ARTE

THE SUBLIME

THE FACE OF THE INFINITE. Interdisciplinary course by Gloria Pizzo State exam school year 2011/2012

Class 5F, Paolo Candiani Art School

THE SUBLIME

THE FACE OF THE INFINITE.

Thunderstorm clouds that gather among lightning and thunders, mountain ranges that stretch for miles, volcanoes and hurricanes that are unleashed in all their destructive power, oceans surrounded by sunsets or dominated by starlit pulsating stars ...

The indomitable spectacles of nature have always been the source of attraction and admiration of man, incapable of embracing its immeasurable magnitudes.

This feeling of displeasure becomes the starting point of the human imagination's capacity, of the expansion of the human mind in  the face of the infinite and above the ordinary mediocrity.

The fascination of the earthquake, of infinite and discordant sensations that run through the human soul, in contemplation of nature, was therefore the reason why I decided to investigate the feeling of the sublime, as a form of fulfillment of man in tension towards the infinite.

In the course addressed, I pursued and deepened the search for the sublime, starting from its definition and presenting it through the main exponents of philosophy, Edmund Burke and Immanuel Kant, of Italian literature, Giacomo Leopardi, English, William Wordsworth, and art, William J.M. Turner, Caspar Friedrich to the present day with Peter Rostovsky.

 Introduction

 With the advent of the Romanticism affirmed in Europe around 1830, the spheres of passion, irrationality and sentiment,which    had been set aside in the neoclassical period in favor of rationality were re-evaluated    thus also re-evaluating individual genius and inspiration.

The romantic poetics is based on the concept that nature does not produce the ideal beauty, but images that can inspire two fundamental feelings: the beautiful and the sublime.

The sublime, in fact, differs from the beautiful because, while this arouses in us feelings of calm and serenity when we we find ourselves in front of a harmonic form, the sublime  is born from the representation of the formless and provokes in our soul sensations of thrill and emotion.

In beautiful, the soul is simply attracted to the object; in the sublime, on the other hand, it is at the same time attracted and rejected by it, so much that the pleasure aroused by the sublime is not a positive joy, but rather a “negative feeling.”

Investigation into the Beauty and the Sublime of Edmund Burke

The work that summarizes the many components of the sublime and organizes them in an analytical system is “Investigation into the Beauty and the Sublime” of Edmund Burke (1757).    Burke definitively distinguishes beauty from the sublime and refers beauty to sociability, the sublime to the instinct of  conservation.

Asserting that the passions that concern self-preservation and that refer mainly to pain or danger “are the strongest of all passions” and that the sublime is the strongest emotion that soul is capable of feeling.

The concept of Sublime for Kant

  Even for Kant the feeling of the sublime arises from a threat, “a momentary impediment” followed by “a stronger outpouring of vital forces”, and since the soul is at the same time attracted and rejected by the object, the pleasure of the sublime is called a “negative pleasure”.

Among the scenarios suggested by Kant are “mountains that rise up to the sky”, “deep abysses in which the waters rush down furiously”, which arouse astonishment that borders on “fear” and “sad meditations”.

Therefore is caused  by the effects of what is in nature absolutely great, unlimited, infinite or by the spectacle of the power of phenomena.     Kant distinguishes in his analysis two types of sublime: a sublime that he defines as mathematical and a dynamic sublime.

According to the philosopher, the mathematical sublime  arises in the presence of something immeasurably large, for example the mountains, the starry sky or the galaxies. Faced with these realities, an ambivalent feeling is born in the human soul: on the one hand, in fact, we feel a sense of displeasure due to the fact that our imagination is not able to embrace its greatness, on the other hand, instead, we feel pleasure, because our reason brought to rise to the idea of the infinite, in relation to which the same immensities of creation itself appears small.

The sublime dynamic arises instead in the presence of natural forces, for example in the contemplation of large cloudy masses that pile up during a storm, storms of lightning and thunder, erupting volcanoes, hurricanes, stormy oceans and so on.

To witness these events in which nature shows all its power, being far from them, produces in us a sense of material smallness if we compare ourselves to the power of nature; later on, however, we feel an ideal coolness feeling due to the fact that we are thinking human beings.

Therefore, the emotion of the dynamic sublime becomes exaltation and anguish, changing from depressive that was in the beginning, into an enthusiasm.

Kant, consistent with his "Copernican" aesthetic evolution, believes that even the sublime, like beauty, is not an objective and ontological property of things, but the fruit of the encounter of our spirit with them.       The sublime, therefore, does not reside in the reality that is in front of us, that is to say in the events or objects in question, but in our own soul.

 The Sublime in art

 Romanticism

 In Romanticism, the artists represented the contemporary historical moment and the existential problems of man such as meditation on the passing of years. on death, so the elements that they characterized their art were:

The representation of a sublime spectacle capable of arousing strong emotions; Realistic details; The use of color to make the shape and the space; The use of contrasting pure color spots. Painting interpreted the condition of man and used the landscape as a metaphor to indicate his destiny.

The representation of nature was one of the favorite themes of romantic artists, Turner represented it in its terrifying and destructive aspects.

 William J.M. Turner

 Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851), English painter, expressed in his works the disturbing relationship between man and nature, an immense and unknown nature, in front of which man can only meditate on his loneliness and his fragility .

Turner's art is fully ripe in the painting “The Snowstorm”, from 1842. Meanwhile he continues to travel and produce great artistic works they had aroused admiration, but also contempt for those, who did not understand his genius and its innovative scope.

Turner, in “The Snowstorm”, which represents a steam boat caught by a snowstorm, it goes beyond the realistic data to stage a vision on the canvas of overwhelming and highly poetic nature.The boat seems to want to fight with the titanic strength against the fury of the storm, but it is useless. It turns out every effort is made against the powerful majesty of nature; this is human progress and science against the immeasurable and sovereign force of the universe.

In watching the storm which with great force and vehemence rages against the boat, the spectator also feels himself in danger.

The painting completely exceeds the descriptive-realistic aspect to assume suggestive-evocative connotations.The vortices of water, air, light, color, like swirls in rapid movement, overwhelm the boat, involving the spectator who feels, witnessing such a grandiose spectacle, a sublime feeling.

Turner himself wanted to experiment and experience this feeling at the age of seventy-seven, letting himself to be tied to the tree master of a ship and literally crossing the eye of a cyclone during a storm.

The work appears as the perfect metamorphosis of the philosophical theme of the sublime of Immanuel Kant that in “The Critique of Pure Reason”, considers the sublime derived not from the relationship between sensibility and intellect, but from the conflicting tension between sensibility and reason.

The feeling of the sublime is felt both when we are dealing

with infinitely large which, in fact, temporal or spatial infinite, and when we are faced with the extraordinary spectacles of nature.

   Caspar David Friedrich

 Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840), German painter, expressed in his paintings, with various situations the relationship of the immense and infinite nature with the finite man looking towards the infinite, vast and powerful, with a sensible fear but also with religiosity .

In the landscape, in fact, Friedrich represents his feelings, the man’s loneliness and his anguish in the face of the mystery of nature and in nature he captures the Sublime, one of the fundamental themes of Romanticism, as defined by the German philosopher, Immanuel Kant.

The landscape of Friedrich transmits melancholy and nature, caught in different aspects, expresses the change of time and seasons, in which the profound solitude of man is identified.

The nature is felt as a living reality, animated in an infinite development. “The Wanderer in a Sea of Fog” represents a sublime situation in which man contemplates in profound silence the infinite nature.

The fundamental theme of this painting is the landscape, in which the man, the protagonist plays the role of the spectator.

The traveler, turning his back, seems to ignore us, but at the same time we identify ourselves with him; together we become part of the picture and scrutinize the indistinct landscape, absorbed in our thoughts, alone, to better contemplate and reflect on what surrounds us.

The predominant colors are brown and gray-blue, which create the effect of light and space.

  PETER ROSTOVSKY

  Peter Rostovsky(1970), a young Russian artist is a member of the current of  Superrealism, one of the latest and most recent experiments of the Neo-Avant-Garde.This current proposes to explore the super real, a mental dimension, that is artistically reworked starting from a photographic representation.Peter Rostovsky, a leading exponent of this current, has a preference for magical-fantastic or realistic-macabre representations, two themes of great emotional impact.

Starting from the idea of the famous painting by Caspar David Friedrich, "The Wanderer on the Sea of Fog", he reinterprets the latter with the technique of Superrealism: an all round sculpture is placed against the background of a painting on canvas.

“Epiphany Model 2” is an installation of 2001 composed of a large circular canvas, on which the full sky of clouds at sunset is painted, and  a front carved statuette of a character, who looks entranced, placed on a white pedestal.

The sculpture is placed so precisely to visually coincide with the center of the painting. Rostovsky's reinterpretation, rich and full of evocative charm tends to give back the idea of the sublime, confirming how the dismay and wonder of man in the face of nature nevertheless still is a universal and timeless sentiment. As seen in the painting of Friedrich in fact, the vastness of the sky gives the scene an impression of desolation and underlines the contrast between the human finitude and the infinity of nature, recalling Leopardian expressions that lead us to think of the melancholy and loneliness.

 The Sublime in the poetry of Giacomo Leipardi

 The infinity, the sublime feelings and emotions conveyed by Friedrich were also expressed by poet Giacomo Leopardi in his “Infinite” with superhuman silences, interminated spaces and very deep stillness:

The poet represents man as a figure "lost in the incomprehensible vastness of existence" he feels the frightful expanse of the infinite. .

  If in reality infinite pleasure is unattainable, man can imagine infinite pleasures through imagination.

What stimulates the imagination to construct this parallel reality, in which man finds the illusory fulfillment of his need for infinity, is all that is "vague and indefinite", distant, is unknown.

"The imagination works and the fantastic subtracts the real".

Every feeling or poetic thought whatsoever is, in some way, sublime and produces "an elevation of the soul".

 The Leopardian individual is able to rise up and understand a whole universe, and his nobility lies in the fact that he is able to "embrace and contain this immensity with thought"

On the poetic level, infinity perfectly represents the dynamics of the sublime: the sight is limited by the hedge, the boundary between finite and infinite, but there is a "darkness beyond the hedge", forcing the imagination to pursue this beyond.

Then the poet " is holding on to this thought, and arrives at a point where the heart does not fracture for a little.

"The sublime is the ability of the mind to overcome the limit of the sensed reality, penetrating beyond limitations of nothingness and of the unknown which do not arouse fear in the pure state, but a mysterious tremor of the soul.

 William Wordsworth

Tinturn Abbey and the Sublime

   William Wordsworth was a revolutionary thinker in his time. Wordsworth believed that Man and Nature could not exist dependent on each other, we must combine our memories with our mature experiences.  If we are capable of synthesizing these, we can increase our felling intellect or sublime. The idea of the sublime being found in his works. In "Lines Composed A Few Miles Above Tinturn Abbey," Wordsworth speaks of a presence that "disturbs him with joy," which he defines as the sublime "whose dwelling is the light of the setting suns, / And the round ocean and the living air, / And the blue sky, and in the mind of man." In other words, he is explaining that the sublime is not unreachable. More importantly, the sublime also resides in the human consciousness. Wordsworth defines the sublime as the "passions that build up our human soul." Wordsworth's first visit to Tinturn Abbey did not occur when he was a child, there is still the sense of something lost when he returns five years later. He realizes that time has passed the delights of his first visit are over. Fortunately for him, he also understands that this is not the end of his joys, but merely the beginning. "For I have learned," he said, "To look on nature, not as the hour / This small quote represents what Wordsworth mean about synthesizing and combine our memories with the present. Wordsworth believes that he has found the answer to how to rise to the height of "feeling intellect." Imagination and intellectual Love are each in each. Imagination is representative of the child's mind. Intellectual Love is representative of the adult, or philosophic, mind. These two qualities of human mind, Imagination and Intellectual Love are, ideally, inseparable. A combination of these attributes will allow the individual to rise to the height of "feeling intellect" or the sublime.

  Bibliografia

Turner , I classici dellArte, edizion iSkira Inchiesta sul Bello e il

Sublime,Edmund Burke, edizioni

Aesthetica Intinerario nellarte,edizioni Zanichelli  

J. M.W Turner,The man who set painting on fire, edizioni Thames &

Hudson Sitografia

http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sublime

http://www.peterrostovsky.com/

http://sauvage27.blogspot.it/2009/02/la-tempesta-di-neve-william-turner.html_

http://www.filosofico.net/Antologia_file/AntologiaK/KAN/DABELLo/ALSUBLIME

http://www.parodos.it/filosofia/ii_sublime_di_kant.htm_

http://www.marioe.it/al/Interazioni/SublimeArte_Elementi._htm

 http://www.marioe.it/al/Interazioni/SublimeArte_Constable.htm_

http://www.sparknotes.com/poetry/wordsworth/section1.html_

Monica28812 aprile 20185-7 minutes

Surrealismo in Spagna tra cinema e letteratura Il 30 Novembre 2017, in aula Shakeaspere, nella sede didattica G.Tucci, si è svolta una conferenza il cui tema principale è stato quello del Surrealismo in Spagna. A cominciare la conferenza, il Professor Gabriele Morelli che, inizialmente, espose i primi movimenti d’avanguardia spagnola. Il primo è quello del Futurismo, un movimento in cui troviamo un rifiuto del passato. Ma questo tema risalta anche nel Dadaismo che propone una nuova forma di linguaggio. In Spagna questo movimento è detto Ultraismo, poiché guarda soprattutto alla figura della macchina fotografica e dell’immagine che deforma la realtà. Dalla sua evoluzione si passa al Creazionismo dove troviamo un rifiuto dei maestri e della letteratura. Fa riferimento al poeta cileno Vicente Huidobro il quale afferma che: “come la natura crea l’albero, così il poeta deve inventare l’immagine.” Il sentimento dentro il nostro cuore è quadrato, l’unica forma di libertà è l’orizzonte. La capitale di questi movimenti è Parigi. Un altro movimento che precede il surrealismo è il Cubismo dove l’autore principale è Picasso. Il Surrealismo è un movimento che nasce in Francia nel 1924. Il maggiore esponente di questa corrente è Peter Rostovsky, artista contemporaneo russo, che predilige raffigurazioni di tipo magico-fantastiche o realistico-macabre, due temi di grande impatto emozionale. Il professor Morelli ha voluto dare una definizione a questo movimento con queste parole: “Automatismo psichico puro con il quale ci si propone di esprimere sia verbalmente che in ogni altro modo il funzionamento reale del pensiero in assenza di qualsiasi controllo esercitato dalla ragione al di fuori di ogni preoccupazione estetica o morale.” Infatti esce fuori un pensiero disordinato e libero.

Poi il professore ha fatto riferimento ad alcuni testi letterari del poeta e drammaturgo Federico Garcia Lorca, il quale scrive poesie tradizionali e poesie surrealiste. Un esempio di poesia tradizionale è “Poema del cante jondo” (1931) in cui si parla della morte. Oppone all’immagine della morte tutte immagini positive, ad esempio: (chitarra = canto della vita) (aranci = sapore, colore, profumo) (banderuola = immagine irrazionale/surreale = indica vita, movimento, gioco). In seguito abbiamo analizzato “Canciones” (1921-1924) in cui anche gli oggetti più insignificanti partecipano alla passione d’amore che fa soffrire. Poi il professore ci ha analizzato “Poeta en Nueva York” (1929-1930) in cui Federico Garcia Lorca sta ricordando quando alla sorella gli è stata regalata una rana e il gatto se l’ha mangiata. Queste immagini che sembrano surreali hanno poi una proiezione della vita. Successivamente abbiamo osservato la poesia “New York” (1929) in cui ci sono delle immagini irrazionali. Sta facendo una critica contro New York. Esempio: (Anatra = sacrificio di essere mangiata) (Marinaio = sacrificio di un lavoro pericoloso.) (Sangue tenero = sacrifico degli innocenti).

Per quanto riguarda il cinema surreale abbiamo assistito alla visione del film: “Un Chien Andalou” di Luis Bunuel, del 1929. In questo film troviamo l’annullamento di tutti i sentimenti e l’affermazione dei sensi. I principali nuclei tematici sono: il desiderio dell’uomo impedito dal peso che si trascina dietro, rappresentato dall’immagine del

pianoforte; la corruzione, rappresentata dall’immagine dell’asino putrefatto; la punizione dell’uomo che entra nella stanza, in questa immagine troviamo il riflesso della biografia di Dalì perché aveva un padre molto autorevole. La prima immagine dell’occhio tagliato con il rasoio è un’immagine violenta, dissacrante e crea un rapporto istintivo e non sentimentale. In questo film ci sono anche delle immagini surrealistiche, ad esempio, le formiche e la farfalla, che è tipico del mondo di Freud.

Successivamente il professore ha fatto riferimento a Ramon Gomez De La Serna il quale creò per la prima volta nel 1910 la “Gregueria” ovvero, accostare un oggetto con un altro. Ad esempio:

- Una macchina da scrivere silenziosa è una macchina in pantofole

- Dante andava tutti i sabati dal parrucchiere per farsi tagliare la corona d’alloro

- La forchetta è il pettine degli spaghetti

- L’ateo non dovrebbe avere osso sacro

- La A è la tenda dell’alfabeto

- Le spighe fanno il solletico al vento

Complessivamente ho trovato la conferenza tenuta dal Professor Gabriele Morelli molto interessante, anche se, personalmente, sono stata attratta dalla storia del surrealismo spagnolo. Essendo interessata molto di più al cinema e alla fotografia, sono stata molto colpita dalle immagini del cortometraggio di Luis Bunuel: la scena dell’occhio tagliato, quella dell’investimento, la mano invasa dalle formiche, l’asino putrefatto e il pianoforte. Queste, oltre ad aver scosso la mia vista per la loro crudeltà, accompagnate dal silenzio del film muto sono l’emblema di un malessere interiore che viene trasmesso pienamente dal regista.

Monica De Santis

Scienze Politiche, della comunicazione e delle relazioni internazionali

INDIRIZZO: Amministrativo-Gestionale

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Report surrealism in Spain between cinema and literature

Monica28812 April 2018

5-7 minutes

Surrealism in Spain between cinema and literature On November 30, 2017, in the Shakeaspere classroom, in the G.Tucci teaching site, a conference was held whose main theme was that of Surrealism in Spain. Beginning the conference, Professor Gabriele Morelli, who initially exhibited the first Spanish avant-garde movements. The first is that of Futurism, a movement in which we find a rejection of the past. But this theme also stands out in Dadaism which proposes a new form of language. In Spain this movement is called Ultraism, because it looks above all at the figure of the camera and the image that deforms reality. From its evolution we move on to Creationism where we find a rejection of masters and literature. He refers to the Chilean poet Vicente Huidobro who states that: "how nature creates the tree, so the poet must invent the image. "The feeling inside our heart is square, the only form of freedom is the horizon. The capital of these movements is Paris. Another movement that precedes surrealism is Cubism, where the main author is Picasso. Surrealism is a movement that was born in France in 1924. The greatest exponent of this current is Peter Rostovsky, a Russian contemporary artist, who prefers magical-fantastic or realistic-macabre-type representations, two themes of great emotional impact.   Professor Morelli wanted to give a definition to this movement with these words: "pure psychic automatism with which one proposes to express both verbally and in every other way the real functioning of the thought in the absence of any control Exercised by reason outside of any aesthetic or moral preoccupation. " In fact it comes out a messy and free thought.  Then the professor referred to some literary texts of the poet and dramatist Federico Garcia Lorca, who wrote traditional poems and surrealist poems. An example of traditional poetry is "Poema del cante jondo" (1931), which speaks of death. Opposes the image of death all positive images, for example: (guitar = song of life) (orange = taste, color, scent) (vane = irrational / surreal image = indicates life, movement, game). Later we analyzed "Canciones" (1921-1924) in which even the most insignificant objects participate in the passion of love that makes us suffer. Then the professor analyzed "Poeta en Nueva York" (1929-1930) in which Federico Garcia Lorca is remembering when his sister was given a frog and the cat has eaten it. These images that seem surreal then have a projection of life. Later we observed the poem "New York" (1929) in which there are irrational images. He is criticizing New York. Example: (Duck = sacrifice of being eaten) (Sailor = sacrifice of a dangerous job.) (Soft blood = sacrifice of the innocents).

As for the surreal cinema we witnessed the vision of the film: "Un Chien Andalou" by Luis Bunuel, from 1929. In this film we find the annulment of all the feelings and the affirmation of the senses. The main thematic nuclei are: the human desire prevented by the weight that is dragged behind, represented by the image of the

piano; corruption, represented by the image of the rotten ass; the punishment of the man who enters the room, in this image we find the reflection of Dali's biography because he had a very authoritative father. The first image of the eye cut with a razor is a violent, irreverent image and creates an instinctive and non-sentimental relationship. In this film there are also surrealistic images, for example, the ants and the butterfly, which is typical of the world of Freud.

Subsequently, the professor referred to Ramon Gomez De La Serna who created the "Gregueria" for the first time in 1910, that is, approaching one object with another. Eg:

- A silent typewriter is a machine in slippers

- Dante went every Saturday to the hairdresser to get his laurel wreath cut

- The fork is the spaghetti comb

- The atheist should not have a sacred bone

- A is the tent of the alphabet

- The ears tickle the wind

Overall I found the conference held by Professor Gabriele Morelli very interesting, even though, personally, I was attracted by the history of Spanish surrealism. Being much more interested in cinema and photography, I was very impressed by the images of Luis Bunuel's short film: the scene of the cut eye, that of the investment, the hand invaded by the ants, the rotten ass and the piano. These, in addition to shaking my sight for their cruelty, accompanied by the silence of the silent film are the emblem of an inner malaise that is fully transmitted by the director.

Monica De Santis

Political Sciences, Communication and International Relations