Gezicht op de bergen de Jungfrau, de Mönch en de Eiger 1849 - 1856

Léon Jean Baptiste Sabatier captured the Jungfrau, Mönch, and Eiger mountains in this lithograph, presenting not just peaks of stone and ice, but symbols of the sublime. The mountains themselves, piercing the sky, evoke a primal sense of awe and terror, echoing the ancient human fascination with heights. Consider how such natural forms, with their imposing presence, find echoes in the architecture of cathedrals, their spires reaching towards the divine. This reaching—this yearning—is a motif repeated across cultures and epochs, seen in the ziggurats of Mesopotamia and the pyramids of Egypt. The sublime, as experienced through these mountains, taps into a collective memory of nature’s overwhelming power, stirring deep, subconscious emotional states. The delicate figures at the bottom of the image only reinforce the natural world's magnitude. This composition reminds us that symbols evolve, yet the emotions they evoke remain tethered to our shared human experience.