Colors of the Sublime

Leveraging what Luke posted earlier, I also get a sense for the sublime: “There, transparent gold / Mingles with ruby tints, and sapphire gleams, / And colours, such as Nature through her works / Shews only in the ethereal canopy.” The colors seem to be enthralling and yield a “wandering sublime thro’ visionary vales.” Moreover, the continued description of the colors, changing from morning ‘till night, overwhelm the senses and cause one to focus solely on the surrounding colors and not the accompanying actions or events within nature. As such, the stanza is, to an extent overwhelming, like Friedrich’s Wanderer above the Sea of Fog. The vastness of nature, whether that be colors or mountainous peaks, is unquantifiable and thus almost incomprehensible to the human mind that seeks to simplify the world in order to gain an understanding. One can’t fully understand the colors of nature, the importance lies in appreciating and experiencing them.