The Sublime in Art: Kant, the Mannerist, and the Matterist Sublime

Abstract Kant offers the most detailed and convincing account of the mathematical sublime in the history of aesthetics and justly takes into account the deep grounding of aesthetic appraisal and creativity in experience and cognition. Still, as it stands, his theory cannot adequately explain the aesthetic value of the majority of modern and contemporary artworks. I argue, then, that a critically upgraded version of Kant’s theory of the mathematical sublime ought to be developed to (i) reveal the aesthetic value of so-called anti-aesthetic art; (ii) substantiate the claim that the aesthetic value of a work of art does not exclusively depend on sensory properties of the work; (iii) explore the topical relevance of the (mathematical) sublime as a viable aesthetic concept in art theory; and (iv) assess more accurately the crucial relation between form and content, which is essential to art. To enable us to assess the value of modern and contemporary artworks adequately, I develop two new varieties of the sublime–namely, the mannerist sublime and the matterist sublime–and connect these with Kant’s theory of aesthetic ideas. Furthermore, I show how these two varieties can be successfully employed to account for the aesthetic value of modern and contemporary artworks.