, and the goodness of it must surely arise from the supreme presence, Himself.  When an educated man is looking at nature or even at Church’s painting he is witnessing something divine, something that stirs his imagination.   He may not understand all parts of his God’s message, but with an open acceptance of the sublime he does understand divinity.

    Too much Reason inside of the head of a man can prevent him for experiencing nature in its splendor.  “The sun illuminates only the eye of the man, but shines into the eye and the heart of the child (5),” Emerson stated as the main difference between children and adults.  A child takes what comes without judgment, whereas a man filters nature and life through Reason and educated logic.  Emerson puts forth the notion that it is an abundance of Reason which deters man from God’s nature.  It is only when “the eye of Reason opens, to outline and surface are at once added, grace and expression,” and if  “Reason be stimulated to more earnest vision, outlines and surfaces become transparent, and are no longer seen; causes and spirits are seen through them (25).”  Emerson’s man must lose the philosophy that nature is supposed to mean something, or that a portrait of the Andes is just that, oil on canvas in a darken room, and see beyond.  For Emerson, “The best moments of life are these delicious awakenings of the higher powers, and the reverential withdrawing of nature before its God (25).”  Man must awake from his Reason to see that beauty of God surrounding him. 

Once a man is open to nature’s offerings he will find nature’s sublime and immortal character.  To Emerson, “Nothing divine dies. All good is eternally reproductive. The beauty of nature reforms itself in the mind, and not for barren contemplation, but for new creation (12).”  The mind is both the barrier and avenue to the grace of nature.  A mind too wrapped up in reality will not be able to see nature, but only see its faults, property lines, and painting frames.  A man receptive to nature will create and translate images of nature into the beauty inside of his mind to see all.   Nature is intended to serve man in finding his own grace, according to Emerson.  Nature will offer up its “kingdoms” to man as materials, parts, and pieces.  Man will reduce all things until the nature of the world becomes “the double of the man”, the reflection of what man can become in his own glory.  Emerson’s vision of men is that a man is a god in ruins, and perhaps then, with the openness to nature, or rather, the creation of the Beauty inside his head, man can once again experience divinity of God and of the God within himself. 

Church’s painting is exquisite and highly detailed, but it is not truthful.  His image of the Andes is exaggerated for effected and awe.  Emerson also sees a disconnect between nature and truth.  Truth is measured by the “moral influence of nature upon every individual is that amount of truth which it illustrates to him (21).”  A man can only find the truth he seeks, but will often be tricked by his own Reason, which is why the innocent spirit of children (according to Emerson) can experience the truth of divinity will such great appreciation.  Church’s painting and Emerson’s woods are both illusions to the greater truth of a higher power.  It takes an open eye to see divinity for what it is.  Then again, Emerson himself is a giant eyeball. 

It’s curious that Emerson chooses to conclude his thoughts about nature on a highly subjective note.  His claim that “Every spirit builds itself a house; and beyond its house a world; and beyond its world, a heaven (37)” exemplifies his belief that the beauty of nature doesn’t rest inside a tulip or a sunny day, but resides inside an open man’s mind.   An average man can see shades and hues and dips and mountains of nature when looking out his window. But an open man views a painting and sees God.   An open man, an educated man, will loosen his Reason just enough to see the face of God inside of himself and in the majesty of the natural world.