The sublime in Enrique Grau. Experiences inside his work “Panorámica de Cartagena"

Abstract

The artist imagination gives place to things representations, parts from ingenuity kingdom, the fantasy and invention about experience. The Cartagenero artist Enrique Grau Araujo in 1991 starts to make a series of works on Cartagena’s landscape; the works converge seven (7) years later in the triptych “Panorámica de Cartagena” (19 98). There predominate dramatic natural and mystic order events marked by the sudden darkness. This article approaches to Grau’s work through the Irish philosopher Edmund Burke perspective about the sublime as a form of sensible, experienceable or perceptible, knowledge linked to astonishment, fear and reflection moments being close to death. However, this paper analyzes the elements and gestures implemented by the artist in each picture; together with interviews, contemporary press publica-tions on the work and the historic context as support.