A persistent problem in aesthetics concerns the status of naturally formed objects: how can entities produced without human intention nevertheless attain aesthetic significance comparable to artworks? While this problem has been widely discussed in environmental aesthetics and theories of found art, existing accounts often remain polarized between scientific description and subjective response. Chinese scholar’s stone appreciation offers a long-standing but largely tacit response to this problem. Over centuries, it developed a sophisticated practice through which naturally formed stones were apprehended not merely as geological objects, but as carriers of aesthetic order and spiritual resonance. Yet the cognitive process by which such a transformation occurs has rarely been made explicit. Traditional criteria function primarily as experiential cues rather than as a structured path of judgment. This paper proposes the Five-Tian Framework as an integrated cognitive path that explicates how aesthetic judgment emerges from natural objects. Comprising five sequential dimensions—Tianran (Naturality), Tianfu (Endowment), Tiangong (Natural Craftsmanship), Tiancheng (Organic Integrity), and Tianqu (Spiritual Resonance)—the framework reconstructs the transition from material reality to aesthetic meaning without presupposing human artistic intention. Rather than introducing new evaluative standards, the Five-Tian Framework articulates an internally coherent ontological and cognitive structure that bridges nature and aesthetic experience. By doing so, it contributes to contemporary debates on natural art, non-human agency, and the ontology of aesthetic objects.
Penglin Xu (Sat,) studied this question.