Week 6 – Landscape and the Sublime

Wanderer in the mists (1818) Casper David Friedrich

Untitled # 394 - 03 (2003) Richard Misrach

Untitled # 2 (2002) Richard Misrach

1. What and when was the Enlightenment?

“In it’s simplest sense the Enlightenment was the creation of a new framework of ideas about man, society and nature, which challenged existing conceptions rooted in a traditional world-view, dominated by Christianity”. Hamilton (1992)

As discussed by Hooker (1996) it is hard to find a beginning or end to the enlightenment, so it is simply referred to as seventeenth century thought. Hooker goes on in saying, “we can’t really identify an end point either for we still more or less live in an Enlightenment world”.

2. Define the concept of the Sublime.

The concept of the Sublime defined by Burke (1729-1797) “was that the life of feeling and spirit depended on a harmony within the larger order of the universe. The sublime, therefore, was the ultimate experience of divinity, a mixture of awe, fear, and enlightenment produced by the contemplation of a powerful, terrifying nature; for Burke, the Sublime was already connected to landscape.”

3. How did the concept of the Sublime come out of the Enlightenment thought?

Enlightenment thought like the sublime challenged old ideas about nature but most of the emphasis of the enlightenment was on man and society. The sublime concentrates only on nature and how insignificant humans are compared to the natural world.

I believe without the birth of enlightenment thought man would not have realized the ideas of the sublime (as defined in question 2) and how important the natural world is to our lives.

4. Discuss the subject matter, and aesthetic (look) of Misrach's work to identify the Sublime in his work. Add some more images of his work.

As the artist says himself “Paradise has become an uneasy dwelling place; the sublime sea frames our vunerability, and the precarious nature of life itself”. It is very easy for me to identify Misrach’s use of the sublime in his series of photographs called “on the beach”. 

His photographs easily represent “the vastness of space and the human beings insignificance within it,” Richard Misrach: on the beach (2007). We can see this by the immense beach compared to how tiny the people are which are also captured within the photographs.

I find Misrach’s photographs very aesthetically appealing because the beach captured is so beautiful and his photos for me definitely seize this beauty.

5. Identify some other artists or designers that work with ideas around the Sublime, from the Enlightenment era as well as contemporary artists.

Sunny Morning on the Hudson River (1827) Thomas Cole

Flatford Mill 1817 John Constable

The Grand Canal, Venice (1835) JMW Turner

Smokey Clouds over the River (1996) Chen Jun

6. How does Misrach's photography make you feel? Does it appeal to your imagination?

Studying Misrach’s photographs relaxes me. The vastness of the ocean and beach compared to how small the people are in the photographs also has an automatic calming effect on me and I find myself in quite a reflective mood.

These photographs also appeal to my imagination because I want to be included in the photographs and I start to imagine what it would feel like to be there.

7. Add a Sublime image of your choice to your blog, which can be Art or just a Sublime photograph.

Sketch for Landscape from Flagstaff (1942) Colin McCahon

Reference List:


A picture of britain (2005, June 15)
     http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/exhibitions/apictureofbritain/works/east_constable_flatford.shtm

Burke, E. (1757). A philosophical enquiry into the origin of our ideas of the Sublime and beautiful. London, England: T.W. Copeland.

Chinese art paintings
     http://www.chineseartpaintings.com/3cj046Sf.html


Hooker, R. (1996). Seventeenth Century Enlightenment Thought. 
     http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/ENLIGHT/PREPHIL.HTM

Olga's gallery.
     http://www.abcgallery.com/C/cole/cole.html


Richard Misrach: On the Beach (2007).

     http://www.vincentborrelli.com/cgi-bin/vbb/105104


Turner, Joseph Mallord William.
     http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/turner/