'Urban-Sublime' in Potts Point

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

I've always been captured by panoramic views of nature and cities with their sprawling suburbs. Several years ago I was looking over the hills and rooftops of Manly from a highrise beachside apartment. The feeling of powerlessness compared to the vastness that I saw, thanks to my well-versed companion, I now had a name for - the 'urban sublime.'

'The sublime,' I came to understand, was a feeling artists such as romantic painters in the 19th century, tried to capture in vistas of imposing landscapes and violent seas. It's an uneasy feeling people get when looking at grand, powerful views of nature. Immanuel Kant said the sublime is limitless and our minds in the presence of it, attempting to imagine what we 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. The view is engaging, yet seems too much to understand in a mind-sized chunk - the history, buildings, people, action.


Max is embarking on a mission for what seems impossible - making sense of the vastness - experiencing the pain of failure and pleasure in the pursuit.

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