In order for any subject to be of infinite study or value it must always be open to speculation and must never be fully explainable. So it is with the sublime. Both Kant and Burke submit that their respective understandings of the sublime are incapable of being fully explained with language. However, as it is essential to grasp key elements of the understanding of the sublime in order to truly understand the gravity of Friedrich’s work, how this paper begins is with a survey of the sublime.
Let us first interpret the sublime as what it is not. The sublime is not beautiful. Both Kant and Burke makes this argument time and time again. From their perception, what is beautiful cannot be derived from the sublime. That is because what is beautiful comes from a different source: pleasure. What is sublime cannot come from pleasure, Burke argues, it must come from pain. Not just any pain but pain that was not chosen to be endured. This specification on pain is telling as it differentiates between the pain that comes when pleasure is taken away for a time, or forever. That Burke argues, is called grief, something far less agonizing than pain: “The person who grieves, suffers his passion to grow upon him; he indulges it, he loves it: but this never happens in the case of actual pain, which no man ever willingly endures for any considerable amount of time.” Burke argues that the kind of pain that comes from the removal of pleasure is self inflicted. That kind of pain is what takes the place of the pleasure and, if not chosen to be forgotten, will turn into a perverse kind of love of pain. That is not the source of the sublime. The origin of the sublime must be a terror so unendurable that if the person had a choice, they would not endure it.
Kant makes the argument that the feeling of the sublime and the feeling of beauty cannot be the same. Beauty encourages one attitude and the sublime another. In his comparison of the feelings that are evoked when confronted with either the sublime or beautiful are as follows: “The sublime must always be great; the beautiful can also be small. The sublime must be simple; the beautiful can be adorned and ornamented. A great height is just as sublime as great depth, except that the latter is accompanied with the sensation of shuddering, the former with one of wonder… affability is beautiful, thoughtful silence sublime….Understanding is sublime, wit is beautiful. Courage is sublime and great, artfulness is little but beautiful. Veracity and honesty are simple and noble, jest and pleasant flattery are delicate and beautiful. Sublime attributes stimulate esteem, but beautiful ones love.” He continues the argument discussing how the sublime is a virtue, the acme of behavior and understanding, whereas beauty is the attribute that is more socially agreeable. From this theory, it is not too farfetched of an argument to make that beauty is the lesser of the two; beauty is jest, flattery, pleasantness, wit and the sublime is understanding, courage, esteem. From this, it almost seems as if beauty is a form of deception. It quietly leads us from sublime experiences into a space of ease and flattery. This is achieved through social grace and propriety, whereas the sublime is infinite and vast, as I will later argue.
The sublime is not ugly. It is an important fact to discuss that ugliness also has no place in the sublime. I posit that ugliness is more of an anomaly than others may think. I believe ugliness not to be the antithesis of beauty, nor do I believe that beautiful cannot exist without the ugly, nor do I agree with Adorno’s thoughts on the fact that ugliness is just beauty in waiting. For nothing is ugly for the sake of being ugly; it is made to imitate beauty. Ugliness is anything that has no function, and attempts to deceive the viewer into believing that it is beautiful. Ugliness rebels against beauty without reason. Things can rebel against beauty and, in its own way, become beautiful through the rebellion. The same way that things rebel against beauty is not necessarily ugly. However, ugliness occurs when a rebellion is made against beauty, and there is no logic or reason behind it. This means that the ugly lives independent of beauty, and beauty independent of it. This subtle difference in the definition of the ugly liberates beauty and the sublime from the burden of ugliness.
The sublime is not fantasy. In a compelling article of Julia Kristeva, she discusses the nature of terror, fear, and horror. She argues that fear and astonishment come not from the physical act, but from the fantasy of it. She uses a Freudian example from literature in which a boy is afraid of horses because of his fear that the horse may bite him; “’I am afraid of horses, I am afraid of being bitten.’ Fear and the aggressivity intended to protect me from some not yet localizable cause are projected and come back to me from the outside ‘I am threatened’ The fantasy of incorporation by means of which I attempt to escape fear threatens me none the less, for a symbolic paternal prohibition already dwells in me.” This Idea is compelling, as it discusses how authentic the fear needs to be. Although the boy has never been bitten by a horse, the idea of him being bitten by a horse is terrifying enough. Is this enough terror to root the idea of the sublime? It is possible as a great fear of the sublime is in its unknown faculties. What is unknown to a human is not unknown for long. Even without factual evidence, the human mind will fantasize about what could happen, or what could be. This illuminates the mind, but cannot give the true effect of the sublime. The fantasizing is important, however, as when the sublime is truly felt it dwarfs the fear-fantasy. Schopehauer discusses this concept as well in the section dedicated to the understanding of the ludicrous. He indicates that the ludicrous is “paradoxical” as it incorporates both reality and fiction. This frustration, he continues, between reality and fiction lead to incongruity of reason and logic. He ends the argument with an eerie study of laughter; how the more ludicrous the man, the greater the amount of laughter.
What the sublime is; eternal and dangerous. Aside from the accoutrements of the sublime, which are astonishment, terror and fear the two greatest traits of the sublime are eternal capacities and danger. First, the eternal capacities. In visual arts, as with Friedrich, the sublime is indicated by vast spaces of land, water or sky. Burke indicates that this is essential: “The starry heaven, though it occurs so very frequently to our view, never fails to excite an idea of grandeur. This cannot be owing to anything in the stars themselves, separately considered. The number is certainly the cause. The apparent disorder arguments the grandeur, for the appearance of care is highly contrary to our ideas of magnificence.” This is regarding the external atmostphere of the person, one can be consumed by vast amounts of space such as the starscape or seascape. But what is truly compelling about the infinite nature of the sublime is what it internally does to the person; “The mid is so entirely filled with its object , that is cannot entertain any other, nor by consequence reason on that object which employs it.” The mind itself is consumed. From these quotes, one can conclude that both space and mind become members of the infinite, that is when the sublime occurs. Secondly, the dangerous. The sublime moment cannot occur, even in its infinite vastness without an element of danger. One, when complacent (a trait, as Kant argues, derived from beauty), cannot fear for one’s life. Therefore, the human must feel as though he is in some kind of danger. Danger is the key that unlocks the gate which can admit the sublime into the presence of the mind and the soul. As Burke explains: “Whatever, therefore, is terrible, with regards to sight, is sublime too, whether the cause of terror, be endued with greatness of dimension or not; for it is impossible to look on anything as trifling, or contemptible, that may be dangerous.” This concludes that danger is both the avenue to the sublime, as well as beauty’s main tool to keep humans from experiencing the sublime. One often does not intentionally put oneself into danger, not when wit and jest can be perceived as pleasant and far more conveniently obtainable.
With this description of the sublime in mind, two questions need to be asked; how is this definition of the sublime relevant to Friedrich’s work? If this is an accurate definition, why was Friedrich compelled to paint the terrible sublime rather than clever pastoral landscapes as his contemporaries did? The purpose of the rest of this paper is to answer these questions. The relevance is simple, although bold; Friedrich’s work is not beautiful. Almost his entire body of work sacrificed beauty in order to make room for a serious study of the sublime. Although it is common to find Christian symbols in his work, his study of the sublime is too progressive to be denied attention. He was compelled to paint such landscapes that expose tragedy and horror because of its infinite possibility. He will entertain the idea of the “ineffable Beyond” which fueled the theme of his body of work.
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