Urban-sublime in Potts Point

Maxx was first introduced to the concept of 'the sublime' many years ago.

I've always been impressed and taken by panoramic views of nature, cities and the sprawling suburbs.  Several years ago I was looking over the hills and suburbs from a beachside apartment complex.  The feeling I described, thanks to my well versed companion , I now had a name for - the 'Urban sublime.'

Later I came to understand 'the sublime' as a feeling artists, such as romantic painters in the 19th century, try to capture in such vistas as imposing landscapes and violent seas.  It an uneasy feeling people get when looking at grand, powerful views of nature.  The sublime is limitless and Kant would say the mind in the presence of it, attempting to imagine what it cannot, has pain in the failure but pleasure in contemplating the immensity of the attempt.

As a person we feel small and vulnerable in the awesome presence of 'the sublime', perhaps fearful and yet at the same time our mind is excited.

And so it is looking looking over the east-side of the Sydney CBD and inner suburbs from Horderns Stairs Potts Point that a sublime feeling creeps on you.  The view is engaging and yet it's too much to understand - the history, buildings, homes, people, action.  You and I are small parts.

It's the urban-sublime.

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