A Fascination with the Sublime
“In broad terms, whenever the power of an object or event is such that words fail and points of comparison disappear, then we resort to the feeling of the sublime. As such, the sublime marks the limits of reason and expression together with a sense of what might lie beyond those limits…“
Philip Shaw, The Sublime
I return to the sublime again and again, to its vastness, to its beauty, to its wonder. Inherent in it is something that overwhelms me, something that is so awe-inspiring and consuming in it’s tranquility that it brings me to tears.
This being my final year Study my BA in Fine Art, it seemed only right to try and face the aspects of me that not only fascinate me, but terrify me. The academic concept of the Sublime is one I feel close to my heart yet something I often try to avoid for fear of being lost in it. It is distant and instantly familiar in an otherworldly way.
I see it in the untouched mountains, in misty clouds on hilltops, in the surface of a river from below and the vast vibrant colours of a sunset and the endless glittering shapes of a nebula. It is there, in the sleepy curls of steam rising from my coffee cup, in swirling, iridescent rainbows of oil in puddles and in the texture of a petal leaf. But how could I capture or create anything that would hold up to those standards.
It was this fascination which inspired my artwork surrounding cloud formations and the untouchable nature of the sky a few years ago. I created art around ink clouds, comparing the two, and eventually 3D printed a model of the resulting clouds. But how to invoke the genuine essence of sublime alludes me, perhaps I can only create homages to the Sublime, items and images that might remind the audience of the Sublime?
Outside of an academically artistic perspective, most would define ‘sublime’ as a very positive, wonderful things, “Something beyond all expectations or near perfection”. People often assume it is something they know how to define, but upon being asked to do so, they find they cannot without becoming poetic.
However, ‘The Sublime’, as an artistic, or philosophical, concept is different to the simple dialect use of being synonymous with tranquillity or something exceptional. It is a concept very difficult to define due to its inherent nature.
This definition of the concept as the magnitude of an experience and perception only being definable through associations and shared knowledge is what really interests me. How can this concept be invoked within an artwork? What is it that creates such a sense in some things but not others?
This is not a finished project, but rather an insight into my thought processes when working on a project.