Veiling an object produces sublimity while revealing it risks de-sublimation

Evidence

Veiling and implying an object is the surest route to producing the impression of sublimity. Removing the veils and bringing that object to the fore risks de-sublimation, and some found Blake’s actual songs unequal to the virtual ones his early records had induced them into hallucinating. — Mark Fisher, Ghosts of My Life, 459

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the chapter 9 and 22 treatments of hiddenness: the power of the concealed/unrepresentable versus full visibility. Strong article angle on why ‘finishing’ ruins art. — connects to: Total visibility and memorialization destroy an object’s power to trigger involuntary memory — Mark Fisher, Ghosts of My Life: Writings on…, 172; An object’s being shifts between use and detached observation. — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 215; Habitual veiling and custom-based veiling both miss its ethical-training function — Saba Mahmood, Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival…, 371 (+2 more)
• SEED: A piece on ‘the de-sublimation problem’: how completing or clarifying an artwork (Blake’s proper songs, directors’ cuts) routinely deflates its sublimity.

Broader Connections

• An object’s being shifts between use and detached observation. #qualifies (0.80) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 215
• Habitual veiling and custom-based veiling both miss its ethical-training function #expands (0.78) — Saba Mahmood, Politics of Piety, 371
• Incorporation into spectacle blunts difference and leaves only regulated visibility #expands (0.72) — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 277