The Sublime and the 'Beholder’s Share': Junius, Rubens, Rembrandt

Abstract

One of the innovative elements in Franciscus Junius’s treatise The Painting of the Ancients (four editions, 1637–94) was the first discussion of Longinus’s concept of the sublime in the context of the figurative arts. Junius’s translation of his own treatise into English (1639) prepared the ground for the importance of the sublime in British aesthetics. Yet scrutiny of the underlying conceptions of The Painting of the Ancients reveals that his interpretation of this ancient concept was idiosyncratic. His interest in Longinus was not motivated by philosophy but rather by the painterly illusionism perfected in Netherlandish studios. This essay explores how Junius used the sublime to explain the “beholder’s share” in the artist’s evocation of a virtual reality. It points out the practical context in which his theory arose and how it relates to extant works, focusing on Rubens’s The Andrians and Rembrandt’s The Blinding of Samson.