The Splitting Power of Sculpture.
A Dutch Classification of the Visual Arts and Poetry
in Late Eighteenth-Century Art Theory
Peter C. Sonderen,
Department of Art and Culture, University of Amsterdam
When the separation
A? or reunification A? of the visual arts and poetry
is subject of discussion in art history one name always
returns as the main theoretical reference point: that
of the eighteenth century German philosopher and writer
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing. His Laokoon oder A?ber
die Grenzen der Malerei und Poesie, published
in 1766, has indeed become a very influential text,
that even now seems to have nothing left of its referential
power. This last effect is mainly caused by the use
of Lessing's theory by one of the main prophets of
Modernism, Clement Greenberg. His search for purity
in modern art A? especially in painting A? could find
a clear-cut theoretical distinction in Lessing's book.
The 'Lessing-doctrine,'
however, i.e. the view that the difference between
the visual arts and poetry is largely based on their
exclusive relation towards, respectively, space and
time, has obscured the fact that Lessing's system
did hardly do justice to the differences that existed
between the visual arts themselves. In his view sculpture
and painting were one of the same kind.
In my paper I should
like therefore to draw attention to another interesting
point of view that came to the fore at exactly the
same time but in a different country. This alternative
theory became visible in the early writings of the
Dutch philosopher and aesthetician Frans Hemsterhuis.
His Lettre sur la sculpture, written in 1765,
shows a concise but profound and original vision of
art. Hemsterhuis did not only come, independently,
to almost the same distinction between poetry and
the visual arts as Lessing, but he also took an important
step by differentiating between the principles of
painting and sculpture. Lessing never could have taken
this step, because he was stuck in a textual or literary
approach of the visual arts. Hemsterhuis, however,
moved his eye also to important visual and formal
differences.
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