Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-rvbq7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-12T11:55:58.056Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

1 - Nature, fine arts, and aesthetics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 May 2011

Salim Kemal
Affiliation:
University of Dundee
Ivan Gaskell
Affiliation:
Harvard University Art Museums, Massachusetts
Salim Kemal
Affiliation:
University of Dundee
Ivan Gaskell
Affiliation:
Harvard University Art Museums, Massachusetts
Get access

Summary

Our starting point is Lindisfarne, or Holy Island.

The island is off the coast of Northumbria and connects to the mainland by a causeway that floods at high tide. Much of its early history is known only through Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum. In 635 King Oswald granted the island to Bishop Aidan to found a monastery. A cult grew around the king following his death in battle against the heathen Mercians in 642. Bede writes that people began to collect dust from where the king had fallen with which to cure sicknesses in themselves and their stock.

About this time, another man, who was of the British nation, is said to have been crossing the place where this battle had been fought; and seeing that one spot was more green and more beautiful than the rest of the field, he came to the wise conclusion that there could be no other explanation for this exceptional greenness than that some person of greater sanctity than anyone else in the army had been killed there. So he took away some of that earth wrapped up in a linen cloth…

The Briton found that piece of earth valuable because the color and beauty he saw signified something more. The depth of color and quality of that patch of grass had moral magnitude because the earth, nature, and its workings were affects of divinity.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1993

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×