Schiller's Theory of Landscape Depiction

This paper offers a critical discussion of the theory of landscape depiction which Friedrich Schiller developed in an important but neglected article on the work of Friedrich Matthisson, published in 1794. 1 The question of the value and status of landscape painting and poetry was far from settled at the end of the eighteenth century, and Schiller's essay should be seen as making an important contribution to an ongoing debate. 2 The second half of the eighteenth century is marked by a profound ambivalence towards the natural world. On the one hand there is a remarkable "rediscovery" of nature, evidenced in such diverse but related phenomena as the vogue for English gardens and the appreciation of wild and "untamed places," such as the Alps and the Herz mountains. It is also the age of "sentiment," embracing a heightened sensitivity to all aspects of the physical world. And yet when we turn to the visual arts, we find landscape painting ranked far below history painting and portraiture. Precedence is given to the representation of human actions and emotions, and the depiction of the human figure remains the highest goal of ambitious art

Aesthetics · Ambivalence · Archaeology · Art · Art history · Depiction · Epistemology · Landscape painting · Literature · Natural (archaeology) · Painting · Poetry · Psychoanalysis · Representation (politics) · The arts · Value (mathematics) · Visual arts · Ecology, Conservation, and Geographical Studies · Environmental Philosophy and Ethics · History · Landscape and Cultural Studies · Law · Philosophy · Psychology

• Critique of Judgment

  Immanuel Kant•Art and Its Significance•1994

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