Researchers have typically relied on pictures or videos to evoke the sublime. Only a few researchers have focused on art-based elicitors of the sublime. Conversely, Hegel and Longinus himself (author of the first extant treatise on the sublime) considered poetry and rhetorical speech to be the main elicitors of the sublime.Ĭontemporary experimental researchers have tended to use representations of the sublime of natural settings, such as landscapes or storms, to elicit the sublime in the lab. Another, more original kind introduced by Kant, is elicited by something that is so vast that it seems unable to be taken in or grasped by our senses or imagination (i.e., the mathematical sublime). One kind is elicited by natural stimuli perceived to be much more powerful than us (i.e., the dynamical sublime), which is similar to the Burkean sublime. Kant built upon and developed this work by considering two kinds of sublimity. Burke also listed many properties natural stimuli should possess to elicit the sublime such as being vast or fearsome (terrifying). Burke accepted that sublimity and beauty could be combined in the same object, even if they are distinct. Burke and Kant provided several guidelines to “design” sublime stimuli. Several scholars, including Kant and Burke, prioritized nature over art or at least painting (Burke thought poetry was an effective stimulus).
There is a deep-rooted philosophical debate regarding the relative merits of different elicitors of the sublime. On the other hand, the nature of objects at the basis of the sublime requires further elucidation, in order to define a “limited theory” (p.3) which allows for a more precise operationalization of the sublime. The elicitors are typically characterized as grand, rare, novel, and vast. The sublime has been characterized (following Burke) as a state of amazement tinged with fear or at least some negative components. An increasing number of psychologists have started to think of the emotion of awe as the psychological counterpart to the sublime in philosophical aesthetics. While the philosophical debate between characterizing the sublime as stimuli or mental state is on-going, psychologists have tended to treat the sublime as a mental state or, more specifically, as an emotion. This question touches on a long-standing debate on the nature of sublime as an object (i.e., elicitor) or as a mental process (i.e., a subjective state experienced while reacting to a given elicitor) (see for a brief review). Does this distinction between ‘real’ and ‘representation’ matter when it comes to experiencing the sublime? However, these scenes would differ, too, because one would know that one elicitor is real and the other is a representation. These features are crucial for the emergence of a particular mental process traditionally called the sublime or (equivalently) sublimity or, in more recent years, awe. Both the real natural scenery and the painting of it would likely display similar physical properties, such as apparent vastness, rarity, and novelty. One can imagine similarities and differences between one’s reactions to these two scenes. Then, imagine viewing a masterful painting of the same scene. Imagine first the most awe-inspiring natural scenery that you have ever seen, generally involving a grand and sweeping panorama.
This study compares different sublime stimuli (nature vs. The nature-based format induced higher intensity emotional responses than the art-based format. We measured participants’ emotional responses before and after each exposure, as well as the sense of presence. We compared Vincent Van Gogh’s The Starry Night with a photorealistic version of the actual place depicted in the painting, Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. In order to experimentally compare nature and art, we exposed 50 participants to sublimity-inducing content in two different formats (nature-based and art-based) using 360° videos. However, it has not yet been empirically demonstrated whether two major elicitors of the sublime–nature and art–differ in inducing this state. Recently, psychology has conceived of the sublime as an emotion, often referred to as awe, arising from natural or artistic stimuli that are great, rare, and/or vast. One of the major philosophical issues concerns whether the sublime is best thought of as a subjective response or as a stimulus. The sublime–the mixed aesthetic experience of uplift and elevation in response to a powerful or vast object that otherwise is experienced as menacing–has nurtured philosophical discourse for centuries.
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