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It Is Sublime and Grotesque

© Joe Jeskiewicz

For the next two weeks I've asked everyone to think about this passage by Hogarth.

"...reasons which induced me to adopt this mode of designing were, that I thought both writers and painters had, in the historical style, totally overlooked that intermediate species of subject which may be placed between the sublime and grotesque." (From his memoirs.) (Artist on Art Book p.179, William Hogarth.)

And from that I assigned the exercise "between sublime and grotesque". But what is between sublime and grotesque? We have to look at the definitions. I found the definitions in the Cambridge dictionary and paraphrased them down to:

Sublime is extremely good, beautiful or enjoyable. So it is almost divinely fantastic, perfect, and pure. Grotesque is ridiculous in an unpleasant way, or extremely ugly or unpleasant. Or rather the things hiding under my bed all those years of childhood.

And of course if you think about this for only a second, you'll realize that this includes just about everything. Even perception about what is beautiful and ugly can be taken into account in this exercise. But what I asked everyone to focus on in this broad case is the atmosphere or the emotions that these specific words conjure up.

There is a difference between the words Beautiful and Sublime. They evoke different feelings when each is spoken, or heard. They convey different kinds of mental images. The same is true for Ugly and Grotesque. In each case I think of more Victorian Era designs and ideas. The words seem old and out of use and perhaps that is why. Grotesque makes me think of gray stone gargoyles sitting in rows on old cathedrals.

Sublime makes be think of someone deep in thought thinking about goodness and purity. However, there is more to these ideas than merely these evoked emotions. There are countless ideas available and that show up right under our noses everyday. These everyday images of our ordinary lives are exactly what Hogarth was talking about. For this reason I think of Dorthea Lange's "Migrant Mother." Or I think of the writing of Upton Sinclair. They turned over the rocks which we hide the utter normal situations of life and said "Look! This is the life we live in. These are some of the things you are ignoring in your 'perfect' world." Hogarth wanted artists to focus not of Cherubs, perfect figures, and representations of hell but on the ordinary.

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