Raw sensory beauty interprets itself and needs no interpretation

Evidence

The park visitor’s sensuous contact with scenic or landscape beauty—with “wildness.” It is axiomatic that natural beauty, as perceived by the organs of sense, needs no interpretation: it interprets itself. Here the interpreter acts only as a scout and a guide. He leads his groups to the most alluring scenes he has discovered, and is silent. Would you varnish the orchid? He refrains even from using the word “beauty.” To suggest that his visitors are to consider either the scene or the song of the hermit thrush as beautiful is even an affront. They know. In this aspect beauty is a precious personal possession. It is the individual’s shock, his apprehension, his discovery: and what he discovers is more than what he sees or hears. He has discovered something of himself, hitherto unrealized. No; we do not interpret that aspect of beauty. It is an exhibit. — Freeman Tilden, Interpreting Our Heritage, 630

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the boundary of interpretation’s proper work: it begins where sensory self-evident beauty ends.
• XREF: Connects to interpretation’s ‘provocation over information’ stance and the Osprey Wilds nature-center pedagogy aim. — connects to: Ugliness, like raw scenic beauty, needs no interpretation — Freeman Tilden, Interpreting Our Heritage, 641
• ADDENDUM: The ‘silent scout who doesn’t say the word beauty’ directly parallels the immodesty piece’s point about naming the moral panic conferring power — here refraining from labeling preserves the experience.