A quality of greatness or awe, which requires some risk. Often attributed to philosopher Immanuel Kant in his Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime.
Qualities of the Sublime
- Noble
- Splendid
- Terrifying
- Lives outside of human-made object
The sublime is inherently difficult to grasp in magnitude. The sublime is not made with a particular purpose in mind (contrast this with “beauty”).
With the sublime, a human is forced to come to terms with the limits of human achievement. It’s a “confrontation between inward fear and outward mastery” (from Hanging Out)
“The feeling of the sublime is a feeling of displeasure that arises from the imagination’s inadequacy, in an aesthetic estimation of magnitude, for an estimation by reason, but is at the same time also a pleasure.”