Classically Sublime: The University of Oklahoma Sooners' Upset of #7-Ranked Alabama

 A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful was published in 1757, and it quickly became a cornerstone of Romanticism. The “sublime” is supposed to inspire awe but also shock, even horror. 

“The passion caused by the great and sublime in nature, when those causes operate most powerfully,  is  astonishment:  and astonishment is that state of the soul in which all its motions are suspended,  with some degree of horror.”

Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Biographia Literaria incorporates the ideas of Friedrich Schelling, who privileged the irrational and the subjective in interpreting experience and understanding Nature (and thus reality).

The idea of a subversive, subjective, emotionally intense and deep emotion-producing art is perfectly illustrated in the works of Turner and Goya, especially in the idea that it could be horror-producing. The extreme idealization of Nature, especially when viewed in retrospect, ties in with German Idealism, which was championed by Kant, and then radicalized by Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel. https://iep.utm.edu/germidea/ 

Right now, I’m listening to the sounds from the University of Oklahoma’s Gaylord Stadium as the game approaches kick-off.  I can hear crowd noises, music and general game energy from inside my house, despite the fact I have double-paned windows and foam insulation. I’m five blocks away from the stadium.  The announcer is literally shouting, and the marching band is playing as the crowd cheers.  White Stripes’ “Seven Nation Army” launches and I know that for the rest of the evening, I won’t be able to get the lyrics and the riff out of my head for at least the duration of the game. 

I'm gonna fight 'em off

A seven nation army couldn't hold me back

They're gonna rip it off

Takin' their time right behind my back

OU is now a part of the SEC and I have to set out traffic cones earlier than before so people won’t park in my driveway.  There is a roar and the Pride of Oklahoma charges into BOOMER – SOONER and White Stripes are now fierce rivals for the Boomer-Sooner riff.  I’m a half a mile from the stadium, sitting in my bedroom checking on the score and looking at Ezra Pound’s The Pisan Cantos and Julio Cortazar’s Hopscotch (English translation of Rayuela, pronounced rye-zhwayla in Argentina). Suddenly it is quiet.  There must be an injury on the field. Oh no, oh no, oh no.  Just checked.  It’s half-time. That explains it.  Well. The excitement will pick up, that’s for sure.  If I want to run over to OnCue, I need to do it now. It will be tricky. They rent out parking spaces for $20 a pop. Braum’s, thankfully, keeps their parking for customers only.

Darude “Sandstorm” is playing.  I feel my adrenaline going again - and I’m five blocks away. I can only imagine what it’s like to be in the stadium right now.  

Totally SUBLIME. 

Rosa Bonheur's The Horse Fair: Representations of the Fight for Freedom - Revolutions and Rights of Women?

 Over a three-year period, 1852 – 1855, French painter Rosa Bonheur filled a massive canvas, 8 feet tall and 17 feet wide, with a group of gorgeous white Lippizaner stallions, a dark black horse, and other brown horses, passionately in motion in a field surrounded by trees and bordered by a dirt road, ostensibly a horse market. Now, Bonheur’s The Horse Fair is housed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.  It is remarkable for a number of reasons.  First, it is by a woman artist, one who was classically trained, but who was not allowed in the studios for “life art” with nudes. So, she painted animals, even dead ones at the butcher shop.  Second, its size is quite large, on par with Rembrandt’s The Night Watch and Tintoretto’s Gloria del Paradiso (1588-1592).  

However, instead of depicting a religious scene or memorializing the wealthy members of society, Bonheur dedicates the large canvas to animals. They are not even in battle or doing anything heroic; they’re simply behaving as spirited horses will at a horse fair. Men are trying to handle and control them, but the horses are winning. According to the conventions, there were four genres of painting, and they had a hierarchy.  First, were the historical paintings which would feature important battles, scenes from religious stories, allegorical or other subjects of overweening importance.  Next were portraits, which were supposed to be of aristocracy, religious figures, or members of the upper class. Next came genre painting, which would include scenes of everyday life.  Fourth in the hierarchy was landscape painting, which could also include cityscapes. Animal painting was fifth, and the final and lowest on the list was still life.

 

Rosa Bonheur, The Horse Fair (source: Wikipedia)

One example of historical paintings from the Renaissance makes one aware of the way they convey culturally normative messages. Gloria del Paradiso (1588-1592) by Tintoretto which is the largest painting of the Renaissance at around 28 high and 80 feet wide.  It depicts Dante’s Divine Comedy, and all the characters one finds in Dante’s Paradiso. When it comes to depicting a whole cast of characters, and a cosmology, give me Hieronymus Bosch. His Garden of Earthly Delights and also Ship of Fools are so complex and filled with visual metaphors and stories, that one could stay and contemplate them for hours.

What made Bonheur’s painting so shocking in terms of genre?  She made an animal painting in the same size and format as a history painting, with the battle being between the handlers and the horses. What were some of the underlying thoughts that would come to mind?  The first that come to mind are those of freedom and liberty – the horses are struggling to be liberated from their bits and ropes. In this sense, the canvas is definitely allegorical, particularly given that moment in history, with anti-monarchist sentiment in Europe.  Given that interpretation, Bonheur’s painting could have been dangerous. The Revolutions of 1848 spread through Europe, starting in Sicily, the going to Italy, Germany, and France, where the repressive, authoritarian “July Monarchy” was toppled.  In the other countries, the revolutions failed, and the miserable conditions of the people continued, with poverty, income inequality, brutal authoritarianism, and lavish / wasteful spending by the monarchies and nobility. Bonheur’s rebellious horses rise and writhe, but they are in the process of being brought back under control.