The Iconography of the Sublime

Abstract

This chapter sets out to describe the establishment of the iconography of the sublime by focusing on three central motifs: the shipwreck, the hostility of mountain summits, and the volcano eruption. I first analyze a shipwreck painting by Joseph Vernet in relation to Denis Diderot’s writings and the particularities of the picture’s exhibition at the Paris Academy Salon. Then, the Alpine landscapes of the Swiss painter Caspar Wolf and their oscillation between academic traditions, vedute painting conventions, sublime imagery, and geological accuracy is analyzed by example of the painting Lower Grindelwald Glacier with Lightning. The motif of the volcano eruption is addressed through a group of paintings, whose interplay makes visible a variety of complications inherent to the sublime. The discussed artworks depicting the three motifs feature intrinsic – that is stylistic and formal – innovations that seek to intensify the pictorial experience of their sublime content matters.