Sublime Light. An artistic and philosophical comparison of sublimity in the art of J.M.W. Turner and O. Eliasson

Abstract

Traditionally, the sublime in art can be found in darkness, despair and that which is inherently unknowable. However, taking artworks by the late J.M.W. Turner and the contemporary O. Eliasson into consideration, we might wonder whether it is true that: ‘[t]he metaphors and myths of bedazzlement are even more forbidding than those of benightedness’ (Daston, 2016). In this thesis, I explore the sublime qualities of light and colour during the centuries spanning between Turner and Eliasson, thereby taking artistic and philosophical theories and practices into close consideration. I discuss, for example, the theories of Edmund Burke, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Jean-François Lyotard, Eventually I problematize the sublime status of O. Eliasson's artwork 'The Weather Project' in our day and age.