A Philosophical Enquiry Into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful

In his work, Burke attempts to define beauty according to its qualities. He associates beauty directly with the development of pleasure through sensory experience. Beauty has specific markers that separate it from the sublime, such as fragility, delicacy, elegance, and smoothness.

Delight is a type of relative pleasure. Burke asserts that delight occurs when a pain has been removed or taken away from the individual. This differs from the “positive pleasure” that is derived from good taste and aesthetics.

Pain is another concept that Burke suggests is difficult to define. Burke sees pain as relative to a person’s sensory experience and their perceptions of the sublime. The philosopher claims that pain is more nuanced than pleasure, thereby making the sublime the more complex and interesting passion, as it combines pain with pleasure.

Although Burke claims that pleasure cannot be defined, he identifies various forms of pleasure that a human can experience, such as delight (see above). He claims that beauty is intrinsically linked with pleasure, as it always induces pleasant sensations in the viewer or reader.

Unlike beauty, the sublime is associated with both pleasure and pain. Burke argues that the sublime is the most important achievement in art. The experience of the sublime is one of awe and terror. This is the feeling when one encounters artwork which depicts vastness, immensity, obscurity, and horror.