I belive after much research it would probably be too much text if I were to research stories, because of this I belive I will focus on quotes and short stories about the sublime. I wanted to start off by looking at poems which attempt to describe the sublime, which is a great relation to the subjectivity it has. With this I believe it would be possible to connect these explanation of what someone sees and connect them to my own imagery. The poems are divided into more abstract and contemporary feeling describing what the sublime is, combined with a more of a defiant research by a philosopher or writer describing what he thinks the sublime is, and what it means to people.
A meditation rose on me that night
Upon the lonely mountain when the scene
Had passed away, and it appeared to me
The perfect image of a mighty mind,
Of one that feeds upon infinity,
That is exalted by an under-presence,
The sense of God, or whatso’er is dim
Or vast in its own being (1805 Prelude, lines 66-73)
I chose this short part of a poem written by William Wordsworth as it reflects on his experience. The means by which ‘Nature’ transforms the mist into an ocean. It’s quite comprehensive and subjective as a text in its relation to each person, but this is why it is successful, as it mimics the feeling to that of the sublime.
Is with infinitude, and only there;
With hope it is, hope that can never die,
Effort, and expectation, and desire,
And something evermore about to be. (1805 Prelude, lines 538-42)
The sounding cataract Haunted me like a passion: the tall rock,The mountain, and
the deep and gloomy wood
,Their colours and their forms, were then to me An appetite
; a feeling and a love (our emphasis 76-81
“Whereas the beautiful is limited, the sublime is limitless, so that the mind in the presence of the sublime, attempting to imagine what it cannot, has pain in the failure but pleasure in contemplating the immensity of the attempt”
―
Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason“And I find a happiness in the fact of accepting —
In the sublimely scientific and difficult fact of accepting the inevitable natural.”
―
Alberto Caeiro, The Collected Poems of Alberto Caeiro
“Whatever is fitted in any sort to excite the ideas of pain, and danger, that is to say, whatever is in any sort terrible, or is conversant about terrible objects, or operates in a manner analogous to terror, is a source of the sublime; that is, it is productive of the strongest emotion which the mind is capable of feeling.”
analysis:
After speaking to one of my photography teachers, I know the importance of the size and where the text lies on the page, and to make sure it is not too crowded. Because this I have above experimented with three different forms which I could lay out my book. The first being a short poem, which is quite large over the page. I believe the poem, first off, being next to this image is successful. The image itself is quite ambiguous yet does inflict connotations of loneliness abandonment and mystery. Because of this the poem discuses a lonely girl mimicking a lovely landscape which she believes to be sublime. To my mind this is a perfect example of a text and image helping each other in order to further evoke an emotion and a narrative story for discussion. However an important aspect which I need to change, is the sizing of the text. This on screen does not look large but when it is printed, this will overwhelm the page and make the layout look too messy with the large gapping. Overall I belive this double page spread with this text is successful and I will further develop this to my final cut of the book.
The second composition I experimented with I am less keen on. I wanted to experiment with this image because it is a mimicked expression as what the sublime stands for. Her being underwater and face divided shows a beauty and inevitability of death yet peacefulness. Because of this the image should be displayed on a much a larger level. However due to the poem I chose being quite long to the extent of the space the text overwhelms and creates the page lookout to be too busy and then takes away from the poem , instead of enhancing the image itself. I believe the poem I have used already is successful on its own but the overall composition with this a layout, even with a smaller text is not very successful, and should not be used for the final edit of the book.
The last layout is a long extended poem discussing the limitlessness of beauty. These go hand in hand with the young girl in a deep tonal colours with a light shining on her, this symbolises her beauty, and due to its darker tones also creates an aspect of Pictorialism within the photo. The boarder use also frees up space making the text look less crammed for space The smallness of the text itself also works and due to its shortness this once again enhances the image and I should develop this further, and possibly keep this as a final composition.
