Definitions Typologies (www.dictionary.com, 2020) Topographies (www.dictionary.com, 2020) Sean O'Hagan's article on the 1975 exhibition "Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape", is a commentary on the 'aesthetics of the banal'. It's interesting that in Part one of this unit, we were looking at early photography which was generally topographic in nature. There was a desire then for …
Exercise 2.2: Explore a road
1. Exploring a road 2. 'The Way' The Father, 'Tom', a middle class Optomologist, Conservative and despairing at his wayward Son who has dropped out of College and good professional prospects to 'Travel the World'. In the early part of the Movie we see him playing Golf with his 'medical chums' and makes the comment, …
Exercise 2.1: ‘Territorial Photography’
Summary of Essay by Joel Snyder Initial ideas on the 'character' of Photography from it's 'invention' in 1839 was one of puzzlement as to what Photography was and how it stood in relation to other image making practices i.e painting, drawing. The photographic prints were seen as machine made. Photographs were seen as mechanical and …
Assignment One – Beauty and the sublime, Tutor submission
Interpretation of the brief I was feeling a bit melancholic before Christmas. I always find it an odd time and wanted to explore that process of the hope and joy of looking forwards but the grief and fear of looking backwards and realising what has been lost. There's a lot of emotion around that time …
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Assignment one: Process
When deciding on a direction for assignment one, I chose firstly a location, the seaside. I wanted to convey something about the time of year, that is Christmas and New Year or Winter Solstice if you like which took me to the idea of beginnings and endings. I had the sense that the Sublime had …
Seascapes of the sublime: Vernet, Monet, and that Oceanic Feeling
Monet, Belle-elle, Rain effect. (Commons.wikimedia.org, 2019) This is a review of a journal article in 'New Literary History' written by Stephen Levine in 1985. Based on the accounts of various artists who travelled to see the sights of 'Belle-ile-en-mer, a small island off the coast of Brittany, the overall language of the piece evokes the …
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Exploring work of photographers and artists dealing with the sublime
Andreas Gursky Andreas Gursky seeks to find the sublime within the complex dynamic of globalisation. The intricate layers of transaction that occur prior to our purchase of a cheap mobile phone for example. The images are not 'of nature' in the traditional Burkean sense but show an environment that we have created that has a …
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Burke, Kant and the spiritual sublime
Burke, pleasure, pain and self-preservation In 1757, Edmund Burke published his treatise on the aesthetics: "A Philosophical Enquiry Into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful". It provided a systematic analysis of the qualities of the sublime providing a theoretical framework and a legitimacy to the Romantic movement. (Wordsworth Trust, 2020) Burke …
Exercise 1.7: Assignment preparation
Beauty and the sublime "Beginnings and Endings" My aim for this assignment is to explore the theme of impermanence and the dynamic nature of life and all things. In part this is inspired by this time of year as people come together at Christmas dinner and reminisce about departed loved ones whilst looking forward to …
Exercise 1.6: The contemporary abyss
Edmund Burke's definitions of the sublime are what we always relate back to but as Simon Morley points out, " the term has a rather archaic ring." (Tate, 2019). Burke's definition below: Whatever is fitted in any sort to excite the idea of pain, and danger, that is to say, whatever is in any sort …
Landscape, Place and Environment 