Romantic painter recognised their own thoughts in that of sublime theory, particularly Kant’s writings. Reacting to the rapid industrialisation brought on by the French revolution, the rational attitudes of scientists and thinkers of the era and the dominance of neo-classicism in arts, the Romantic artists were linked together by rebellion, rather than a pre-determined style. Many painters thought of now as Romantics denied all knowledge of the style as a movement. This does not mean that Romanticism was beyond definition. Jacques-Louis David called it “a revolution, not an insurrection”. (Honour, 1991: 16). Honour writes simply of ‘attitudes towards to art and life which differ fundamentally from those previously expressed’ (Honour, 1991, 12). Levi-Strauss ignored similar factors, declaring that ‘it is not the similarities but the differences which resemble one another’ (Honour, 1991, 12). Baudelaire spoke of the emotional content of work over any similar aesthetics; ‘Romanticism is precisely situated neither in choice of subject nor in exact truth, but in a way of feeling.’ (Honour, 1991, 14), where as others resigned themselves and gave up; ‘it is that which cannot be defined’. (Honour, 1991, 14.) However, one theme which was recurrent within works of art was the concept of the sublime. Escaping to wild landscapes and the untamed natural world as a way of avoiding the urban sprawl of expanding industry, the awesome power of nature completely overriding humanity’s supposed dominance was the perfect riposte. Casper David Friedrich’s Wonderer Above the Sea of Fog (1818) (Below); one of the most famous examples of both Romanticism and the sublime within fine art exemplifies the artists stand point, with a lowly figure standing on the edge of a precipice, overlooking craggy outcrops, poking through thick, swirling fog, mountains tailing off in the distance. The landscape expands outwards from the painting, defying the boundaries of the canvas. The wonderer, rather than the super-human proposed by Longinus, is isolated, powerless and frail, his head bowed. Hugh Honour (1991: 81) described the figures painted by Friedrich as being “neither wholly of its world nor of ours, standing on the edge of reality. Motionless, isolated, they seem to be both within and yet somehow outside of nature, at once at home in it and estranged – symbols of ambiguity and alienation”.
John Martin’s The Bard (Below) calls to mind a similar sentiment. A dramatic cliff framed ravine, cut through with a rushing current of water cascading over a waterfall, set in mountainous terrain hosts a perilously placed castle, a symbol of man’s authority and protection balanced at the top of a far cliff, shaped around the terrain, politely borrowing the space from dominant nature. In the foreground, a tiny bard figure, harp in hand stands at the edge of a craggy precipice, his arm outstretched as a harsh wind whips his beard and cape upwards into the air. Like the figure in Friedrich’s painting, he is entirely at the mercy of the elements, overawed and gripped in a powerless state.
These depictions did not necessarily exist; the goal was never realism, but more a way to display a scene which could evoke the feelings felt by the artists when viewing nature themselves, metaphorical allusions to the sublime. Turner commented “I do not paint to be understood, I paint to show what a particular scene looks like” (Honour 1991: 31), however his paintings confirmed that a lack of reality was not detrimental to the aims of the painting. Snow Storm – Steam Boat off a harbour’s mouth (1842) (below) is almost entirely abstract, with waves and sky merging with frenzied, swirling brush strokes. Rather than painting the crests and foam of waves, frozen in an instant perfectly, the motion has been captured with quick, blurred movement, giving the moment a truer life and intensity, rejecting perception merely as eyesight. The boat itself is barely identifiable other than its silhouetted mast, a mere spectator to the roaring, ferocious snow storm that holds it. Turner’s paintings paved the way for abstraction in later years, as perception as captured by painters of the
time was questioned and rejected. Turner’s paintings see movement as non-concrete motion, elements as non-identifiable, and like Kant proposed in his writings, rather than looking at the final cause to identify the sublime, instead Turner looked towards the psychological effect that the sublime has, meaning his paintings have more to do with emotions then they do with the depiction of an event.
While the movement did not have a house style, it can be separated from other landscape painters of the era. ETA Hoffman spoke of Paul Huet’s attitude towards his art in the following passage, however it could be applied to the romantic artists, as it differentiates the attitude Huet took towards his painting from others who depicted similar scenes: “To seize nature in the most profound expression, in the most intimate sense, in that thought which raised all beings towards a more sublime life, is the holy mission of all the arts. Can a simple and exact copy of nature achieve this end? It is as miserable, awkward and forced as an inscription in a foreign language copied by a scribe who does not understand it and who laboriously imitates characters which are unintelligible to him. Some landscapes are no more than correct copies of an original written in a foreign tongue. The painter who is initiated in the divine secrets of art hears the voice of nature recounting its infinite mysteries through trees, plants, flowers, waters and mountains. The gift to transpose his emotions into works of art comes to him like the spirit of god”.
It is through the frustration at being unable to perfectly capture a scene which is truly sublime that the freedom to paint using the imagination, abstraction and exaggeration is released, as the experience of limitation provides the springboard for artistic freedom. This corresponds with Kant’s philosophical views on the sublime as a negative experience of limits, which allows us to reflect more freely on that which is within our comprehension.
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