Perfezione simmetrica? Una rilettura dell’estetica embodied del paesaggio

The present work built upon the findings reported in Malvica, Palumbo, and Cazzato (2024), “I Feel like I Am in That Place and I Would like to See More”: Aesthetic and Embodiment Components of Tourist Destination Image, offering a reappraisal of the embodied dimensions involved in the aesthetic experience of landscape. Through perceptual assessments of natural and urban environments, symmetry was focused as an aesthetic feature usually associated with higher levels of visual appreciation. Using hierarchical linear regression analyses, the results suggested that the aesthetic value of landscapes does not depend solely on formal perfection. Rather, it emerged from the capacity of the visual structure of a scene to activate embodied perceptual processes that make space both comprehensible and explorable. Additional findings concerning differences between natural and urban landscapes (i.e., the mediating role of aesthetic evaluation in shaping responses related to landscape experience, such as tourist appeal) highlighted the recommendation of integrating embodied theory within contemporary landscape research.