Teresa's Mosaic: Landscape and the Sublime

'Wanderer in the mists' (1818) Caspar David Friedrich

'Untitled #2" (2002) Richard Misrach

'Untitled # 394-03' (2003) Richard Misrach

Richard Misrach's photography reflects the concept of the Sublime, from the Enlightenment.

Research Misrach's work by reading about his intentions, and also by looking at the work. Then answer the following questions;

1. What and when was the Enlightenment?

The Enlightenment was a philosophical, intellectual and cultural movement of the 17^thand 18^th centuries marked by a rejection of traditional social, religious, and political ideas and an emphasis on rationalism. The Enlightenment held that there could be a science of man, and that the history of mankind was one of progress, which could be continued with the right thinking (Robert Wilde).

2. Define the concept of the Sublime.

The sublime as concept and cultural practice has played a central role in western understanding, engaging aesthetic, spiritual and ethical values ranging from the mid 17^th century translations of Longinus, to Burkean and Kantian sublimes of the proto-Romantic and Romantic periods, via 19^th century concerns with science and theology to recent theoretical writing. However, there is still much to be investigated in the spaces between art, language and nature (Tate).

Richard Misrach said about his work that has fear and challenging toward ocean. “It’s the ultimate definition of the sublime because we’re in awe of it—its glory and its beauty—but it’s still really scary and dangerous” (Robert Ayers).

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

In 18^th the Sublime by a physiological theory was explained to the opposition of beauty by Edmund Burke (whose Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful was published in 1757).

In the Enlightenment the theorization and popularization of the sublime began to undermine the 18th century's otherwise clear emphasis on the knowable, the rational and controllable (L. Walsh, A. Lentin).

I think stylized painted landscapes influence, how people give expression the Sublime from the Enlightenment was the prevailing philosophies.

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.

He drew to the weakness and grace of the human figure in the landscape. The Sublime appeared into his great beauty image with aesthetic sense that has a dramatic contrast in the sea. I think the audience is impressed with his sublime art work that is related with fear, resilience, defiance, peace and joy even in the most ordinary activities by sea. On the Beach, paradise has become an uneasy dwelling place; the sublime sea frames our vulnerability, the precarious nature of life itself (PDN 2011).”

“The work is "suffused with a sense of the sublime, but it also begins to expose our vulnerability and fragility as human beings (Richard Misach)."

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

Boatbuilding with Tornado, 2004, Andrew Dodds

In 'Boatbuilding With Tornado', Dodds plays with and appropriates themes from romantic English landscape painting. The digital insertion of the tornado, sourced from US home video footage, is an ironic yet powerful reminder of one of the key features of the Enlightenment, namely, the quest to know and thus control the natural world. The tornado is as yet beyond our control, and as such functions as a metonym for the wild and un-tamed: a stark contrast to the carefully managed landscape depicted in the painting (Karen Ingham).

Inside The View, 2005, Helen Sear

Playing with notions of the Kantian sublime, which is frequently used in relation to the magnitude of nature, Sear's image denies us the pleasure and recognition of the traditional painterly view of the privileged landscape. Her viewer obscures the view - as the title suggests - 'inside' the view, thus frustrating our aesthetic expectations. Layered technologies and layered interpretations coalesce through physical and metaphysical superimposition. The result is disorientating yet dreamlike: a play on the surreal and the virtual 'real' (Karen Ingham).

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

His photography in the ocean view gave me an anxious feeling. It is in the silence view but I see in my head a tsunami coming soon. It appeals to my imagination which is falling down dangerous beyond the mask peace. He gives me a case of the sublime.

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