41 pages • 1 hour read
Edmund BurkeA Philosophical Enquiry Into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1756A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
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BetaPart 2Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 2, Pages 47-60 Summary
In Part 2, Burke begins breaking down the sublime to better understand it. He considers the different ways the sublime manifests as feeling in its connection to other ideas. The sublime in nature often leads to astonishment, the feeling that the soul has been suspended with some feelings of horror. The sublime may also be connected to terror. Since pain has a more powerful effect than pleasure, the sublime is a more powerful component of aesthetics than beauty.
Obscurity plays an important role in the sublime. All terror and fear require something to be obscured: “When we know the full extent of any danger, when we can accustom our eyes to it, a great deal of apprehension vanishes” (48). Burke points to the ways churches in different religions create reverence by curating dark spaces. The obscurity of these spaces creates uncertainty and feelings of the sublime. Some artists believe that to make something engaging, or something that successfully affects the imagination, they must increase the clarity of the art. Burke suggests that this is a mistake. The ways in which an artist communicates the affection of the mind differs from the ways in which humans utilize clarity.
Concepts of infinity, eternity, and vastness also contribute to the sense of the sublime. Burke suggests that any artistic idea that is good should hint at infinity—meaning, it should cause the receiver to think about ideas that are larger than the self. Burke utilizes the Bible’s story of Job to illustrate the concept of the sublime. As Job sits in the dark and is confronted by God, he trembles and the hair on his arms stands up. The depiction of the scene elicits feelings of the sublime. The reader is confronted with terror and darkness, as well as something great and powerful.
Power and the sublime are closely related. Burke explains various levels of power and the role they play in aesthetics. Since pain has more power than pleasure and because the ideas of pain are more engaging than ideas of pleasure, humans are never completely free from the bondage of terror. Burke suggests that pain is always inflicted by a superior power. However, neither the pain nor power of the sublime are directly connected to strength. An ox can have great strength and, therefore, great power, but this does not mean the ox is powerful. The incorporation of terror leads to the sublime. God serves as the greatest example of the sublime in action. The power of God is striking and affecting, and encounters with God are the most sublime.
Part 2, Pages 61-71 Summary
The last half of the chapter is dedicated to fleshing out the qualities of the sublime. First, Burke suggests that vastness gives recipients of art the sense of the sublime. Infinity, or a sense of infinity, in art produces a profound effect. An artist can produce artificial infinity by utilizing succession and uniformity. Succession repeats something to give the imagination the idea that its repetition is eternal. Uniformity uses a lack of change to give the sense of infinite sameness.
Magnitude, similar to vastness and infinity, can be used in buildings to elicit the sublime. However, Burke cautions that he is not referring to scale when he talks about magnitude. Artists and architects can use clever tricks to give a sense of magnitude without constructing something that is unnecessarily large. Another way an artist can produce artificial infinity is through giving the viewer the sense that there is room for growth. Art depicting baby animals has more of a sense of the infinite than art depicting adult animals. The same is true for unfinished sketches which leave the viewer with a sense that the work is never done.
The sublime is also developed through difficulty and magnificence. When viewers have the sense that something was extremely difficult, they admire the work more. Burke compares magnificence to the feeling of looking at a sky full of stars. Light plays a role in this as well. Burke asserts that it is not merely light that brings art into the sublime, it is the contrast of light with darkness that overtakes the viewer. Colors and sounds follow similar patterns. The contrast of light and dark, loud and soft, creates a sense of the sublime.
Part 2 Analysis
In Part 2, Burke explores Beauty and the Sublime. While he equates beauty with sensations of pleasure, he argues that the sublime is a more complex aesthetic experience in that it also evokes feelings of awe or even terror. Sometimes such feelings are induced through a sense of the infinite in a work of art or in an experience of nature. For example, imagine the experience of a small child seeing the ocean for the first time. As the child looks out over the vast expanse of water, the feeling that the ocean is infinite begins to grow. The child is awestruck by the largeness of the ocean and the sense that its waves continue for eternity. Burke suggests that few things can deliver the sense of the sublime like the feeling of infinity. Artists can achieve artificial infinity by utilizing succession and uniformity.
There are many ways for artists to incorporate infinity into their work, but a clear example is found in “the Droste effect.” In 1904, Jan Misset designed a cover for a cocoa company that depicted a Dutch woman holding a tray with the same container for cocoa sitting on it, repeating the image of the woman holding the cocoa product for infinity. This is called the Droste effect, named after the cocoa company the image was designed for. It is also sometimes called mise en abyme, which translates to placement in the abyss. The reality of physical representations of the Droste effect is that, at a certain point, the image becomes too small to recreate. Mathematically, however, the image repeats for infinity. The Droste effect has been repeated in many art forms, including the popular infinity covers of comic books.
When a person encounters artwork like this, that person may at first feel a sense of uneasiness. Burke asserts that the infinite in art connects humans to something larger than themselves. Therefore, they feel a mixture of pain and pleasure. They feel pleasure in the imitation of something, and even in the beauty of the work, while also feeling pain at its vastness, obscurity, or the darkness it suggests. The combination of these two experiences produces the sublime.
The sublime is a nuanced passion aroused by Aesthetics and Sensory Information. However, one does not have to look far to find examples of it. The Mona Lisa, for example, while a construction of artistic mastery and historical significance, is not known for its adherence to conventional beauty standards. Instead, it is the mystery and obscurity of the painting—particularly in the subject’s smile—that captivates the passion of many viewers, inviting those who stand in front of Leonardo Da Vinci’s work to wonder what the woman may have been smiling at, or what secret she was concealing.
William Shakespeare’s tragedies also lend themselves to Burke’s discussion of the sublime, especially concerning The Role of Pleasure and Pain in the Arts. While the plays may boast complex stories and elevated diction, the darkness of the stories make them compelling. The character of Macbeth contemplates power and death; Romeo and Juliet learn about the dark side of passion. Shakespeare’s plays affect many viewers and readers because they introduce them to the parts of themselves that often stay hidden. While there is pleasure in the beauty and artistic representation of familiar stories, there is pain in the mirror that Shakespeare’s plays hold up to human failing: Macbeth’s character is a reminder of the dangers of greed and lust for power; Romeo and Juliet are a reminder of youthful idealism and impulsivity. Good art brings people closer to themselves—including those aspects of the self of which they may not be proud.
Burke suggests that the sublime also brings people closer to the darker part of God’s nature. Throughout the work, Burke insists that thinkers must take what is true in nature and apply it elsewhere, rather than the other way around. Those feelings which naturally arise when encountering the sublime are indicative of a deeper connection to God in nature. Great art—discovered through good taste—has a little darkness and a little light, some beauty and some ugliness, some truth and some obscurity. Burke saw this as an extension of the very nature of God. For the philosopher, God encompassed all qualities in all degrees. When people acquaint themselves with the terrible, they acquaint themselves with that part of God’s nature.
