Landscape and the Sublime

1. What and when was the Enlightenment?
The Enlightenment, also called the Age of Reason or the Age of Rationalism, was a period during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries when European philosophers stressed the use of reason as the best method for learning the truth. Such philosophers as Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) and Voltaire (1694–1778) in France and John Locke (1632–1704) in England pondered aspects of education, law, social theory, superstition, and ignorance. Hallmarks of the Enlightenment include the idea that the universe is systematic though vast and complex; the belief that men and women are capable of understanding the universe; and the philosophy of Deism. According to Deism, God created the world and natural laws, then withdrew from involvement in the workings of the universe(Eras and their highlights,n.d.).
The "Enlightenment" was not a single movement or school of thought, for these philosophies were often mutually contradictory or divergent. The Enlightenment was less a set of ideas than it was a set of values. At its core was a critical questioning of traditional institutions, customs, and morals, and a strong belief in rationality and science. Thus, there was still a considerable degree of similarity between competing philosophies.Some historians also include the late 17th century as part of the Enlightenment. Modernity, by contrast, is used to refer to the period after The Enlightenment; albeit generally emphasizing social conditions rather than specific philosophies(para.3).
2. Define the concept of the Sublime.
In aesthetics, the sublime (from the Latin sublīmis) is the quality of greatness or vast magnitude, whether physical, moral, intellectual, metaphysical, aesthetic, spiritual or artistic. The term especially refers to a greatness with which nothing else can be compared and which is beyond all possibility of calculation, measurement or imitation(Sublime,n.d.).
The experience of the sublime involves a self-forgetfulness where personal fear is replaced by a sense of well-being and security when confronted with an object exhibiting superior might, and is similar to the experience of the tragic. The "tragic consciousness" is the capacity to gain an exalted state of consciousness from the realization of the unavoidable suffering destined for all men and that there are oppositions in life that can never be resolved, most notably that of the "forgiving generosity of deity" subsumed to "inexorable fate"(p.4).
3. How did the concept of the Sublime come out of the Enlightenment thought?
In the chapter "Analytic of the Sublime" Kant identifies the sublime as an aesthetic quality which, like beauty, is subjective, but unlike beauty refers to an indeterminate relationship between the faculties of the imagination and of reason, and shares the character of moral judgments in the use of reason. The feeling of the sublime, itself divided into two distinct modes (the mathematical sublime and the dynamical sublime), describe two subjective moments both of which concern the relationship of the faculty of the imagination to reason. The mathematical sublime is situated in the failure of the imagination to comprehend natural objects which appear boundless and formless, or which appear "absolutely great" . This imaginative failure is then recuperated through the pleasure taken in reason's assertion of the concept of infinity. In this move the faculty of reason proves itself superior to our fallible sensible self. In the dynamical sublime there is the sense of annihilation of the sensible self as the imagination tries to comprehend a vast might. This power of nature threatens us but through the resistance of reason to such sensible annihilation, the subject feels a pleasure and a sense of the human moral vocation. This appreciation of moral feeling through exposure to the sublime helps to develop moral character(Immanuel Kant,n.d.).
Another characteristic avenue of Enlightenment thought about art involved the exploration of the psychological bases of our responses as viewers. One of the most important examples is A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, published in 1757, then again, with additions, in 1759, by Edmund Burke, who would go on to become a politician and political theorist. Though obviously inspired by the ancient treatise attributed to Longinus, Burke extends the frame of reference well beyond rhetorical stylistics. He is concerned to distinguish sharply between the two categories of experience and to explain them in terms of our fundamental responses to pain and pleasure, instincts concerned with self-preservation, on the one hand, and sociability on the other. The sublime involves things that excite ideas of pain and danger without putting us in any real pain or danger; beauty, on the other hand, is the quality we attribute to things that prompt us to love. The sublime is associated with the qualities of vastness, power, obscurity, privation, and difficulty; beautiful things are characterized by smallness, smoothness, gradual variation, and delicacy(Williams,The Enlightenment,n.d.).
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.

Monolake2,California,1999

Richard Misrach

Outdoor Dining

Hazardous Waste Containment site(1998)

“ the world is as terrible as it is beautiful, but when you look more closely, it is as beautiful as it is terrible.” – Richard Misrach
Richard Misrach is one of the most influential and prolific artists of his generation. In the 1970s, he helped pioneer the renaissance of color photography and large-scale presentation that are widespread practice today. Best known for his ongoing epic series, Desert Cantos, a multi-faceted approach to the study of place and man’s complex relationship to it, he has worked in the landscape for over 40 years. Other notable bodies of work include his documentation of the industrial corridor along the Mississippi River known as Cancer Alley, the sumptuous study of weather, time, color and light in his serial photographs of the Golden Gate, and On the Beach, an aerial perspective of human interaction and isolation. Recent projects mark departures from his work to date. In one series, he has experimented with new advances in digital capture and printing, foregrounding the negative as an end in itself and digitally creating images with astonishing detail and color spectrum(Richard Misrach,n.d.).
Whether photographing a flooded town, a desert fire, an abandoned nuclear test site or the colors on the horizon emanating from a small town miles away, Richard Misrach draws the viewer into his world through his mastery of color. Ranging from beautiful lakes to secret military bunkers to speed racing on the Utah salt flats, Misrach's work chronicles mans involvement in the desert, while always paying homage to the intrinsic beauty provided by nature. It's through beauty that Misrach's social concerns are most revealed. By pulling the viewer into a glowing light or calm body of water, he presents situations which leave us asking questions about the American desert -- a desert which continues to heal and revive itself regardless of mans actions(Richard Misrach,n.d.).
5. Identify some other artists or designers that work with ideas around the Sublime, from the Enlightenment era as well as contemporary artists.

Lorraine Byrne

Lorraine Byrne's work centres around ideas of the sublime. She is interested in light and how it shapes and changes the landscape and in people’s efforts to tame it. She is curious about the effects produced when nature is manipulated. In addition, Lorraine is fascinated with line, and geometric patterning which occurs in everyday things.

Alan Rankle

Alan Rankle was born in Oldham and has a studio near Southampton. His works respond to 18th and early 19th century topographical paintings and ideas of the 'sublime'. This painting is part of a gift of six paintings to various museums around the country through the Art Fund. In these works, elements of traditional Chinese painting have been combined with more modern concepts, such as Abstract Expressionism. Although Rankle presents his work in different formats, he typically paints within a traditional picturesque framework and some of his works employ the same compositional structures as Claude Lorraine.
6. How does Misrach's photography make you feel? Does it appeal to your imagination?
Richard Misrach's landscapes seem to tell us about human and nature, a beautiful and terrible relationship,and it attracts my imagination.
7.Add a sublime image of your choice to your blog,which can be Art or just a sublime photograph.

Magical combination of smoke and sunrays in this photo, taken in a rice cracker bakery at Inle Lake in Myanmar(image credit: Bas Uterwijk)

References:  Eras and Their Highlights.(n.d.).Retrieved from www.enotes.com/history-fact-finder
                   Age of Enlightenment.(n.d.).Retrieved April 13,2011,from http://en.wikipedia.org/
                   Sublime.(n.d.).Retrieved April 14,2011,from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/sublime_(philosophy)
                   Immanuel Kant.(n.d.).Retrieved April 12,2011,from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/immanuel_kant
                   Williams,The Enlightenment.(n.d.).Retrieved from http://sites.google.com/site/kunstfi/osofiesite/
                   Richard Misrach.(n.d.).Retrieved from http://www.edelmanga/lery.com
                   Richard Misrach.(n.d.).Retrieved April 17,2011,from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/richard_misrach