Abstract Sublime. A term coined c . 1960 by the American art historian Robert Rosenblum (1927–  ) to characterize the feelings of vastness and solitude suggested by certain Abstract Expressionist paintings, for example those of Newman , Rothko , and Still . Newman had earlier used the word ‘sublime’ in connection with his own work (‘The Sublime is Now’, Tiger's Eye , December 1948). Rosenblum first used the term ...