Tate Research

The Sublime Object: Nature, Art and Language

In 2007, Tate Britain invited Cape Farewell to engage in and be a part of an Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC) funded project named The Sublime Object. The research project studies the way in which artists have responded to the notion of the sublime over the centuries. The project is now working with the Cape Farewell’s directorial team and artists to explore contemporary responses to the sublime. A commissioning body will be used to develop work that will help answer research questions posed by the project.

Research Background

The sublime as a concept and cultural practice has played a central role in western understanding, engaging aesthetic, spiritual and ethical values ranging from the mid-seventeenth century translations of Longinus, to Burkean and Kantian sublimes of the proto-Romantic and Romantic periods, via nineteenth-century concerns with science and theology to recent theoretical writing. However, there is still much to be investigated in the spaces between art, language and nature. As well as landscape art, this three-year AHRC funded research project will encompass philosophy, literature, music, film, theology and science, and the complex interactions between these different spheres.

Drawing together a wide range of individuals under the umbrella of Tate's Collection, the aim of this project is to debate and collaborate on a series of interrelated events and research activities focused on the role of the sublime in our perceptions of the natural world. In particular, the project will focus on four areas which relate to Tate's remit in historic, modern and contemporary art: the landscape sublime; the sublime in crisis; an Anglo-American sublime; and an ecological sublime.

Those involved in the investigation will include established scholars from a broad range of disciplines, including curators, artists, post-graduate students, and museum professionals. In order to engage Tate's audience closely in the exploration of the sublime, the project will encompass displays, a 'Tate Sublime' website, and a diverse range of educational activities, directed towards school children, students and the adult community.

Through investigation, the project aims to achieve a greater understanding of the ways in which perceptions of the sublime in the external landscape are shaped by cultural experiences - through art, literature, and ideas communicated through history, philosophy, poetry, politics and religion. It is not the objective of the project to impose the concept of the sublime upon its audience, but to discover through collaboration, whether the sublime remains a legitimate and potent concept in the contemporary world.

The project started in June 2007 and continues until May 2010.

 

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