The relation of the sublime to human fears has its origin in the actual dangers of the physical world. The sublime is understood here mainly through the line of thinking originating from the 18th century, not as the sublime became represented in Greek tragedy or as the mathematical sublime, just to name a few other possible directions. One is bound to ask how the sublime relates to other aesthetic categories. In the context of spatiality, it is also important to ask how spatial experience manifests itself in these categories that differ from the traditional aesthetic experience. Often, according to the most common examples of the sublime experience is can be hastily extrapolated to concern mainly the magnificence of nature interpreted in a somewhat romanticised light. Other more recent interpretations of the sublime have, however, enlarged the scope and accentuated the different nuances of this particular type of experience. Most notably the notion of the everyday sublime is of assistance in understanding how spatial experiences are to be thought of in this context.
Etymologically the word sublime derives from the Latin word sublimis, referring to crossing a line or border. Experience of the sublime is characterised by a sense of elevation, a pleasure combined with an aspect of terror in the face of something awe-inspiring, impressive and at the same time frightful. The participation of these fears, anxieties, and phobias in relation to space are strongly presented in Edmund Burke’s notion of the sublime.295 According to Burke, the sublime has the force to destroy us; this is in part purely because of
the material qualities that go with it, such as immensity and vastness in scale. The realisation that follows from perceiving these overpowering aspects ignites the awe and fear that, however, turns into pleasure through the realisation that one is safe despite these immensities.
The main aspect of the Burkean sublime, compared to that presented by Kant,296 for example, is that Burke approaches sublimity with descriptions of its physiological and psychological effects. Kant further elaborates some of Burke’s ideas, for example by discerning as much as three different types of sublime. The development of the sublime coincides interestingly with the formation of aesthetics as a discipline; it is further proof of its indispensability for understanding the full range of aesthetic experiences.
Bollnow comes close to the Burkean definition of the sublime by describing the fear attached to it as an emotion in general. In this sense, he quotes Kierkegaard on “the dizziness of freedom”. According to Bollnow, all fear derives from the specific fear of falling or losing oneself in space. This fear, vertigo, is thus an existentially central factor to human beings and psychologically related to crisis and anxiety.297 Bollnow cites Binswanger, in a way that resembles a caution against hubris, of going too far beyond the limits, whether it means physically rising above the ground or departing in any other way from what constitutes the “reliable foundation for experience”.298 Transgressions effectuate the fear as an integral part of the sublime experience, but pleasure is made possible because the path back to the safe and reliable ground of experience still exists.
Natural phenomena such as thunderstorms or a raging sea are often used as examples when describing the sublime. Another classic example of the experi- ence of the sublime is the view from the top of the mountain. The emblematic depiction of this experience is represented in Caspar David Friedrich’s famous
Wanderer above the Sea of Fog (Der Wanderer über dem Nebelmeer, 1818). In the
scene depicted by the painting, face to face with the immensity of nature, it is possible for a human being to “most directly experience the sense of expanse” or
296 See Kant 1991a. 297 Bollnow 2011, 48. 298 Bollnow 2011, 49.
“the opening up of infinite space”.299 The inner sensation described as elevation caused by this acknowledgment of expansion is what makes the experience of the sublime relevant in the spatial sense.
A version of the sublime experience is detectable in the definitions by which Bollnow characterises the world outside the protective and familiar space of home. The notions of breadth, strangeness, and distance together form an ensemble that covers some of the main spatial aspects of the sublime when it depends on spatial factors. Through breadth the opposite of narrowness is described:
As clothing may or may not allow the body freedom of movement, so breadth in the space around us denotes the absence of restriction, room to move. Man will step out into wide-open spaces if he is not held back. The endless dimension of ocean or plain opens up before him when he steps out of the narrow valley. Wide spaces uplift man and gladden him, but their sublimity may also overpower him.300
This dual effect of breadth as wideness of open space evokes the sublime expe- rience as well as a fair amount of pure enjoyment over spatial vastness.
Strangeness is contrasted instead by that which belongs to someone, what is one’s own:
Strangeness is the area where man no longer knows his way around and where he therefore feels helpless. He can of course go into strange places to learn new things or on business, but he is outside the trusted area, in a hostile world, and the feeling of strangeness can overpower him. We all recognize the feeling of inexpressible homesickness.301
Strangeness is thus the proper opposite of the familiar, but as nothing can be thoroughly known, even the familiar always contains an element of the strange. Distance defined by Bollnow is most clearly connected to the traditional notions of the sublime:
[It] speaks to man from the blue mountains on the horizon. It is not threatening and hostile as strangeness, but enticing
299 Bollnow 2011, 81. 300 Bollnow 1961, 4–5. 301 Ibid.
and alluring, endowed with indescribable charm. When man wearies of the ordinary existence, when the sameness of every day threatens to constrict his life, then distance beckons him. The longing for distant places is the basic urge of all romanticism which by a strange twist makes the road to far places the way back to a forgotten origin.302
The notion of the sublime thus seems to be always linked to the idea of a limit. When gazing upon the horizon one realises the vastness of space but also the perceived limit to it that is set by perceptive capacities. One cannot see over or beyond the horizon. It moves with the perceiver, but it is still real in the sense that it is perceived: it is definitely not imagined. This is probably why images of the earth taken from outer space are so impressive.303 In a sense, the vastness of the cosmos provides us with the ultimate imaginable sublime experience.304 In the same sense, outer space implies an approximation of the ultimate imaginable distance. These developments of the sublime show that as an experience, it is at the same time a combination of reactions on a primitive and a highly cultured level.
There seems to exist a causal relation between the sublime and the loss or decrease of one’s own personal space, but this is difficult to pin down. Is it precisely the momentary loss of one’s spatial integrity that causes the experience of the sublime? Realising extreme distances can be an overwhelming experience, yet an altogether aesthetic one in this sense. The sublime is fundamentally understood still to be a positive experience. Despite the overwhelming and frightening qualities, the realisation of one’s position, of having some sort of role in the situation relocates the person in the midst of the pleasurable torments of the sublime experience.
The concept of the sublime opens up a chance to reconsider other parallel experiences that occur in more mundane environments and situations. Thomas Leddy writing about the connection between the everyday and the sublime reminds us that city experiences based on stark contrasts in the cityscape are
302 Bollnow 1961, 4–5.
303 E.g. in such legendary photographs as The Blue Marble (1972) or Pale Blue Dot (1990). 304 See also Kessler 2012.
often described as sublime.305 This follows the consistent assumption that the sublime in an environment always contains an element of the “terrible”. Leddy reminds us that Proustian remembrance also contains a version of the sublime in its elevation of a quotidian moment. In Proust’s case, it is however questionable whether this moment is about the sublime in the everyday at all or just has an element of the everyday as its initial impetus.306
Most importantly, however, Leddy re-interprets and re-evaluates Edward Bullough’s notion of the sublime in a way that is helpful for the purposes of this study.307 It seems that Bullough instills a certain worrisome restlessness and a sense of the uncanny into the heart of the experience in cases in which it can be described as sublime. In the context of the everyday this can mean both the presence and acknowledgement of an unfamiliar element even in some of the most familiar settings. The “distance” to which Bullough refers, describes this recognition of uncomfortable elements in a way that still allows the aesthetic pleasure to be felt and even to gain strength precisely from this recognition. Thus “the everyday sublime”, which might seem an oxymoron at first, can be linked by this tentative reference to the notion of the familiar in everyday spaces and how they are experienced.
The sublime is traditionally thought of as something that underlines the separateness of the subject from the object of the perception. However, even the overwhelming sensation inflicted by magnificent landscapes of traditional sublime experiences might stem instead from the realisation that, all in all, one is never fundamentally separate from one’s surroundings. This comes from a perception of the extreme vastness of space. Instead of the solid core of the self, one realises the connectedness, the sense of belonging, and the deep level of engagement with the environment that is manifested in one’s dependency on it.
305 Leddy 2011, 27; Leddy also mentions as an example the “negative sublime” by which Berleant describes Disney World. In my opinion this does not, however, belong to the sphere of the everyday, since a theme park is not exemplary of an everyday environment despite the omnipresence of commercialisation within the sphere of the everyday; Leddy 2011, 28–29. Berleant 1997, 77–78.
306 Leddy 2011, 32–33. 307 See Bullough 1912.