What this essay will intend to do is to look into what might be characterised as sublime within contemporary art, what ideas and emotions are evoked by this description. Firstly aiming to define what the sublime is and then using three examples of contemporary art to analyse how these works may be seen as sublime.
The Oxford dictionary definition of sublime is ‘Of great excellence or beauty’ (Oxford University Press, 2017). This definition could suggest that the sublime is of great quality or great aesthetic value. Looking up at multi-million-pound skyscraper in London could then be considered as sublime experience then as we can’t help but see the great excellence in craftsmanship while looking up at it. And of great beauty one could infer that a sunset could then be seen as being something that would be a sublime experience. But then one could ask is that all the sublime is, a noteworthy piece of excellence or of great beauty? …show more content…
Christine Riding and Nigel Llewellyn found that the word limen could also mean lintel which is the heavy wooden or stone beam that holds the weight of a wall up above a doorway or a window. And summarize it to suggest a sense of striving or pushing upwards against an overbearing force. (Riding, Llewellyn, 2009-10). One could suggest that this is a key influencer in the Oxford University Press definition of the word sublime.
Since the birth of the term sublime, philosophers have argued over the meaning of it and what the sublime experience really is. Edmund Burke and Immanuel Kant are probably the most noteworthy philosophical writers that investigated the sublime with both taking different but similar approaches to what the sublime
The Oxford dictionary definition of sublime is ‘Of great excellence or beauty’ (Oxford University Press, 2017). This definition could suggest that the sublime is of great quality or great aesthetic value. Looking up at multi-million-pound skyscraper in London could then be considered as sublime experience then as we can’t help but see the great excellence in craftsmanship while looking up at it. And of great beauty one could infer that a sunset could then be seen as being something that would be a sublime experience. But then one could ask is that all the sublime is, a noteworthy piece of excellence or of great beauty? …show more content…
Christine Riding and Nigel Llewellyn found that the word limen could also mean lintel which is the heavy wooden or stone beam that holds the weight of a wall up above a doorway or a window. And summarize it to suggest a sense of striving or pushing upwards against an overbearing force. (Riding, Llewellyn, 2009-10). One could suggest that this is a key influencer in the Oxford University Press definition of the word sublime.
Since the birth of the term sublime, philosophers have argued over the meaning of it and what the sublime experience really is. Edmund Burke and Immanuel Kant are probably the most noteworthy philosophical writers that investigated the sublime with both taking different but similar approaches to what the sublime