#sublime #CasparDavidFriedrich #romanticera #art #music #GeorgesBataille #aesthetic #theology #religiousexperience

Yesterday, I listened to Laufey’s brilliant new jazz album “Bewitched.” It simultaneously captures the power of Ella Fitzgerald’s love ballads, Nat “King” Cole’s heartfelt spirit, and the reflective sadness of Sinatra’s “In the Wee Small Hours of Morning.” I was brought to tears. Laufey has managed to penetrate into the depths of human emotion, showcasing the sublime beauty and heartache of falling in love. The album is astonishingly passionate, and it refuses to compromise or tame itself, reaching into the extremes of sadness (”California and Me”) and love (”While You Were Sleeping”). Like a breath of clean air after years of a polluted environment, Laufey’s words, instrumentation, and vocal cadence are an unapologetic, full-throttle sincerity. Her music — simultaneously angelic and concrete—puts to shame the trollish and ironic dispositions of our current milieu, where authentic human emotions are obscured for non-committal niceties. In short, the album is a testimony to the depths of the human spirit for an age in which it feels like our souls have been ripped from our bodies. “Bewitched” is not merely a once-in-a-lifetime artistic achievement, it is a spiritual masterpiece.

To expand upon the spiritual reality Laufey was able to capture, I will turn to an explanation of the Romantic era, the sublime, and the link between romance and religious experience.

Romanticism and the Sublime

The Romantic era of art, which spanned from the late 18th to the mid-19th century, was a period characterized by a profound shift in artistic expression. It emerged as a reaction against the rationalism and restraint of the Enlightenment — instead embracing emotions, nature, and mystery. At the heart of this movement lay the concept of the sublime, a powerful and often overwhelming aesthetic experience that evoked both terror and awe. As I've said before, it's like looking over the edge of the Grand Canyon. The sight is overwhelmingly beautiful, but it is simultaneously terrifying because the canyon is so deep that one could fall to one's death if not careful.

Caspar David Friedrich, a prominent figure in Romantic art, expertly exemplifies this connection between the Romantic era and the sublime. Friedrich's works, such as “Wanderer above the Sea of Fog” and “The Monk by the Sea,” are quintessential examples of the sublime in art. His landscapes are vast and majestic, depicting untamed nature in all its glory, but saturated with deeply spiritual themes and undertones. In these paintings, human figures are often minuscule compared to the grandeur of the natural world, emphasizing the finitude of humankind in the face of nature's (and, for Friedrich, God’s) sublime majesty.

The Romantic artists sought to capture the sublime not only in nature but also in the human spirit. Emotions, often intense and tumultuous, were celebrated in their works. Friedrich's use of symbolism, such as the solitary figure gazing into the abyss or standing on a precipice, conveyed the individual's quest for self-discovery and spiritual connection with the sublime. Furthermore, Friedrich's manipulation of light and shadow created an atmosphere of mystery and transcendence. This technique intensified the emotional impact of his paintings, inviting viewers to contemplate the vastness of the universe and their place within it.

The term “romance” in the Romantic era originally referred to medieval tales of chivalry and adventure, often involving heroic knights and heroic deeds. These stories were marked by a sense of wonder, idealism, and a focus on individual passions and quests. The Romantic era drew inspiration from this idea of individualism and the pursuit of intense, personal experiences, which is why it came to be associated with the term “romance.” However, I believe that this artistic movement also sheds light on the romance of falling in love, and the qualities of sublime love are captured quite powerfully in Laufey's album. During its prime, the Romantic era often linked sublime beauty with masculinity and grandeur. But in our contemporary age, Laufey brings a much-needed feminine perspective. And although the album has moments of grandeur in which the music builds and the symphony swells, her music is also able to capture the spiritual and sublime moments found in the calm and quiet. Laufey does this by focusing on falling in love.

The Spiritual Dynamics of Falling in Love

Falling in love is both the greatest catastrophe and purest ecstasy. Hence, someone overcome with romantic emotions is said to suffer from lovesickness. One wants to cry bitter tears when on the mountaintop of joy and sing joyous melodies when in the valley of sadness. A romance into which one fully surrenders oneself is vulnerable, raw, and terrifying — but it is the sacrifice necessary to most intimately glimpse the divine light in the Other. It is, in short, sublime.

Moreover, similar to the spiritual themes saturating Caspar Friedrich’s paintings, the feeling of falling in love is akin to a religious experience. It is rapturous and overtakes us without us necessarily preparing for it, such as looking over a mountainside and suddenly recognizing our own finitude and contemplating the Infinitude of the Divine. Or, in Laufey’s case, her album begins with a song (”Dreamer”) in which she promises to not open her heart again— “And no boy's gonna be so smart as to / Try and pierce my porcelain heart.” But the album ends with her experiencing a rapturous pull into the beauty of love once again:

I try to think straight but I'm falling so badly

I’m coming apart

You wrote me a note, cast a spell on my heart

And bewitched me

The rapturous power of falling in love is perhaps why many religious persons wish to shun the passion of romance, fearing that the ebb and flow of infatuation will replace God in one’s life. However, if we look to the artists of the romantic era and the philosophy of Georges Bataille, we can see why romance is religious without needing to bring charges of idolatry.

The romantic artists understood that instances of the sublime brought about a keen awareness of one’s own finitude. The overwhelming beauty cascading over oneself — as beautiful as it is terrifying — has a way of breaking one’s consciousness. However, this breaking is by no means traumatic. Instead, it is the necessary expansion of one’s awareness to perceive new depths of truth. A whole new reality is opened to oneself in such moments.

Georges Bataille recognized the link between beauty, terror, and the loss of self in his work “Erotism: Death and Sensuality.” Within this book, he develops a theory of limit experiences. To quote what I have written in my previous post, a limit experience can be created through an experience of the intense combination of the erotic (not necessarily just sexual) and that which is terrifying. This is because limit experiences entail a loss of self and a dissolution of individual boundaries. In these moments, individuals transcend their individuality and merge with a larger whole, experiencing a sense of continuity and connection with the universe. Bataille associated limit experiences with a kind of sacred or mystical state that disrupts the everyday order and opens up possibilities for profound transformation. He notes that both erotic encounters and moments of terror (especially witnessing death) bring about this loss of self into the broader world, like pouring water into the ocean. For Bataille, such limit experiences provide a means for understanding religious experiences as well — especially the mystical and rapturous experiences reported by many saints. Such moments are the loss of self into the divine.

Thus, we can see that true romance — the catastrophic joy of falling in love — bears structural resemblance to the sublime and to limit experiences, and hence, to religious experience. Romantic love involves the boundary-breaking, vulnerable expansion of self into the realm of the Other. And we find examples of this moving beyond oneself both in the love songs of the great poets and in the deepest ecstasy of the mystics, for even a casual reading of the mystics will thrust oneself into a romantic spirituality full of passion, rapture, and the sublime.

Of course, things depend to some extent on context and the individual, but I disagree with the de facto charge that one falls into a passionate romantic love merely because one is too immature to keep his or her emotions in check. The truncated immanence and secular materialism of our culture often discourage higher forms of spiritual rapture. But the vulnerable strength it takes to risk pain for the sake of love reveals something deeply true about reality that one cannot learn in the abstract. Falling in love might instead be a sign that one’s soul is alive. Moreover, from my own Christian perspective, enduring vulnerability and even pain for the sake of love is at the heart of Christ’s incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection—which is the ultimate statement about the character of Being Itself (God).

Conclusion

Through her music, Laufey was able to allow us to experience a real human soul once again. “Bewitched” is powerful because it is so vulnerable. It is coherent because it is emotionally contradictory. Laufey has pulled back the curtain and shown us once again what it means to be a spiritually alive human— to fear, to hurt, and to love simultaneously beyond the boundaries of self.

#animism #aesthetics #CasparDavidFriedrich #Kant #theology #art #romanticism

Yesterday, I watched a video by the Danish scholar Rune Rasmussen, an independent scholar who makes online teaching material (and other things) under the Nordic Animist moniker. His work is fascinating and thought-provoking, and I recommend looking into his work if you're interested in topics like environmentalism, land-connectedness, animism, traditional Nordic wisdom, or similar topics. And he does it all while critiquing white supremacy, so he's a much-needed voice within the Norse spheres of online intelligentsia.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuyV4g490OU

In the above video, Rune discusses how the era of Romanticism (roughly speaking, the 1800s) was permeated with a nostalgia for the beauty of the natural world and pre-Christian history, such as the Viking age and its relics. However, these Romanticists did not allow their nostalgia to move them into a deeper sense of connection to the beauty of the natural world. Instead, they viewed nature with an almost cold, disconnected gaze, looking at a forest or mountain no different than one would look at a painting in a museum. Rasmussen uses Caspar David Friedrich's famous painting “Wanderer Above a Sea of Fog” as a prime example.

Rasmussen claims that in contrast to the disconnected, disinterested gaze of Romanticism, we need to instead cultivate practices and ways of being that deeply connect us back to the natural world, rather than viewing ourselves as separate from it. Of course, one of the problems with doing that is how so much of our modern world is, through its architecture and geography, anthropocentric and designed to keep us separated from nature.

It's a great video, and I encourage you to check it out. One reason why I thought it was so intriguing is because the Romantic era is fascinating to me. 19-20th-century theology, philosophy, and art are kind of like my intellectual comfort food (though I don't claim to be an expert). Thus, I wanted to jump on the opportunity to make some additional comments about what Rasmussen said because I think it's a very important topic.

Regarding the context of Romanticist art, I think it's important to acknowledge the influence of Immanuel Kant's theory of aesthetics. To give a very rough summary, Kant based his theory of aesthetics on the idea that beauty is a subjective experience, arising from a harmony between our cognitive and sensory faculties. According to Kant, our perception of beauty depends on our ability to recognize order and harmony in the natural world and in artistic creations. Kant argues that beauty is not a property of objects themselves, but rather a product of our own cognitive faculties, and therefore cannot be objectively measured.

Now here's where things get interesting. One of the central components of Kant's aesthetics is the notion of disinterestedness. According to Kant, in order to have an aesthetic experience of something, we must approach it with a disinterested attitude. This means that we must focus on the object's form, rather than its function or practical use. We must also approach the object without any personal biases, desires, or interests that might interfere with our ability to appreciate it for its own sake. Kant argues that the disinterested attitude is necessary for aesthetic judgment because it allows us to appreciate the object's beauty in a pure and unadulterated way.

Sound familiar? That's basically what Rasmussen was critiquing in the video about Romanticism. My understanding is that such a theme within some of Romanticism is a result of Kant's influence, particularly his notion of disinterestedness. It's no wonder then that almost every copy of Kant's “Critique of Pure Judgment” actually has Friedrich's “Wanderer Above a Sea of Fog” on the cover!

So how do we move forward? Shockingly, I think that Romanticism — and Caspar David Friedrich in particular — might point us in the right direction. Like Virgil in Dante's Inferno, they cannot take us the full way to Paradise, but I do think they offer some form of guidance toward our goal, especially in the case of those who would normally put up their guard against anything animist, which is quite prevalent in the Christian circles I often interact with.

I won't contest Rune's critique of Friedrich's “Wanderer” painting in the video. However, if one engages with the rest of Friedrich's paintings, I think there's a case to be made that Friedrich is something of a quasi-animist within the Protestant Christian tradition of that era. In fact, many of his paintings push against Kant's theory of aesthetics.

To lay the groundwork, it's useful to point out that around the time of Friedrich, there were more intellectual influences and movements than simply Kantianism. That era also saw the rise of the theologian and philosopher Friedrich Schleiermacher as well as the post-Hegelians. Schleiermachian theology seems to be an influence on Caspar Friedrich's paintings. Schleiermacher believed that religious experience is primarily characterized by a feeling of absolute dependence — the moment of recognizing one's own finitude in contrast to the Infinite beauty and majesty of God. It's something of a theological notion of the sublime — an experience so awe-inspiring, beautiful, and magnificent that it becomes terrifying, such as standing on the edge of a cliff (again, back to Caspar Friedrich's painting). However, for Schleiermacher and for Caspar Friedrich, the sublime is something that ought to inspire a sense of worship, rather than disinterestedness. The feeling of finitude when faced with a mountain or forest ought to make us think about how much greater God's Infinite majesty must be, and thus be compelled with a sense of worship and recognition that we must place our total dependence on the One Above All.

Now, if the story stopped there, we could still be left with the problem of disinterestedness. After all, we might still be only looking at nature rather than connecting to it. However, I think it's also important to mention the post-Hegelians and Friedrich's own way of relating to nature.

To give a very rough summary, many of the post-Hegelians, talked about God using many phrases, such as “the Absolute,” which were influenced by, you guessed it, Hegel's philosophy. One of the perspectives used to describe God was God as the animating principle of all reality. Thus, in contrast to a Cartesian dead, machinic matter, the world is radiating with life because it is animated by its Creator. Nature, creation, and the material of the world are given a supramundane sacredness through the life-giving, animating power of God, who is the Absolute Ground of all being.

Such a perspective fits the Romanticist's love of nature. But it seems to me that the implication of this perspective is that, to be truly religious, one must be connected to nature. To love the Creator, one must love the Creation. I actually believe that, in many of Friedrich's paintings, we see this post-Hegelian, Schleiermachian Christian quasi-animism in operation.

For example, Friedrich painted an image of a wooden crucifix standing in the middle of some evergreen trees in the depths of winter. In the background, there is a large cathedral clouded by fog. If one looks closely, we can see footsteps and hiking sticks in the snow leading up to the crucifix. According to my understanding, Friedrich meant this as a statement about how true religious devotion requires one to venture out into nature, even in its harsh conditions. It is by connecting to Creation that one will encounter Christ. In fact, for this painting, enduring the harsher aspects of nature, such as the frigid winter, draws us into a deeper understanding of the love of God displayed in Christ's passion. The humble crucifix contrasts with the giant cathedral in the background obscured by fog which, though beautiful in its own way, can lead to a disconnection from nature if one were to reside only in the cathedral. Instead, it is a connection to Creation that prompts the endurance of faith, which is symbolized in the evergreen trees, which are a common symbol in Friedrich's paintings for the endurance of faith because evergreen trees remain green regardless of the season.

Another example in Friedrich's work depicts two men joyously gazing at the moon during a night walk in a forest. I'm not sure to what extent Friedrich was concretely influenced by St. Francis, but it seems to me that Friedrich has captured a Franciscan attitude toward Christianity. As the Canticle of St. Francis says, “Praised be You, my Lord, through Sister Moon and the stars, / In the heavens you have made them bright, precious and fair.”

I say that Friedrich was a quasi-animist not only because he thought nature was important for religious experience, but also because he believed that nature is animated by the presence of God, and learning how to “read” creation around us will direct us into a deeper worship and love of God. I say 'quasi'-animist because I don't know what Friedrich would think about the flows of non-human subjectivity or consciousness that might inhabit the natural world. However, he certainly believed that God's divine subjectivity and personhood flow through nature. From a Christian perspective, one might say that God is the ontological foundation of the flows of non-human subjectivity attested to by animism, similarly to how God is the ontological foundation of human subjectivity and being.

Out of this belief that God operates through God's Creation, Friedrich developed an uncanny and quite impressive ability to “read” natural landscapes theologically and religiously. He would spend hours hiking through forests and mountains and would see everything around him as permeated with religious symbolism. The Kimbell Art Museum's description of “Mountain Peak with Drifting Clouds” gives a very useful example:

“While the rendition of the drifting clouds suggests a naturalist’s awareness of meteorology, Friedrich almost certainly saw in them a symbolic meaning; veiling the distance and casting shadows across the landscape, they are an image of the shifting, imperfect conditions that nature provides for the illumination of the spirit. In the foreground a toppled tree is portrayed in matter-of-fact detail. It may symbolize mortality as a barrier to spiritual progress: according to some interpretations of Scripture, nature only became subject to death when the Fall of humankind corrupted the originally blissful landscape of Eden. Even the leafless evergreens in the middle distance (trees often understood as premonitions of eternity, given their relative immunity to seasonal change) bear witness to death. Finally, far off in the distance, as if in a separate realm all but inaccessible to human striving, Friedrich includes a fortresslike mountain peak––a revelation, perhaps, of the possibility of salvation.” https://kimbellart.org/collection/ap-198408

It seems that, for Caspar Friedrich, if one is truly connected and embedded within nature — not just disinterestedly, but truly willing to pilgrimage through the snow — then one will be directed to worship. As I interpret Friedrich, his landscape paintings become quasi-iconographic, a window through which heaven breaks into our world. Friedrich is trying to show us how heaven is breaking through into the Creation that exists all around us, but we need to go out into nature in order to experience it. And if the landscape paintings are iconographic, then perhaps it teaches that one of the avenues back to land-connectedness is through liturgy and ritual. Within the Christian tradition, there is actually a fascinating illustration of this in the Ethiopian Orthodox forest churches. Their worship practices and worship spaces cannot be separated from the forest around them.

Of course, this might not be the most satisfactory answer for those working within a pagan animist tradition. Nonetheless, I think it's a very important question for Christians to consider how our liturgical practices and sacred spaces might move us back toward connecting with the land.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fGe-CPWZlE