{"id":5364,"date":"2011-09-07T19:43:30","date_gmt":"2011-09-08T01:43:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=5364"},"modified":"2025-11-14T15:40:29","modified_gmt":"2025-11-14T22:40:29","slug":"edward-burtynsky-the-industrial-sublime","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/edward-burtynsky-the-industrial-sublime\/","title":{"rendered":"Edward Burtynsky: The Industrial Sublime"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Rock of Ages #26, Abandoned Section, E.L. Smith Quarry, Barre, Vermont, 1991 by Edward Burtynsky<\/p><\/div>\n

The passion caused by the great and sublime in nature, when those causes operate most powerfully, is Astonishment; and astonishment is that state of the soul, in which all its motions are suspended, with some degree of horror.<\/span>
\n— Edmund Burke,\u00a0Of the Sublime<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Upon entering\u00a0Edward Burtynsky: The Industrial Sublime<\/em>, visitors are immediately compelled to look through a regional sense of place and a striking visual representation. In “Mines #22, Kennecott Copper Mine, Bingham Valley, Utah, USA, 1983” layer upon layer of rock and ground pull us into Burtynsky\u2019s large-format photograph as our eye rests upon the emerald green water at the base of the mine. Maybe the unnaturally-colored water is the initial visual draw; from there your eye moves up and out, rotating from that nexus past curvilinear layers to the outer edges of land, then sky, then picture frame.<\/p>\n

“Mines #22” reveals to Utahns a portion of our landscape we may have never seen: one of the largest copper mines on the planet, shaped by people and excavated by technology to form a hole large enough to \u201cstack two Sears Towers (now known as the Willis Building) on top of each other and still not reach the top of the mine.\u201d*<\/a>\u00a0Considering “Mines #22” conjures a feeling of astonishment at the sheer size and magnitude of this created landscape; an element of horror creeps in as we realize the scale of this industrial site has not been positioned by Burtynsky relative to a broader sense of place, but is all encompassing. In this work, and the thirty additional photographs on exhibition, we encounter the themes that have gained Burtynsky international acclaim: he is able to create beautifully-shot, exquisitely-posed compositions which draw us in to landscapes that humans have overpopulated, damaged, scarred, and in some cases, left for ruin. And, although many of his photographs lack a human presence, when included, the artful juxtaposition of people within the land presents us with intensified issues of scale. The much vaster industrial landscape is often poised to consume humans, growing much larger in size and urgency than his human subjects seem able to comprehend. Welcome to the themes of the industrial sublime.<\/span><\/p>\n

Burtynsky\u2019s images are contemporary portrayals of a subject that has its origins intimately tied to the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in 18th century Great Britain. Several decades before machine manufacturing replaced toil by humans and animals, the British statesman and philosopher Edmund Burke presented definitions of the sublime and the beautiful in his 1757 treatise on aesthetics. While Burke codified emotions elicited by the sublime in a number of scenarios, he wrote his treatise before anyone began to link the words\u00a0industrial<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0sublime<\/em>\u00a0together. Yet almost from the onset of the Industrial Revolution, images of the industrial sublime were created: drawings, lithographs, and paintings such as Philip James de Loutherbourg\u2019s 1801 harrowing “Coalbrookdale by Night” \u2013 a nightmare of smoke and flame choking the night sky behind the Bedlam Furnaces of the Coalbrookdale Company \u2013 quickly documented the rise of industrialization in England. Technological developments spread quickly, both in the creation of new industries and in the geographic spread of industrialization. Swift and massive change ensued, impacting almost every level of human existence tied to industrialized communities.<\/p>\n