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Reiz Ist Schönheit in Bewegung
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Extract
Among the most characteristic and most positive propositions in Lessing's Laokoon are these from chapter xxi: “Ein anderer Weg, auf welchem die Poesie die Kunst in Schilderung körperlicher Schönheit wiederum einholet, ist dieser, dass sie Schönheit in Reitz verwandelt. Reitz ist Schönheit in Bewegung.” F. T. Vischer said with reference to this chapter, “Lessing hatte zuerst die Anmuth (er sagt: Reiz, wovon nachher) als Schönheit in der Bewegung definiert.” Commenting on the same chapter, G. E. Guhrauer wrote, “Reiz ist Schönheit in Bewegung, und eben darum für den Maler weniger als den Dichter bequem. Dieser Begriff, eine glückliche Bereicherung der Ästhetik, von welcher Schiller späterhin in dem Aufsatz über Anmuth und Würde einen so sinnreichen und fruchtbaren Gebrauch machte, findet sich vor Lessing schon bei Home, welchen er bei seiner Vertrautheit mit den schottischen Philosophen unstreitig gekannt hat. Insofern ist es nicht ganz genau, wenn Vischer … von Lessing sagt, dass der Begriff der Anmuth bei ihm zuerst gefunden werde.” H. Blümner rushed to the defence of Lessing and Vischer. Grace, he admitted, is associated with motion not only by Home, but also by Webb (Inquiry into the Beauties of Painting, 1764), and by Hagedorn (Betrachtungen über die Mahlerey, 1762), —“dennoch durfte Vischer mit vollem Rechte Lessing als den Vater dieses Begriffes bezeichnen, da er durch ihn erst entwickelt und in die Ästhetik eingeführt worden ist.” On a previous page (31) Blümner had pointed out that Webb's idea of grace was not his own, but went back to Home.
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- Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1909
References
page 286 note 1 Ästhetik, Reutlingen and Leipzig, 1846, i, p. 184.
page 286 note 2 Lessing, sein Leben und seine Werke, 1854, ii, i, p. 47; ed. Maltzahn and Boxberger, Berlin, 1881, ii, p. 43.
page 286 note 3 Laokoon, Berlin, 1880, p. 641.
page 287 note 1 P 29.
page 287 note 2 Die Bedeutung Home's für die Ästhetik und sein Einfluss auf die deutschen Ästhetiker, Halle, 1894, p. 114.
page 287 note 3 “Grace, then, is an agreeable attribute, inseparable from motion, as opposed to rest, and as comprehending speech, looks, gestures, and locomotion” (vol. i, chapter xi, p. 347).
page 287 note 4 Grazie und Grazien in der deutschen Literatur des 18. Jahrhunderts, in Lipps and Werner's Beiträge zur Asthetik, vii, Hamburg, 1900. With reference to Hogarth's Analysis of Beauty (London, 1753, p. v), Pomezny opines (p. 50), “Lamozzo dûrfte vielleicht der erste sein, der das wesen des reizes in der bewegung liegen lässt”—meaning Giovanni Paolo Lomazzo, in whose Trattato dell' arte della Pittura, Scultura ed Architettura (Milan, 1585), we do indeed find the sentences, “Dicesi adunque che Michelangelo diede una volta questo avvertimento a Marco da Siena pittore suo discepolo,” che dovesse sempre fare la figura piramidale, serpentinata, e moltiplicata per una, due, e tre. Ed in questo precetto parmi che consista tutto il secreto della pittura, imperocchè la maggior grazia, e leggiadria che possa avere una figura è, che mostri di muoversi, il che chiamano i pittori furia della figura“ (vol, i, p. 33, of the reprint at Rome, in 1844).
page 287 note 5 Shaftesbury only touches upon the subject of grace, and is far from developing a theory of it; but he invariably connects it with motion, as, for example, in these passages from his Advice to an Author (1710):—“'Tis undeniable, however, that the perfection of grace and comeliness in action and behaviour can be found only among the people of a liberal education” (p. 190); “there can be no kind of writing which relates to men and manners, where it is not necessary for the author to understand poetical and moral truth, the beauty of sentiments, the sublime of characters; and carry in his eye the model or exemplar of that natural grace which gives to every action its attractive charm” (p. 336). I quote from the first volume of Characteristicks, the third edition, 1723.
page 288 note 1 Pomezny failed to follow up a clue to this work that he had in hand. Cf. the note to p. 72: “Vgl. hierzu Criton, ou de la grace et de la beauté. Extrait d'un Dialogue traduit librement de l'Anglais (Les Graces [Paris, 1769], s. 225): ‘Je crois même qu'il n'a point voulu faire entendre autre chose, lorsqu'il dit qu’ Énée reconnut la Déesse, sa mère, sous son déguisement, à son air seul, à son port.”
page 288 note 2 Laokoon, p. 23.
page 288 note 3 Laokoon, Nachlass B, ed. Blümner, p. 415.
page 289 note 1 P. 67 of the second edition (1755), which has the same pagination as the first.
page 290 note 1 He wrote over the pseudonym “Sir Harry Beaumont” (not “Henry Beaumont” as Neumann says); and his Crito appeared in London in 1752, not (Neumann) 1742, or earlier. There was a reprint in Fugitive Pieces, vol. i, 1762. I quote from the Bibliotheca Curiosa, ed. Edmund Goldsmid, privately printed, Edinburgh, 1885.
page 290 note 2 P. 11.
page 290 note 3 P. 61.
page 290 note 4 P. 34.
page 291 note 1 P. 35.
page 291 note 2 P. 38.
page 291 note 3 P. 39.
page 291 note 4 P. 41.
page 291 note 5 Pp. 41 f.
page 292 note 1 P. 42.
page 292 note 2 Pp. 42 f.
page 292 note 3 P. 43.
page 293 note 1 P. 44.