Image source Amazon
Reading Reflection written December 2021
Maybe it's easier to experience the sublime than explain it.
In the words of John Machlis from The Enjoyment of Music: An Introduction to Perceptive Listening (I must finish this book next, move to the top of my to-read list), 'art like love is easier to experience than define'. This quote springs to mind after reading this book.
I definitely don't know enough about the sublime to speak on this topic but I am intrigued enough to want to listen to others who do know alot about this concept. I need to investigate further. Prior to reading this my initial thoughts were, what could be more stimulating than beauty? Why would people choose fear over a state of calmness? I do resonate with the sublime found in nature, this I can understand, but to me there’s diffused lines where the intersection of beauty and the sublime meet.
I remember my Grandpa (Pa) using the words sensational and sublime interchangeably and thinking, ‘oh he means beautiful or good’, after reading this I don't think Pa knew how deep the roots of those words grew.
There are so many raw artworks in here that are pure expressions or responses to nature and are conceptual/ephemeral. It remains a new challenge to interpret a physical artwork from a text version without tangible pictorial representation. It takes a certain kind of brain power to be stimulated by the description of an artwork without tangible visual representation; to envision these types of artworks (such as environmental artworks which to me could be described as natural-performative--ephemeral-artworks), it requires the most elevated level of imagination. I'd love to unpack this subject more and weave throughout my artworks.
Read this book if you're enamoured by the things we are attracted and repelled by. Read again and again when you'd like a broader understanding of what's beyond beauty?