The Art of the Sublime

ISBN 978-1-84976-387-5

The Romantic sublime

Joseph Mallord William Turner 'Snow Storm - Steam-Boat off a Harbour's Mouth' exhibited 1842
Joseph Mallord William Turner
Snow Storm - Steam-Boat off a Harbour's Mouth exhibited 1842
Tate N00530
Edmund Burke’s Philosophical Enquiry (1757) connected the sublime with experiences of awe, terror and danger. Burke saw nature as the most sublime object, capable of generating the strongest sensations in its beholders. This Romantic conception of the sublime proved influential for several generations of artists.
In this section essays explore how artists responded to the sublime in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, with articles on shipwreck and psychiatry, and case studies on the work of Stubbs, Haydon and Constable.

How to cite

‘The Romantic sublime’, in Nigel Llewellyn and Christine Riding (eds.), The Art of the Sublime, Tate Research Publication, January 2013, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/the-sublime/the-romantic-sublime-r1109221, accessed 19 March 2024.