The Philosophical Origins of the Sublime in Art

Introduction

The word “sublime” derives from the Latin sublimis meaning “up high” or “lofty”. It combines the preposition sub meaning “up to”, with limen, referring to a “threshold” (Online Etymology Dictionary, 2023).

The concept has fascinated writers, philosophers, and artists since the 1st century AD. Over time, it has come to represent an aesthetic experience defined by overwhelming feelings of awe and fear—a sensation that pushes the limits of human understanding. From towering mountains to colour-field canvases, the sublime has shaped how we experience the world around us.

In this blog, we’ll trace its philosophical evolution before exploring its presence in Romantic landscapes and contemporary abstract art in later blogs.

By understanding why we're drawn to experiences that both terrify and excite us, we gain insight into a fundamental aspect of the human experience.

"Diamond Peak Fire" by @Samson1976, via Canva.

Table of Contents

• Introduction

• Philosophical Foundations: The Search for the Boundless

  • Longinus and the Ancient Sublime

  • Edmund Burke: The Terror-Sublime

  • Immanuel Kant: The Sublime and the Limits of Reason

• Conclusion: From Thought to Vision

• Reference List

Philosophical Foundations: The Search for the Boundless

Longinus and the Ancient Sublime

So, where did the idea of the sublime begin?

One of the earliest recorded explorations comes from Longinus in his treatise On the Sublime (written around the 1st century AD). But unlike later theorists who linked the sublime to nature, Longinus wasn’t interested in vast and terrifying landscapes—he focused on words.

To him, the sublime was a powerful force within language, capable of lifting the reader out of their own mind and transporting them somewhere else. It transcends reason and affects the soul with an almost physical intensity (Longinus, 2006).

This idea of transcendence wasn’t just about beautiful words; it was about the emotion they stirred. Longinus described the most powerful writing as dissolving the boundary between speaker and audience, writer and reader. He even compared its effect to light and shadow in painting. He explains that our eyes are first drawn to the luminous before we even notice the structure beneath.

From its very origins, then, the sublime was never just about excellence. It hinted at something more—something that makes us aware of the limits of our perception.

Edmund Burke: The Terror-Sublime

Moving into the 18th Century, the concept of the sublime had evolved. If Longinus alluded to a difference between the Beautiful and the Sublime, Irish philosopher Edmund Burke made this distinction clear.

In A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of The Sublime and Beautiful, published in 1757, Burke defined beauty as pleasing, delicate, and harmonious—it soothes the mind. The sublime, on the other hand, is vast, overwhelming, and even terrifying. It has the power to compel or destroy us (Wikipedia Contributors, 2019).

This sensation often arises in nature. Imagine a towering mountain, a raging storm, or an endless ocean horizon. These things remind us of forces greater than ourselves. They’re not only beautiful; they evoke awe and remind us of our smallness and fragility in the world.

Burke believed the key for this paradoxical sensation is distance. When we are close to danger, we feel pure fear. But when we view it from a place of safety, like watching lightning split the sky from the comfort of our window, we are allowed to feel exhilaration as well as terror.

This, he writes, is the essence of the sublime: “a sort of tranquility tinged with terror” (Crowther, 1989, p.8).

Immanuel Kant: The Sublime and the Limits of Reason

Building on Burke's ideas, German philosopher Immanuel Kant posed a crucial question in his Critique of Judgement (1790): Is the sublime something out there in the world, or is it something happening within us?

If Burke’s sublime was about the overwhelming power of nature, Kant’s sublime was about the overwhelming power of thought. He saw it not as an inherent quality in an object, but as a reaction within the observer. It is an experience that reveals something fundamental about our own minds.

Kant described the sublime as “a negative experience of limits” (Morley, 2021). When we encounter something so vast that we cannot fully comprehend it, we feel a sense of failure. Yet instead despair, we experience exhilaration. Our minds reach beyond what we cannot grasp, and in doing so push against their usual boundaries (Sanderson, 2023).

Thus, the sublime is not just an aesthetic response; it is an expansion of thought itself. And crucially, it’s about us. Kant suggested that whether we feel terror, melancholy, or quiet wonder in the face of the unknown, it says as much about us as it does about the thing that we witness (Crowther, 1989, p.10). In summary, the sublime is deeply personal, reflecting the limitations and ambitions of human perception.

Conclusion: From Thought to Vision

As philosophers developed their ideas, the sublime was no longer just about what we see—it was about how we think and feel. This shift profoundly influenced artists of the Romantic period that followed. They sought to do more than capture nature’s grandeur. They wanted to visualise the sublime—its vastness, its terror, and its power to make us feel both insignificant and infinite all at once.

The transition from philosophy to visual art marked a new phase in the evolution of the sublime. Romantic painters would bring these ideas to life on canvas, depicting the overwhelming forces of nature and the human experience in this boundlessness.

In the next blog about the Romantic sublime, we’ll explore how artists Philip James de Loutherbourg and Francis Danby transformed the sublime from a concept to a visual language of awe and unease.

Reference list

Crowther, P. (1989). The Kantian Sublime: From Morality to Art. Oxford: Clarendon Press ; New York, pp.8–10.

Longinus (2006). Longinus: On the Sublime. [online] Translated by H.L. Havell. www.gutenberg.org. London: Macmillan and Co. Available at: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/17957/17957-h/17957-h.htm [Accessed 19 Feb. 2025].

Morley, S. (2021). A Short History of the Sublime. [online] The MIT Press Reader. Available at: https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/a-short-history-of-the-sublime/ [Accessed 19 Feb. 2025].

Online Etymology Dictionary (2023). Sublime | Origin and Meaning of Sublime by Online Etymology Dictionary. [online] Etymonline.com. Available at: https://www.etymonline.com/word/sublime [Accessed 19 Feb. 2025].

Sanderson, M. (2023). Kant’s Theory of the Sublime. [online] 1000-Word Philosophy: An Introductory Anthology. Available at: https://1000wordphilosophy.com/2023/11/11/kants-theory-of-the-sublime/ [Accessed 19 Feb. 2025].

Wikipedia Contributors (2019). A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful. [online] Wikipedia. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Philosophical_Enquiry_into_the_Origin_of_Our_Ideas_of_the_Sublime_and_Beautiful [Accessed 19 Feb. 2025].