The Most Religious Experience of All is Human
Burke said of the sublime, in his 1757 treatise, that it evokes astonishment. A suspension of the powers of reason, mind wholly occupied by this great and terrible thing in its plane. The hallmark of the sublime, according to him, is fear; something that bites sharply on the nerves, or weighs so heavy it sticks the feet to the floor. By its very nature it cannot be known; it is personified by the strange figure standing in your garden in the deepest dark of night.
Beauty, on the other hand, is familiar. The existence of beauty makes the beholder feel both comforted and enriched; to bask in it is unadulterated pleasure. What it does hold in common with the sublime is that beauty is understood through the lens of emotion - recognised first by the heart - rather than reason. When you can’t help but covet, to desire, to possess, to exalt: it is beauty in front of you.
On Monday I happened to be in Vienna, and whilst I was there I visited the Natural History Museum. I have of course been to the British version in London before, but not for many years, and this admittedly may have dulled any similar splendour in my mind. But upon entering the first exhibit through the right-hand flight of stairs, it was not thought but emotion that struck me. Looking on the many painstakingly ordered and labelled rows of unique and stunning geological formations, I was suddenly able to comprehend not only the existence of the divine through the material, but also how Europeans had been so devoted in performing the physical and mental labour required to faithfully honour its creation. In the glorious presence of where the heavens and the earth meet, immersed in beauty, my eyes filled with tears. I drifted through the rest of the exhibits. My soul knew this place; I understood the impulse of my ancestors to explore, to study, to lovingly preserve, to live as a tribute to both God and society. Then I walked out through the heavy doors into the sunlight, and the world outside somehow felt less real than before I went in.
It occurred to me, walking back to the Volksgarten, that understanding Burke’s distinctions between beauty and the sublime, and his insight on being of the known or unknown, is edifying. In an instant one’s perspective is given depth it could not have previously achieved: the terror inspired by the thought of a car crash is not the same as that which rears its head in battle or birth; nor is the beauty crafted through the application of an aesthetician’s tools commensurate with that of the angelic face of a sleeping child. There is a harsh artificiality about the former of each, devoid of any glory which makes the experience (real or imagined) emotionally rich. A similar state of ignorance could be applied across ethnospiritual lines, too - how could an outsider truly understand the appeal of European endeavours, our appreciation for the beauty in this life above all, how we will sacrifice the mundane in order to give due prestige to what is divine?
I watch a tram glide by. I’m usually a dedicated admirer, but in this moment a plasticky utilitarian tube hardly appeals. The scent of roses sweetens the hot and heavy air. I cross the road and enter the park, disappearing into the milieu.