The sublime in Abstract Expression

Some interesting quotes with regard to the sublime aspect in Absract Expressionism and Newman and  Rothko in particular.Dominique de Menil patron of Rothkos last murals ,said the work invoked " the tragic mystery of our perishable condition . The silence of God, the unbearable silence of God. Newman describes his artistic motivation in the following words ......" We are reasserting mans natural desire for the exhalted.".........The image we produce is the self evident one of revelation, real and concrete, that can be understood by anyone who will look at it without the nostalgic glasses of history." Jonathan Fineberg when discussing Casper David Friedriches painting Monk by the Seashore 1809-10   describes, The small scale of man against the endless space of the heavens and the sea evokes a breathtaking apprehension of the infinite , a sense of cosmic boundless ness , and by contrast a profound realisation of one own insignificance and mortality.                                                                  This statement would cause me to reflect that when we see how religion has been such a fundamental feature of human society in all cultures, that the sense of cosmic boundless ness described above may well be the root of mankinds religious experience throughout history.