The Banal Sublime of Robert Adams

Figure 0: Robert Adams. Colorado Springs. 1968, gelatin silver print, 14.8 x 15.1 cm 1. Introduction What is stronger, pleasure or pain? Edmund Burke (1729-1797) would argue the latter, claiming that emotions like sorrow and terror are both more intense and longer lasting. This argument is the foundation for his 1757 treatise A Philosophical Enquiry into the Sublime and Beautiful , in which Beauty…