In his book 'Mountains of the Mind', Robert MacFarlane talks about our changing attitudes to mountains over the centuries, and how they went from eyesores to an example of sublime beauty. They used to be considered ghastly, wretched monstrosities and people couldn't fathom how anyone could see beauty in them. There's that lovely Thomas Hobbes poem: 'Behind a ruin’d mountain does appear/Swelling into two parts, which turgent are/As when we bend our bodies to the ground,/The buttocks amply sticking out are found.'
There's a great book called 'The Accidental Masterpiece: On the Art of Life and Vice Versa' (Michael Kimmelman) and he has this passage: "In fact, our modern attitude toward mountains – to what we consider their natural beauty – is a matter of conditioned learning, inherited through literature and theology, which has evolved during the last few centuries to encompass a notion of the sublime in nature: we have been trained what to see and how to feel."
I love that idea of being trained what to see and how to feel and obviously your friend Friedrich had a big part in that.
Thank you for this enlightening article. As a literary scholar, I am familiar with the notion of the sublime, but I don’t know as much about painting, particularly Friedrich’s work. I specialize in American writers, including Poe. I have to think that the notion of the sublime inspired the conclusion of his only complete novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym.
Thank you for sharing this wonderfully Romantic poem! It's very affective. I've never heard of that book, so thank you for the suggestion! I really enjoy Goethe's art writing, like his Theory of Colour. I also like Winckelmann and Lessing (though I've never read them in German... for obvious reasons).
Absolutely loved this! I've learned a lot about the sublime in literature, but it was really interesting to see its parallel in painting! Thanks Rebecca!
I'm glad you were able to see the show. Great photos--all those living Rückenfiguren looking at the Rückenfiguren in a landscape! I don't know if you saw my piece on Friedrich a few weeks ago, in anticipation of this show. As a follower of the sublime, I keep returning to his work. https://brooksriley.substack.com/p/natures-emissary?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2
I saved your post on the Friedrich exhibit to read after every chore was done today, as a sort of “reward” for “doing my duty.” Well, what you have written and observed here is far beyond what I had earned, and glorious.
Only recently, and, ironically enough, on reading Ritchie Robertson’s book “The Enlightenment,” did I even become acquainted with the concept of the Sublime in art. Now, reading your post, and thinking back on what I intend to be only the first of my visits to this magnificent exhibit, do I begin to understand the concept of the Sublime. Standing before Friedrich’s first subtle ink and wash paintings, down to the last oil, is truly to experience the meaning of the Sublime.
Robertson wrote of the Sublime that it “helped to explain how pleasure could arise from objects to which the word ‘beautiful’ did not seem appropriate.” [p. 507] Addison, for example, wrote of the ‘great’ objects which give pleasure, such as ‘huge heaps of mountains, high rocks and precipices . . . . Such objects did not fit the long-standing idea . . . that beauty consists in proportion and symmetry . . . . Apparently mountains gave pleasure because they were not symmetrical but lay in ‘huge heaps’.” [p. 507]
I sort of love that. Yet, standing before Friedrich’s paintings, no words are needed: the Sublime is simply there before you, in full. Returning to words, there is, though, a poem, by Wallace Stevens, that I like to think captures this experience, too:
It is in his book, The Rock (1954).
The Poem That Took the Place of a Mountain.
There it was, word for word,
The poem that took the place of a mountain.
He breathed its oxygen,
Even when the book lay turned in the dust of his table.
It reminded him how he had needed
A place to go in his own direction,
How he had recomposed the pines,
Shifted the rocks and picked his way among clouds,
For the outlook that would be right,
Where he would be complete in an unexplained completion:
The exact rock where his inexactnesses
Would discover, at last, the view toward which they had edged,
I'm really pleased that you enjoy my posts enough to use them as little 'treats'! Do let me know what you think of the exhibit. I think it is beautifully curated, and well paced. I only wish there were a few more moonlit graveyard scenes, but that's just the Goth in me talking 🦇🦇 If you want to learn more about the sublime, I highly recommend Pete De Bolla's 'The Sublime: A Reader' which is a really comprehensive anthology of all the key texts (Longinus, Burke, Addison, Gerard, Shaftesbury...) -- https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sublime-Reader-British-Eighteenth-Century-Aesthetic/dp/0521395828.
Oh, thanks for the book recommendation! I have seen the exhibit (though I plan to return), and I thought it exquisite in every respect. In addition to the curation and pacing, where I agree 💯with you on both, I was astounded to think of the work that had to have gone in to obtain artworks from so many sources outside the Met. Sublime in every sense of the word!
In his book 'Mountains of the Mind', Robert MacFarlane talks about our changing attitudes to mountains over the centuries, and how they went from eyesores to an example of sublime beauty. They used to be considered ghastly, wretched monstrosities and people couldn't fathom how anyone could see beauty in them. There's that lovely Thomas Hobbes poem: 'Behind a ruin’d mountain does appear/Swelling into two parts, which turgent are/As when we bend our bodies to the ground,/The buttocks amply sticking out are found.'
There's a great book called 'The Accidental Masterpiece: On the Art of Life and Vice Versa' (Michael Kimmelman) and he has this passage: "In fact, our modern attitude toward mountains – to what we consider their natural beauty – is a matter of conditioned learning, inherited through literature and theology, which has evolved during the last few centuries to encompass a notion of the sublime in nature: we have been trained what to see and how to feel."
I love that idea of being trained what to see and how to feel and obviously your friend Friedrich had a big part in that.
Fascinating. I didn't know this. I mean, it really explains why the Romantics really liked using mountains as an example of the terrifying sublime!
Love this. It fits so well with where this took me (in my comment) on that very subject of mountains.
Thank you for this enlightening article. As a literary scholar, I am familiar with the notion of the sublime, but I don’t know as much about painting, particularly Friedrich’s work. I specialize in American writers, including Poe. I have to think that the notion of the sublime inspired the conclusion of his only complete novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym.
That exhibit looks excellent. I’ve never heard of Friedrich, so thank you!💕
Thank you for this great post! I love Friedrich's paintings and was reminded of Goethe's poem "Welcome and Farewell":
Quick throbb'd my heart: to horse! haste, haste
And lo! 'twas done with speed of light;
The evening soon the world embraced,
And o'er the mountains hung the night.
Soon stood, in robe of mist, the oak,
A tow'ring giant in his size,
Where darkness through the thicket broke,
And glared with hundred gloomy eyes.
(translated by Bowring)
Do you know the novel "Anatomie der Wolken" by Lea Singer that brings Goethe and Friedrich together?
Thank you for sharing this wonderfully Romantic poem! It's very affective. I've never heard of that book, so thank you for the suggestion! I really enjoy Goethe's art writing, like his Theory of Colour. I also like Winckelmann and Lessing (though I've never read them in German... for obvious reasons).
Absolutely loved this! I've learned a lot about the sublime in literature, but it was really interesting to see its parallel in painting! Thanks Rebecca!
As in painting, so in poetry...
I'm glad you were able to see the show. Great photos--all those living Rückenfiguren looking at the Rückenfiguren in a landscape! I don't know if you saw my piece on Friedrich a few weeks ago, in anticipation of this show. As a follower of the sublime, I keep returning to his work. https://brooksriley.substack.com/p/natures-emissary?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2
I saved your post on the Friedrich exhibit to read after every chore was done today, as a sort of “reward” for “doing my duty.” Well, what you have written and observed here is far beyond what I had earned, and glorious.
Only recently, and, ironically enough, on reading Ritchie Robertson’s book “The Enlightenment,” did I even become acquainted with the concept of the Sublime in art. Now, reading your post, and thinking back on what I intend to be only the first of my visits to this magnificent exhibit, do I begin to understand the concept of the Sublime. Standing before Friedrich’s first subtle ink and wash paintings, down to the last oil, is truly to experience the meaning of the Sublime.
Robertson wrote of the Sublime that it “helped to explain how pleasure could arise from objects to which the word ‘beautiful’ did not seem appropriate.” [p. 507] Addison, for example, wrote of the ‘great’ objects which give pleasure, such as ‘huge heaps of mountains, high rocks and precipices . . . . Such objects did not fit the long-standing idea . . . that beauty consists in proportion and symmetry . . . . Apparently mountains gave pleasure because they were not symmetrical but lay in ‘huge heaps’.” [p. 507]
I sort of love that. Yet, standing before Friedrich’s paintings, no words are needed: the Sublime is simply there before you, in full. Returning to words, there is, though, a poem, by Wallace Stevens, that I like to think captures this experience, too:
It is in his book, The Rock (1954).
The Poem That Took the Place of a Mountain.
There it was, word for word,
The poem that took the place of a mountain.
He breathed its oxygen,
Even when the book lay turned in the dust of his table.
It reminded him how he had needed
A place to go in his own direction,
How he had recomposed the pines,
Shifted the rocks and picked his way among clouds,
For the outlook that would be right,
Where he would be complete in an unexplained completion:
The exact rock where his inexactnesses
Would discover, at last, the view toward which they had edged,
Where he could lie and, gazing down at the sea,
Recognize his unique and solitary home.
Thank you for this lovely, resonant post.
I'm really pleased that you enjoy my posts enough to use them as little 'treats'! Do let me know what you think of the exhibit. I think it is beautifully curated, and well paced. I only wish there were a few more moonlit graveyard scenes, but that's just the Goth in me talking 🦇🦇 If you want to learn more about the sublime, I highly recommend Pete De Bolla's 'The Sublime: A Reader' which is a really comprehensive anthology of all the key texts (Longinus, Burke, Addison, Gerard, Shaftesbury...) -- https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sublime-Reader-British-Eighteenth-Century-Aesthetic/dp/0521395828.
Oh, thanks for the book recommendation! I have seen the exhibit (though I plan to return), and I thought it exquisite in every respect. In addition to the curation and pacing, where I agree 💯with you on both, I was astounded to think of the work that had to have gone in to obtain artworks from so many sources outside the Met. Sublime in every sense of the word!
Albert Bierstadt is another master of the sublime. His documentation of the American West captures that same immensity and majesty.