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Full Idea
Those feelings unhappily named cosmic emotion find almost no place in life, but, since they seem to belong to certain very deep springs of our nature, do become of great importance in the arts.
Gist of Idea
In life we neglect 'cosmic emotion', but it matters, and art brings it to the fore
Source
Roger Fry (An Essay in Aesthetics [1909], p.31)
Book Ref
Fry,Roger: 'Vision and Design' [Penguin 1937], p.31
A Reaction
Focus on the sublime was big in the romantic era, but Fry still sees its importance, and I don't think it ever goes away. Art styles which scorn the sublime are failing to perform their social duty, say I.
| 22046 | The mathematical sublime is immeasurable greatness; the dynamical sublime is overpowering [Kant, by Pinkard] |
| 21458 | The sublime is a moral experience [Kant, by Gardner] |
| 21928 | The Sublime fights for will-less knowing, when faced with a beautiful threat to humanity [Schopenhauer, by Lewis,PB] |
| 24087 | People who miss beauty seek the sublime, where even the ugly shows its 'beauty' [Nietzsche] |
| 24091 | The sublimity of nature which dwarfs us was a human creation [Nietzsche] |
| 20430 | In life we neglect 'cosmic emotion', but it matters, and art brings it to the fore [Fry] |
| 23923 | Visual form can create a sublime mental state [Bell,C] |
| 23758 | Beauty is an attractive mystery, leaving nothing to be desired [Weil] |
| 23070 | We morally dissolve if we spend time with excessive beauty [Cioran] |
| 20386 | The sublime is negative in awareness of insignificance, and positive in showing understanding [Davies,S] |
| 24175 | Accounts of sublimity differ over whether we learn something good about ourselves [Cochrane] |