Wednesday 3rd December, 7.30 pm
at The Bohemian
Industrial Sublime
Please note that this meeting is being held in the upper bar of the Bohemian, 47 Beach Street, Deal, CT14 6HY, not in The Bar as usual, as we need projection facilities.
This topic will be introduced by Maurice Sanders who is visiting us from Yorkshire. Maurice is an old friend of the Stoa and has done several presentations over the past when it was held in Faversham. He will be introducing us to the 18th/19th century art movement known as the Industrial Sublime.
So what is the Industrial Sublime?
The Industrial Sublime is not a formalised or traditional art movement like Impressionism or Cubism, but rather a thematic idea in art history and criticism that refers to a particular way artists have responded to the rise of industrialization, especially during the 19th and 20th centuries.
The Industrial Sublime describes artworks that evoke awe, wonder, or even terror in response to the scale, power, and complexity of industrial landscapes—factories, steel mills, bridges, smokestacks, railways, and machinery. In some ways it goes against the popular idea of art being essentially about beauty. The important thing here is that the art evokes strong emotion—even negative emotion sometimes.
It draws on older idea of the Sublime (from philosophers like Edmund Burke and Immanuel Kant), which describes experiences that are vast, overwhelming, and emotionally intense—like standing at the edge of a canyon or witnessing a storm at sea. In the Industrial Sublime, nature’s grandeur is replaced by human-made industry.
Key Characteristics
Paintings and photographs contain precise depictions of industrial machinery and architecture which are often monumental in scale with an emphasis on the sheer size and power of industrial structures. Dramatic lighting is often used with smoke and steam to create mood. Humans within images are often dwarfed by machinery or entirely absent, highlighting the dominance of industry. This evokes a mixture of admiration and dread—beauty tinged with anxiety.
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