It's worth remembering that whether it is Percy Shelley who finds in the "great Mountain" of Mont Blanc "a voice to repeal large codes of fraud and woe," or Ansel Adams imaging the heroic interplay of the elements in Yosemite, the artist who pursues sublimity has separated himself from that world-mocking cynicism which has robbed so many contemporary artists of their right to be serious, and reduced so much of current artistic activity to the sort of joking around best understood by graduate students.