Romanticism Arts Essay examples -- essays research papers

Sensation, imagination, and judgment are interrelated in the experience of art. Burke explains how sensation, imagination, and judgment determine the experience of pleasure and pain, and how pleasure and pain are represented by the aesthetic concepts of beauty and sublimity. Burke says that, in order to understand the origin of our ideas of the sublime and beautiful, we must examine the experience of pain and pleasure. Romantic painter Caspar David Friedrich has a painting that will leave viewers in thought. His painting, The Wanderer at the Sea of Fog, leaves us to ponder what has happened. We see a man, wearing all black, standing on a ledge of rocks. He gazes out into a beautiful open sky, slightly cloudy, with the sun setting. There is an orange haze left as the reflection of the sun fills the sky. However, we cannot see his face. We do not know his facial expression, if he is sad, or if he just wanted to see the view. The end of pleasure may result in a state of indifference, disappointment, or grief. On the other hand, the end of pain may result in a state of indifference, happiness, or delight. Burke uses the term "delight" to refer to a pleasure which is caused by the removal of pain, while he uses the term "joy" to refer to a pleasure which arises in and of itself. As I look at this painting, I try and wonder if this painting h...