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What is sublime? We use the term to describe something that fills us with awe, or to attempt to describe an almost spiritual feeling. We use it in regard to both nature and art, but is it appropriate to do this? Can it be applied to art at all, or is it a technical term of philosophy that we have no place appropriating? Using Kant's description of the sublime I will argue that it can be applied to non-representational art, and that some of these abstract art works evoke feelings of sublimity by creating an environment that allows the mind to experience limitlessness (either through infinity or the might of nature) through negativity.
The Sublime
When we speak of the sublime we are discussing a feeling or, more precisely, a subjective experience. This experience exists only in the mind of the person making an aesthetic judgment, upon the presentation of an object, not in the object itself (Kant 106). Like the beautiful, a judgment of the sublime is a reflective judgement. However, unlike beauty, which correlates with understanding, the sublime "refers the imagination to reason so that it will harmonize subjectively with reason's ideas…" (Kant 112). Kant describes this relationship between the imagination and reason thus:
[What happens is that] our imagination strives to progress toward infinity, while our reason demands absolute totality as a real idea, and so [the imagination] our power of estimating the magnitude of things in the world of sense, is inadequate to that idea. Yet this inadequacy itself is the arousal in us of the feeling that we have within us a supersensible power; and what is absolutely large is not an object of sense, but is the use that judgement makes naturally of certain objects so as to [arouse] this (feeling), and in contrast with that use any other use is small. (Kant 106)
To paraphrase Kant: we encounter an environment that prompts our imagination to believe that it can "progress toward infinity", and it endeavours to do this (apprehension). But our reason wants to only comprehend something that it can grasp in its entirety (comprehension), and realises that our imagination is "inadequate" to this task. Yet this feeling of "inadequacy" is an indicator that within us there must be something larger than the feeling, otherwise we would not be able to measure it. Having already defined the sublime as "That … in comparison with which everything else is small." Kant concludes that this feeling is the feeling of the sublime. Basically (albeit paradoxically), the sublime is the feeling aroused when thinking the unthinkable, or when the mind experiences its own limitlessness by encountering its own limits.
The feeling of the sublime is a double feeling; of displeasure combined with pleasure.
Hence the feeling of the sublime is a feeling of displeasure that arises from the imagination's inadequacy, in an aesthetic estimation of magnitude, for an estimation by reason, but is at the same time also a pleasure, aroused by the fact that this very judgement, namely, that even the greatest power of sensibility is inadequate, it [itself] in harmony with rational ideas, insofar as striving toward them is still a law for us. (Kant 114)
These two feelings combine to produce what Kant calls "agitation" (Kant 115). This agitation arises from the mental tension between apprehension and comprehension, not by any fear on the part of the subject. The presented object may be one that arouses fear, but for an aesthetic judgement of the sublime the subject must not be in a state of fear when judging it (Kant 119) - the viewer must be in a position of safety. The inadequacy of the imagination referred to above rests on reason demanding that the thing be comprehended in its entirety "in one intuition" (Kant 111), and "within one whole" (Kant109). This intuition must convey the notion of infinity or limitlessness to the subject.
Kant speaks about a 'Mathematically Sublime' and a 'Dynamically Sublime'. As Lyotard has identified, the use of these two terms does not mean that there are two different types of sublime experience, rather, that there are different ways of considering the sublime (Lyotard 1994, 90). The mind's limitlessness can be felt either through "expansion", the progression towards infinity that we spoke of above, which correlates with the mathematical aspect, or through the realisation of the "might over the mind" that the vocation of judging has, the dynamic aspect (Kant 128). Kant describes this 'vocation' this way:
… But our imagination, even in its greatest effort to do what is demanded of it and comprehend a given object in a whole of intuition (and hence to exhibit the idea of reason), proves its own limits and inadequacy, and yet at the same time proves its vocation to [obey] a law, namely, to make itself adequate to that idea. Hence the feeling of the sublime in nature is respect for our own vocation. But by a certain subreption (in which respect for the object is substituted for respect for the idea of humanity within our[selves as] subject[s]) this respect is accorded an object of nature that, as it were, makes intuitable for us the superiority of the rational vocation of our cognitive powers over the greatest power of sensibility. (Kant 114)
The Sublime in Relation to Mimetic Art
Kant clearly stated that in relation to art works or cultural artefacts the concept of the sublime does not apply: "…we must point to the sublime not in products of art (e.g., buildings, columns, etc.), where both the form and the magnitude are determined by a human purpose…". He groups art with natural things "whose very concept carries with it a determinate purpose" and advised us to only seek the sublime in "crude nature" (Kant 109).
For Kant, fine art was representational or mimetic art. The painter aimed at creating an illusion of reality - the feeling of looking out of a window. Romantic painters such as Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840) were very concerned with moving the viewer towards their feelings (at the expense of the intellect), and depicted landscapes of grandeur, desolation, vastness and awe. There is no doubt that these painters wished to capture the essence of the sublime.
Friedrich presents nature in two ways. The first is a mimetic representation, a straight 'window' onto a scene of nature that could be regarded as sublime. For example in The Wreck of the Hope (1824) we can see the endless stretches of the ice floes, the mountains of ice that hint at an infinite regress - here then is a glimpse of infinity. The wrecked ship articulates man's insignificance in the face of the boundless might of nature. The other mode of presentation is also mimetic, but here Friedrich presents us with a built-in spectator. In The Wanderer Over the Misty Sea (1818), we see the romantic wanderer surveying the vast mountain ranges. We imagine that we are seeing what he sees - seeing through his eyes, or, if you are more literally minded, imagine that we are standing behind the wanderer looking at the 'window' in the same way we regarded the painting of the ice.
It is this act of imagination that ensures that neither of these paintings can evoke the sublime - the encompassing intuition that is required is always mediated by this initial act of imagination. Our romantic wanderer is safe on his outcrop, and we are doubly safe because we are standing somewhere quite comfortable imagining ourselves to be someone either standing on an outcrop of rock, or standing behind someone standing on an outcrop of rock. For Kant this art is not pure, what we would now call art for arts sake. It has a purpose, and that is to represent nature. This 'purpose' taints the aesthetic with the teleological.
Any attempt to represent the sublime will not work because the sublime is unrepresentable. It is here that we recall Kant's discussion of the commandment in regard to graven images (Kant 135). He regards this as the most sublime commandment. Why? Because God is unrepresentable, and as such you are more likely to approach God through a contemplation of the commandment, a contemplation of what God is not, than through any representation that will always fall short of its goal.
Friedrich's art is more like an allegory of the sublime - it shows us a scene that would be considered sublime if encountered in nature, but is mediated and diminished by the representational nature of mimetic art, and so cannot be considered to evoke the sublime in the Kantian sense.
The Sublime in Relation to Abstract Art
If representational art is not able to evoke the sublime, is it possible that non-representational art could? Kant did not discuss this because abstract art did not exist in his time. However to apply his theory to today's art the only assumption that we need to make is that it is appropriate to use Kant's theory at this time. Given that none of the conditions he outlines are contextual, or in anyway dependant on history, this temporal move doesn't change the basic framework that he provided in regard to the mental and physical conditions required for an evocation of the sublime.
The objection that I raised above in regard to mimetic art does not apply to abstract art because the object catalyses the experience of the sublime not by representing something else, but by its own presence. The object creates an environment that allows the conditions to be fulfilled while you are (safe) in the gallery observing the artwork. It could be pointed out that the argument against mimetic art rested on the notion of the viewer's knowledge that it is only a picture of a landscape and that this could also apply to abstract art, that it is only a picture of something that can't be represented. However it is from sounding out this paradox that the feeling of the sublime arises.
The most supportive piece of information that would lead us to believe that Kant's work would support our argument rests in this discussion of the abstraction of the sublime:
We need not worry that the feeling of the sublime will lose [something] if it is exhibited in such an abstract way as this, which is wholly negative as regards the sensible. For although the imagination finds nothing beyond the sensible that could support it, this very removal of its barriers also makes it feel unbounded, so that its separation [from the sensible] is an exhibition of the infinite; and through an exhibition of the infinite can as such never be more than merely negative, it still expands the soul. (Kant 135)
The original conception that we started out with, of 'thinking the unthinkable', now becomes, as Lyotard formulated it: "… the demonstration of the existence of the invisible in the visual." Or, the representation of the unrepresentable (1982, 67).
The Experience of the Sublime through Abstract Art
I believe that there are many abstract works that fulfil Kant's conditions for evoking sublimity, but here I will only demonstrate how one sculpture fulfils the requirements. Anish Kapoor's blue voids, Untitled (1990) give a unique viewing experience. Standing in front of the work your field of vision is drawn inside the sculpture. The surface seems soft, almost like felt with no sharp edges to demarcate you and the rest of the world. The rest of the room seems to slip away and dissolve.
There is an ideal viewing position, where the work enfolds you, a strangely intimate space created to contemplate the infinite. Or in this case of the void - negative infinity. Absolute nothingness. Of course it isn't infinite, which is the critical factor. Crude nature is not infinite either; it is the intuition of infinity that is important (Kant 112). This viewing position is removed, a safe location without fear intruding on the 'purity' of the experience.
As you observe the work the optical illusion of convex and concave cuts in, flipping your perception of the work around. Are you looking into a bowl or looking at the outside of a sphere? Almost like an echo of the infinite itself, this flipping also mirrors the agitation that Kant described when speaking about the experience of the sublime. This optical effect is obviously not the defining 'rule' for generating the sublime (similar to Kant's comment on fear [Kant 119]). The sublime has a switching effect, but not all op art is sublime. The other conditions must also be satisfied.
Kapoor's sculpture gives rise to the sublime not just through its association with the void, but also by its use of colour. The saturated blue of the work evokes musings on the nature of absolute colour - what would 'absolute' blue be like? Blue without end? You experience an intuition of absolute blue, and the process of comprehension tangles again with perception, giving rise to the feeling of the sublime.
In the case of the void, the feeling of nothingness is created by presence, and in the case of absolute blue, the feeling of the absolute is created by an inadequate representation. It is this negativity that is the heart of Kant's conditions for evoking the sublime, the same negativity present in Anish Kapoor's Untitled.
List of Works Consulted:
Bhabha, Homi K. 'Anish Kapoor: Making Emptiness.' Anish Kapoor. London: Hayward Gallery & University of California Press, 1998.
Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Aesthetic Judgment. Trans. Verner S. Pluhar. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1987.
Lyotard, Jean-François. 'Presenting the Unpresentable: the Sublime.' Artforum 20 (1982): 64-69.
Lyotard, Jean-François. Lessons on the Analytic Sublime: Kant's Critique of Judgement Sections 23-29. Trans. Elizabeth Rottenberg. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994.
Image Sources:
Börsch-Supan, Helmut. Caspar David Friedrich. Munich: Prestel-Verlag, 1990.
Bhabha, Homi K & Tazzi, Pier Luigi. Anish Kapoor. London: Hayward Gallery & University of California Press, 1998.
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