Goethe on Architecture

Home , Strasbourg Cathedral

Attributed to Erwin von Steinbach. Sketch “B” of Strasbourg Cathedral. Reprinted from Marcel Aubert, The Art of the High Gothic Era, 1965.

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/grey.2009.1.35.6 by guest on 29 September 2021 Beyond the Paradigm of Representation: Goethe on Architecture

DOROTHEA E. VON MÜCKE

On German Architecture is Goethe’s brief, well-known 1772 pamphlet celebrating Strasbourg Cathedral and its architect, Erwin von Steinbach. Scholars generally interpret the pamphlet by placing it within the context of the rediscovery of the Gothic, the Sturm und Drang cult of original genius, and a generation of young poets asserting the independence of their “German” art from the ruling French para - digms of taste. Although these contextualizations are not wrong, they miss a key point about the specificity, newness, and importance of On German Architectur e: its contribution to aesthetic theory. Several factors set Goethe’s essay apart from the general eighteenth-century interest in the Gothic revival. Goethe is not interested in the Gothic cathedral as an actual building with specific purposes. Instead, he discusses the cathedral as if it were a work of art, and explores its powerful effects on the subjectivity of the beholder. The innovative thrust of Goethe’s essay must be sought in the way archi - tecture rather than painting or poetry allows him to discuss the effects of a work of art. In this respect the brief pamphlet far exceeds its various contexts and becomes legible as an important contribution to aesthetic theory, asserting a pro - found paradigm change in the arts. Goethe turns to architecture as the model object of art when art is no longer to be considered primarily a matter of represen - tation. At stake in this essay from 1772, as well as in Goethe’s later essay “On Architecture” from 1795, is the programmatic exploration of aesthetic experience through architecture as a medium of emphatic presence. Both On German Architecture and “On Architecture” consider the effects of architecture on the beholder. The earlier piece focuses on the subjectivity of the beholder; the latter on the beholder’s sense of embodiment. To reconfigure the function of art, Goethe introduces architecture as an art that is situated in three- dimensional space and bound up with a particular place. The polemical turn against the then-reigning representational paradigm becomes even more evident

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/grey.2009.1.35.6 by guest on 29 September 2021 in a review of the work of the well-known art critic and philosopher Johann Georg Sulzer, which Goethe wrote around the same time as On German Architecture . Sulzer’s work must not be viewed primarily in terms of its theoretical insight but rather as a repository of what were then considered generally accepted truths about art and aesthetic experience. Like many works of its time, going back to Charles Batteux, Abbé Jean-Baptiste du Bos, and Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Sulzer’s work also compares and contrasts the sister arts. It seeks their common purpose and function in their vaguely defined ability to encourage the refinement of sensuality. Goethe’s review characterizes Sulzer’s attempt to find this common denominator as ultimately a trivializing, even distorting, enterprise: Was läßt sich durch solche Philosophie nicht verbinden? Malerei und Tanzkunst, Beredsamkeit und Baukunst, Dichtkunst und Bildhauerei, alle aus einem Loche, durch das magische Licht eines philosophischen Lämpgens auf die weiße Wand gezaubert, tanzen sie im Wunderschein buntfarbig auf und nieder, und die verzückten Zuschauer frohlocken sich fast außer Atem. 1 Everything can be related to anything with the aid of that philosophy. Painting and dance, rhetoric and architecture, poetry and sculpture, all of them will be projected onto a white wall through a tiny hole, by the magical light of the lamp of philosophy. All colorful in this miraculous glow, they will dance up and down, and the ecstatic onlookers will be almost out of breath with enthusiasm. Goethe’s critique takes aim at “the philosophy” enabling Sulzer’s comparison of the arts; that is, at the theoretical framework and underlying set of distinctions that produce the kind of thought Sulzer and his cohort of comparative art critics engaged in. To a certain extent Goethe’s critical insight can be compared to Foucault’s The Order of Things , which also links the eighteenth-century episteme of repre - sentation with a specific technique of observation, the table. 2 Thus Goethe char - acterizes the paradigm underlying Sulzer’s “philosophy” as a technical apparatus, a hybrid of a camera obscura and a magic lantern capable of producing illusionary tableaux for its captive audience. 3 Both of the technologies combined in this hybrid project images with the aid of light, producing fleeting, flat images that cannot capture any of the three-dimensional features and embodied realities of sculpture, architecture, or dance. Goethe argues that Sulzer’s methodology crucially distorts the three-dimensional arts. He supports this point by aligning the actual objects of Sulzer’s comparison, in each case contrasting an art form that can be subsumed under the rubric of rep -

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/grey.2009.1.35.6 by guest on 29 September 2021 resentation with a nonmimetic form situated in concrete space. In each pair— painting and dance, rhetoric and architecture, poetry and sculpture—the first art form works with a repertory of signs that signify an intended but existentially absent reality, which means that if they are imitated or copied by being projected onto a wall nothing essential is lost. In contrast, dance, architecture, and sculpture are emphatically three-dimensional. They exist as originals—unique, present—not as conglomerations of signs referring to something absent. This aesthetics of emphatic presence becomes programmatic as the prestige and value of the arts of architec - ture, sculpture, and dance increase. 4

Architecture as Art Edward Young’s enormously influential “Conjectures on Original Composition” (1759) celebrates a heroic artist figure, one capable of creating original works, by comparing him to a magician whose work cannot be codified in rules and there - fore cannot be copied. Young contrasts the magician with the accomplished tech - nician: “A Genius differs from a good Understanding, as a Magician from a good Architect; That raises his structure by means invisible; This by the skilful use of common tools.” 5 Goethe’s programmatic choice of architecture as the model object of art also participates in a discourse of original genius, only with the architect substituted for the magician or genius. In On German Architecture Goethe takes up the discourse of original genius by criticizing the then-influential architectural theorist Marc Antoine Laugier. Laugier had attempted to use functionalist princi - ples to resolve debates over architectural taste and style, famously invoking Vitruvius’s primal hut. According to Goethe, however, Laugier would never be able to do justice to the artistic genius of a true architect: “Schädlicher als Beispiele sind dem Genius Prinzipien. ”6 (To the genius, principles are even more detrimen - tal than paradigms.) Continuing his attack on Laugier, Goethe writes, Was soll uns das, du neufranzösischer philosophierender Kenner, dass der erste zum Bedürfnis erfindsame Mensch, vier Stämme einrammelte, vier Stangen drüber verband, und Äste und Moos drauf deckte? Daraus entscheidest du das gehörige unsrer heurigen Bedürfnisse, eben als wenn du dein neues Babylon, mit einfältigem Patriarchalischem Hausvatersinn regieren wolltest. (112) You neo-French, philosophizing connoisseur, what is the point of invoking the fact that driven by need the first inventive human being must have rammed four posts into the soil, connected them with four poles, and covered the whole construct with branches and moss? Based on this you want to judge

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/grey.2009.1.35.6 by guest on 29 September 2021 today’s needs. This is just the same as if you wanted to rule your new Babylon with the simple patriarchal wisdom of those times. When Goethe makes fun of Laugier’s “simple patriarchal wisdom,” he targets the attempt to derive aesthetic principles from common, everyday uses and aesthetic form from primitive, archaic function. One might think of the architect as a mere engineer or builder who has to meet well-defined needs. For the builder, form is dictated by function. By contrast, according to Goethe the architect as true artist and genius finds the form of his work by allowing himself to be inspired by the confusing, seemingly infinite multiplicity of forms in nature; that is, by a manifold of natural forms that appears confusing but has its own harmonic order and design. Goethe illustrates the contrast between the functionally oriented engineer and the genius inspired by nature: Eure Gebäude stellen euch also Flächen dar, die, je weiter sie sich ausbreiten, je kühner sie gen Himmel steigen, mit desto unerträglicherer Einförmigkeit die Seele unterdrücken müssen! Wohl! wenn uns der Genius nicht zu Hülfe käme, der Erwinen von Steinbach eingab: Vermannigfaltige die ungeheure Mauer, die du gen Himmel führen sollst, dass sie aufsteige gleich einem hocherhabnen, weitverbreiteten Baume Gottes, der mit tausend Ästen, Millionen Zweigen, und Blättern wie der Sand am Meer, rings um, der Gegend verkündet, die Herrlichkeit des Herrn, seines Meisters. (113) You conceive of your buildings as if they were just two-dimensional sur - faces. The more they expand, the bolder they rise to the skies, the more they have to oppress the soul! Well! If that genius who inspired Erwin von Steinbach did not come to our aid: Multiply the immense wall that you have to raise toward the skies so that it rises like a sublime, widely spread-out tree of God, whose thousands of branches, millions of twigs and leaves like the sand on the ocean announce everywhere the glory of its lord and master. The engineer who derives the form of the building merely from its function is accused of being oblivious to the psychic impact his building will have on its beholders. The greater his technical accomplishments—the broader his walls, the higher they extend toward the skies—the more his building will oppress the soul of its beholder. For Goethe, architecture must be understood as art rather than as just a form of engineering and must aim for an entirely different effect on the beholder: architecture-as-art must uplift and edify the soul. Goethe is playing on the relationship between a literal building or edifice and

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/grey.2009.1.35.6 by guest on 29 September 2021 the spiritual meaning of edification, which derives from a New Testament image describing the rebuilding of the soul in architectural terms. 7 He continues in the religious register by borrowing from devotional literature, comparing the archi - tect’s tower to a “tree of God” that “announce[s] everywhere the glory of its lord and master.” The change of register does not mean that Goethe assigns a religious task to art. Although the architectonic work of art, like natural beauty, is to be an object of devotional contemplation, Goethe radically secularizes this devotion, because what reveals itself in the act of contemplation is not the divine creator but the human genius of the artist. By thus making architecture the model object of art, Goethe redefines the function of art: the function of art is not beautification, orna - ment, or decoration, nor is it in the realm of representation and mimesis; instead, art is to present an occasion for a deeply moving encounter, a unique experience which will leave a lasting impact on the beholder. Art, that is, is supposed to pro - vide the occasion for an enduring, strengthening, and uplifting experience com - parable to the kind of experience that used to be found in the religious domain.

Strasbourg Cathedral: Edification and Theophany Few if any of the discussions interpret Goethe’s On German Architecture as a systematic argument about the function of art, an interpretation that can be based on an analysis of how this text stages its own argument. 8 Goethe begins by thema - tizing, in great detail, the rhetorical situation of the text, thus addressing the prag - matic function of art in the introductory passage of the pamphlet. He presents the text as the “real-time,” autobiographical commentary of a first-person speaker, a pilgrim searching for the grave of Erwin von Steinbach. When the pilgrim doesn’t succeed in finding the grave, he decides to endow a memorial for the great architect and artist. However, he quickly realizes that von Steinbach does not need a memo - rial because he has already memorialized himself through his own work, the great tower of Strasbourg Cathedral. The pilgrim concludes this train of thought by carv - ing the name of the architect, like the name of the beloved, into the stem of a slender beech tree. He then remodels the tree into a primitive altar and, as a sacrifice to von Steinbach’s spirit, offers up some of the natural products he has collected during the day. By framing his text in this way, Goethe casts his discussion of Strasbourg Cathedral and his mise-en-scène of an exemplary experience of art in bold anthropological and ethnographical terms. The functional approach to art, which Goethe rejects in his critique of Laugier, is replaced by a ritual and symbolic approach to art, the primitive hut by the poet’s improvised altar. 9 The sequence of actions in the intro -

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/grey.2009.1.35.6 by guest on 29 September 2021 ductory passage, which is entirely in the present tense, is also a critical reflection on the uses of certain place-bound religious and secular memorial practices. The search for the gravestone recalls the Roman practice of pietas, the duty of the off - spring to maintain the memory of the deceased, and contrasts with a more worldly form of remembrance, fama, which maintains the memory of the deceased person’s glorious deeds and accomplishments. 10 Whereas the religious practice depends on the piety of the survivors, the glorious remembrance of a hero can be influenced— at least to a certain degree—through clever public relations strategies. In either case, fame needs a medium, which traditionally takes the form of epic poetry. The speaker who presents himself in the role of the person who wants to memorialize the great achievements of Erwin von Steinbach, who promises to endow a marble monument in his memory, places himself in the position of the poet upon whose achievement the hero’s fame ultimately depends. However, the opening paragraph of Goethe’s pamphlet does not end by marking the speaker’s position as the poet who would be charged with the memorialization of the hero. Instead, the speaker realizes that his intention of creating a monument to the memory of Erwin von Steinbach has already been rendered obsolete. The hero has already made himself immortal by erecting the tower of Strasbourg Cathedral, an achievement the would-be poet compares, with extraordinary bold - ness, to the building of the tower of Babel: Wenigen ward es gegeben, einen Babelgedanken in der Seele zu zeugen, ganz, groß, und bis in den kleinsten Theil notwendig schön, wie Bäume Gottes; wenigern, auf tausend bietende Hände zu treffen, Felsengrund zu graben, steile Höhen drauf zu zaubern, und dann sterbend ihren Söhnen zu sagen: ich bleibe bey euch, in den Werken meines Geistes, vollendet das begonnene in die Wolken. (110) Few had the gift to engender a babylonic thought in their soul, whole, great, and necessarily beautiful down to its smallest part, like God’s trees; even fewer had the gift of encountering thousands of hands, willing to dig into the rock, and to magically build on that up to steep heights, and then while dying say to their sons: I remain with you in the works of my spirit; complete what I have begun in the clouds. Already the neo-Platonic tradition of the Renaissance had rewritten the story of the tower of Babel by no longer criticizing the hubris of the entire enterprise but instead celebrating the superhuman achievement. 11 What is new in the way Goethe mobilizes the reference to the tower of Babel is that he celebrates the superhuman

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/grey.2009.1.35.6 by guest on 29 September 2021 achievement as the artist’s actual realization of his bold idea. Moreover, this tower is both a quasi-divine creation that embodies complexity, infinite detail, and whole - ness and an open-ended work that memorializes its creator by inviting its beholders to complete it in his spirit. By making the beholder accountable for completing the work of art in the spirit of its creator, Goethe reconceptualizes the traditionally understood relationship among artist, artwork, and beholder; in effect, he collapses the artist and beholder, leaving only the two primary positions of artist-beholder and artwork. The beholder is given a status almost equal to that of the bold artist hero, which also protects the beholder from the intimidating, overwhelming impact of a work of genius. By becoming an active participant in the completion of the work of art, the beholder’s spirits are uplifted and he feels strengthened and edified by his aesthetic experi - ence. The artwork takes on a dual aspect: on the one hand, it is open-ended, to be completed in its contemplation by a beholder; on the other hand, it appears as an independent, complete, autonomous presence. The insistence on the actual realiza - tion of the building, not just its conceptualization, emphasizes the actual presence of the work, a presence that manages in a unique material reality to survive the physical presence of the artist, which for generations may be recognized, remem - bered, and understood by those who are capable of matching the creative spirit of the artist. For Goethe, a work of art is a unique original insofar as it, like a shrine devoted to a saint, guarantees the presence of the deceased; specifically, the artwork guar - antees the presence of its creator. Such works of art do not fit within a semiotic sys - tem, they are not based on a model of representation but instead on the emphatic endowment of presence, which Goethe describes as the experience of mutual recognition between artwork and beholder. This kind of aesthetic experience requires a specific disposition in the beholder—the wholeness of his soul, whose integrity is reflected back to him. Was brauchts dir Denkmal! und von mir! Wenn der Pöbel heilige Namen aus - spricht, ists Aberglaube oder Lästerung. Dem schwachen Geschmäckler wird’s ewig schwindlen an deinem Koloß, und ganze Seelen werden dich erkennen ohne Deuter. (110) What do you need a monument for! And from me! If the common crowd pronounces sacred names, it is superstition or blasphemy. The weak philis - tine will always be dizzy confronted with your colossal monument, and souls of integrity will recognize you without help.

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/grey.2009.1.35.6 by guest on 29 September 2021 The speaker concludes by reporting to Erwin’s spirit how he (the speaker) carves Erwin von Steinbach’s name into the beech tree and presents to him a sacrificial offering. The speaker leaves some botanical finds he has gathered on his walks to decay in honor of Erwin’s spirit. The emphatic aesthetic experience, the self- affirming communication between a beholder of art and the spirit of the deceased artist is analogized to the sacrificial offering at a saint’s shrine. Alongside the pil - grimage metaphor the narrator places a metaphor of secular love by implicitly comparing Erwin von Steinbach to the beloved whose name is carved into the bark of a tree. Thus the loving exchange between beholder and artwork is analogized to the symmetric and reciprocal exchange that occurs during a mutual recognition of lovers. The lack of an official sacerdotal presence or officially sanctioned altar highlights the improvisational character of the scene. The fact that the botanical finds are just handed over to decay rather than killed or burned places the ritual at a far remove from the sacrificial rites of monotheistic religion, especially the central blood sacrifice of Christianity. The experience of art as an intensified communication and exchange between the spirit of the artist and the beholder promises to grant the kind of satisfaction and affirmation that is provided when lovers look into each others’ eyes or an infant finds him- or herself reflected in its mother’s loving gaze. 12 The original work of art can exercise this self-affirming mirroring function because, like the beloved or the mother, its accessibility is exclusive. The original work of art admits only a special kind of beholder, not the common crowd or the deformed connois - seur. Because the original work of art does not fit any preexisting schema of per - ception, its appreciation requires a beholder who is sufficiently artistically talented. Instead of being frightened and turned away by the work’s uniqueness and openness, the beholder must be able to understand its compositional logic in order to complete it in his own thoughts. In this ability the beholder is affirmed as another potential artist and creator, capable of transcendence. 13 In On German Architecture Goethe does not only attribute an edifying function to the work of art; he also stages this function in the detailed report of his encounter with Strasbourg Cathedral. Although both passages begin as if presenting the nar - ration of a unique experience that leads to the revision of his prejudice against the Gothic, closer inspection reveals that Goethe is presenting not a unique realization but a process of contemplation that claims a paradigmatic status by calling for repetition and inviting the reader’s identification and imitation: Ein ganzer, großer Eindruck füllte meine Seele, den, weil er aus tausend harmonierenden Einzelheiten bestand, ich wohl schmecken und genießen,

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/grey.2009.1.35.6 by guest on 29 September 2021 keineswegs aber erkennen und erklären konnte. Sie sagen, dass es also mit den Freuden des Himmels sei, und wie oft bin ich zurückgekehrt, diese himmlisch-irdische Freude zu genießen, den Riesengeist unserer ältern Brüder in ihren Werken zu umfassen. Wie oft bin ich zurückgekehrt, von allen Seiten, aus allen Entfernungen, in jedem Lichte des Tags zu schauen seine Würde und Herrlichkeit! Schwer ist’s dem Menschengeist, wenn seines Bruders Werk so hoch erhaben ist, dass er nur beugen und anbeten muß. Wie oft hat die Abenddämmerung mein durch forschendes Schauen ermattetes Aug’ mit freundlicher Ruhe geletzt, wenn durch sie die unzähligen Teile zu ganzen Massen schmolzen, und nun einfach und groß, vor meiner Seele standen, und meine Kraft sich wonnevoll entfaltete, zugleich zu genießen und zu erkennen! Da offenbarte sich mir, in leisen Ahndungen, der Genius des großen Werkmeisters. Was staunst du? Lispelt’ er mir entgegen. Alle diese Massen waren notwendig, und siehst du sie nicht an allen älteren Kirchen meiner Stadt? (114) A whole, great impression filled my soul. Because it consisted of a thou - sand harmonizing details I could very well taste and enjoy but I had no way of cognitively grasping and explaining it. They say that it is the same with the joys of heaven. How often did I return to partake in this heavenly-earthly joy, to grasp the giant spirit of our older brothers through their works. How often did I return from all sides, from all distances, in all kinds of daylight to view his honor and glory. How hard it is for the human spirit if his brother’s work is so high above him that all he can do is bend down and adore. How often did dusk bring friendly relief and rest to my exhausted eyes until it melted the innumerable parts into one whole mass, which then would stand simple and grand before my soul, and my entire force would unfold with great pleasure to be able to enjoy while gaining insight at the same time! Then the genius of the great master of this work would reveal itself to me in quiet anticipations. What are you amazed at? He would whisper to me. All these masses were necessary, and don’t you see them in all of the older churches of my city? The Strasbourg Cathedral passage can be read as the account of an experience not only of the discovery of the beauty of the façade but of the discovery and reve - lation of a contemplative technique of the self. The first-person singular of the experience, as well as of the description of the experience, is both an individual - ized “I” and an exemplary “I” inviting identification and imitation. The insight into the harmony of the composition, the overview of the confusing multiplicity of forms occurs only gradually after repeated contemplation—“how often”—under

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/grey.2009.1.35.6 by guest on 29 September 2021 a variety of light conditions. Before the overall composition is cognitively revealed to the beholder in his dialogue with Erwin von Steinbach’s genius, it reveals itself in a sensual, synesthetic experience that is interpreted as a foretaste of heavenly joys. Traditionally, the vision of God can be reached by way of meditation. Thus, for instance, Johann Arndt’s enormously popular spiritual self-help manual describes the synesthetic unity of the experience of presence in the vision of God: Das Sehen Gottes ist die Genießung Gottes, Gott sehen wie er ist, heißet der ganzen Fülle theilhaftig werden, und erfüllet werden mit der unermesslichen und unendlichen Gütigkeit Gottes, welche Fülle wir in dem Herrn Christo erkennen und umfahen, schmecken, und mit allen Auserwählten und heili - gen Engeln preisen werden, erfüllet mit der Herrlichkeit Christi, und mit der Freude des H. Geistes in alle Ewigkeit. 14 The vision of God is the enjoyment of God, to see God as he is means becoming aware of the entire fullness and being filled with the immeasurable and infinite goodness of God, whose fullness we can recognize in our Lord Christ and grasp it, taste it, we shall praise it with all the elect and holy angels, filled with the glory of Christ and the joy of the Holy Ghost in all eternity. The exemplary experience of art is not exhausted in its analogy to the meditative practice leading to the vision of God. Goethe’s passage describes the oscillation between a cognitively overwhelming impression and a sensuously mastered holis - tic comprehension of fullness, between an awe that is almost discouraging and the elevation of the self in its self-recognition in the spirit of the master. Goethe pre - sents not only the generic citation of the religious literature of devotion but also affirms the purposiveness of sensuous experience in its own right, a sensuous experience that is not immediately subsumed by cognition but simultaneously asserts its own right to cognitive insight and the force of understanding. This is the kind of experience most carefully asserted and described in Kant’s analysis of the beautiful in the Critique of Judgment. But the experience of Strasbourg Cathedral cannot be reduced to the experience of the beautiful. As with the Kantian mathe - matical sublime, the beholder of Strasbourg Cathedral at first feels overwhelmed by its enormous multiplicity, an impression that is remedied only by the changing light that ultimately allows the onlooker to grasp the totality of the composition. Yet, whereas in Kant’s mathematical sublime the beholder is confronted with the actual limitations of his imagination and the source of his pleasure lies in the affir - mation of his reasoning ability, here the affirmation of the beholder consists in his ability to conceive of himself in a dialogue with the artistic genius. This dialogi -

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/grey.2009.1.35.6 by guest on 29 September 2021 cal exchange is prepared by the gradual aesthetic experience. By presenting Strasbourg Cathedral as the occasion for an exemplary aesthetic experience, Goethe gives to the work of art the function of strengthening the beholder’s sense of self. The work of art that initially threatens to overwhelm with its complex monumentality is nevertheless so pleasing that gradual exposure and repeated approach allow the observer to intuit the artwork’s compositional prin - ciples, the order and harmony of its creation. The observer’s contemplation of the artwork seems to him like a dialogue with the creative genius of the artist. At the end of the process, strengthened in his autonomy, he feels the the equal of God. Deinem Unterricht dank ich’s, Genius, daß mirs nicht mehr schwindelt an deinen Tiefen, daß in meine Seele ein Tropfen sich senkt, der Wonneruh des Geistes, der auf solch eine Schöpfung herabschauen, und gottgleich sprechen kann, es ist gut! (115) I owe it to having been taught by you, genius, that, confronted with your depths, I am no longer overcome by vertigo, that a drop of this spirit sinks into my soul, who can look down on his creation and speak like God, it is good. Goethe calls attention to the problematic symbolic and semiotic character of art by invoking an art of devotional edification that functions as the personal appro - priation of a sacred presence. Practices of piety that employ techniques of the self developed in meditational practice go back to antiquity and have played an important, albeit contested, role in Christianity. 15 The contested role of meditation is comparable to the problematic role of the pilgrim, who—to the extent that he starts to conduct his own negotiations at the shrine of the saint—risks questioning and rendering superfluous the Christological economy of redemption as well as the mediating function of the church. 16 Goethe’s On German Architecture proposes a new paradigm of art, according to which art takes over the role and function of religion. This means, on the one hand, that the work of art is radically secularized with regard to institutionalized religion. On the other hand, however, the work of art is endowed with a sacred aura; it is the unique original that can instantiate an emphatic presence. This new, ultimately neohumanist, paradigm of an aesthetics of autonomy pushes to the background the previous paradigm of an aesthetics of illusion and representation. Architecture in Goethe’s essay plays the same role as sculpture in Johann Gottfried Herder’s essay from the same time period. 17 Both three-dimensional art forms shift the emphasis from representation to presence and embodiment. Art aims at the self-affirmation of the beholder’s subjectivity, the beholder’s ability to invent

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/grey.2009.1.35.6 by guest on 29 September 2021 himself as an autonomous self that creates himself anew as he creates his world. The aesthetics of emphatic presence remained important even for the later Goethe, although he increasingly distanced himself from the model of subjectivity derived from pietist devotional literature. Instead he took up the experience of space, thinking of it as an intense experience of embodiment. Also in his later years he began to be interested in techniques of the self that aim at the control of involun - tary bodily and physiological reactions such as disgust and vertigo—that is, reac - tions that blur the clear distinction between an external, objective world of perception and an interior world of vivid imagination. 18

Architecture as Fiction Architecture remained for Goethe an art form that allowed him to reflect on art’s ability to produce an emphatic presence, to enhance, transform, and transfigure a beholder’s or audience’s perception and sensibility. Yet, whereas the essay on German architecture from 1771 makes its case by drawing on meditational tech - niques of contemplation and visualization, Goethe’s later essay on architecture no longer draws on these religious techniques of the self. Instead, the later essay works with two key concepts: character and fiction. Character, by then a category in the discourse on architecture, dealt with the assessment of a particular build - ing’s ability to relate form to function, be that in view of the building’s apt choice of materials, proportions, and styles that would allow for the optimal use of the build - ing, or in view of the building’s teleological transparency, its capacity to advertise its use and function in semiotically transparent terms. 19 Fiction, however, not a common or conventional concept in architectural theory, becomes the counterpart to character by which Goethe extricates architecture from functional and teleo - logical determinism. Whereas Goethe’s essay about Strasbourg Cathedral characterizes the experi - ence of presence provided by the work of art as a gradual visualization of the com - positional order of the almost infinite manifold, in the “Architecture” essay from 1795 the aesthetic experience of presence is cut off from the visual domain: Man sollte denken, die Baukunst als schöne Kunst arbeite allein fürs Auge; allein sie soll vorzüglich, und worauf man am wenigsten acht hat, für den Sinn der mechanischen Bewegung des menschlichen Körpers arbeiten; wir fühlen eine angenehme Empfindung, wenn wir uns im Tanze nach gewissen Gesetzen bewegen; eine ähnliche Empfindung sollten wir bei jemand erre - gen können, den wir mit verbundenen Augen durch ein wohl gebautes Haus

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/grey.2009.1.35.6 by guest on 29 September 2021 hindurch führen. Hier tritt die schwere und komplizierte Lehre von den Proportionen ein, wodurch der Charakter des Gebäudes und seiner ver - schiedenen Teile möglich wird. 20 One would think that architecture, as one of the fine arts, would primarily engage our sense of sight; however, something that has hardly been noticed is the fact that architecture engages primarily our sense of motor control. We have a pleasant sensation when we move in a dance according to certain rules. A similar sensation should be provoked in somebody who is led through a well-built house blindfolded. This leads us to the difficult and complicated doctrine of proportions, which determine the character of a building and its diverse parts. Architecture as a fine art is thus no longer aligned with visual perception but with the embodied sense of motor control. In addition, the spatial perception of a work of architecture is compared to the temporally structured aesthetic experience of one’s own body while dancing. Goethe is suggesting that the proportions of a specific building should be enjoyed in the way a dancer, rather than a passive audi - ence member, enjoys a specific choreography. However, as in the earlier essay on Strasbourg Cathedral, Goethe demands an active beholder. In the earlier essay the beholder becomes a partner in dialogue with the artist who completes in his active imagination the work of art. In the later work the beholder is not on an equal foot - ing with the artist. Instead, the beholder enjoys himself as he is led through the well-proportioned building. Goethe’s assertion that dance provides pleasure equiv - alent to that of a well-proportioned building allows him to redirect the discourse on proportions and harmony; in effect, it is no longer grounded in the disembodied discourse of mathematics, music, and the cosmic harmony of the spheres together with all of its allegorical and emblematic dimensions. In its place is a dedicated focus on the embodied individual. Unlike the earlier essay on Strasbourg Cathedral, “On Architecture” does not focus on one particular building. However, Goethe raises the issue of how we should think about the individuality and specificity of a building, and from his answer to this question he derives his decisive contribution to aesthetic theory. In the essay on Strasbourg Cathedral the individuality of the work of art was depicted as an issue of the artistic achievement of the individual artist’s genius, his ability to present a manifold that appeared to dissolve into infinite detail within an ultimately harmonious order. In the later essay Goethe pursues the question of a building’s individuality under the rubric of “character.” Where the earlier essay included Goethe’s critique of Laugier’s reception of Vitruvius, the later essay refers directly

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/grey.2009.1.35.6 by guest on 29 September 2021 to Vitruvius when articulating the distinction between mere buildings and archi - tecture as art: Soll aber das Baugeschäft den Namen einer Kunst verdienen, so muß es neben dem Notwendigen und Nützlichen auch sinnlich-harmonische Gegenstände hervorbringen. Dieses Sinnlich-Harmonische ist in jeder Kunst von eigner Art und bedingt; es kann nur innerhalb seiner Bedingung beurteilt werden. Diese Bedingungen entspringen aus dem Material, aus dem Zweck und aus der Natur des Sinns, für welchen das Ganze harmonisch sein soll. (368) If building is to deserve the name of art, it has to be not merely necessary and useful but also sensuously harmonious. Each art has its own sense of what is sensuously harmonious; it can only be judged on its own terms. Those terms can be derived from the combination of the building’s conditions, from the material, the purpose, and meaning of the building with which the whole building has to be in harmony. This formulation appears to be an echo of Vitruvius’s demand that architecture, in order to be beautiful, has to respect the function it serves and the materials that are used. But Goethe is actually making a decisive departure from Vitruvius’s func - tionalism. In contrast to the cathedral essay, however, considerations of function are not just set aside. They take on the role of just one relativizing element in the evaluation of the overall appropriateness and proportions of the individual ele - ments. One specific purpose of a building—for instance, its intended use as a princely residence or as a cathedral—does play a certain role in the evaluation of the use of certain architectural elements. The building is to be evaluated on its own terms, which do not exclude a consideration of its purpose and the materials that have been used. And yet, as Goethe continues to argue, evaluations of the specific character of a building or attempts to come to terms with what makes a building unique, must be addressed through exactly those aspects through which the build - ing transcends its mere satisfaction of functionalist principles as well as the merely appropriate use of materials. Whereas Goethe initially severs the perception of architecture from visuality and relates it instead to a spatial perception coupled with a sense of gross motor and body control—a step in his argument that seems to keep an architectural paradigm at the appropriate distance from a paradigm of art as mimesis or representation— the introduction of the term character and the ensuing argument appear to take back that separation of art from considerations of mimesis. Goethe even introduces the term fiction, although what he means by this term is not at all self-evident.

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/grey.2009.1.35.6 by guest on 29 September 2021 According to Goethe, a building that merely satisfies functionalist criteria is merely part of the business of construction and is not yet art. 21 A building must also pro - duce a pleasant sensation when one explores it by walking around in it. However this is not all that Goethe requires of a building that one might want to consider as art: Hier [d.h. wenn ein Gebäude eine angenehme, dem Tanz vergleichbare Körpererfahrung hervorruft, D.v.M.] tritt die schwere und komplizierte Lehre von den Proportionen ein, wodurch der Charakter des Gebäudes und seiner verschiedenen Teile möglich wird. Hier tritt nun aber bald die Betrachtung des höchsten Zweckes ein, welcher, wenn man so sagen darf, die Überbefriedigung des Sinnes sich vornimmt und einen gebildeten Geist bis zum Erstaunen und Entzücken erhebt; es kann dieses nur durch das Genie, das sich zum Herrn der übrigen Erfordernisse gemacht hätte, hervorgebracht werden; es ist dieses der poetische Teil der Baukunst, in welchem die Fiktion eigentlich wirkt. Die Baukunst ist keine nachahmende Kunst, sondern eine Kunst für sich, aber sie kann auf ihrer höchsten Stufe der Nachahmung nicht entbehren; sie überträgt die Eigenschaften eines Materials zum Schein auf das andere, wie z.B. bei allen Säulenordnungen die Holzbaukunst nachgeahmt ist; sie überträgt die Eigenschaften eines Gebäudes aufs andere, wie sie z.B. Säulen und Pilaster mit Mauren verbin - det; sie tut es, um mannigfaltig und reich zu werden, und so schwer es hier vor den Künstler ist, immer zu fühlen, ob er das Schickliche tue, so schwer ist es für den Kenner, zu urteilen, ob das Schickliche getan sei. (368) Here [i.e., when a building produces the pleasant sensation we have when we dance] is the moment when we can approach the difficult and compli - cated doctrine of proportions, which determines the character of a building and its parts. Here we will soon have to consider the highest purpose, the one that aims, so to speak, at more than the satisfaction of one sense, one that presupposes a highly educated intellect, which it will elevate and amaze enthusiastically; this can only be produced by a genius which is in control of all of the other requirements, and this is the poetic aspect of architecture, where architec - ture works like fiction. Architecture is not a mimetic art, but an art all on its own, but on its highest level it cannot do without imitation; it appears to transfer the properties of the materials, from which certain elements are derived, for instance when it connects columns and pilaster with walls; it does so in order to be more varied and richer, and as difficult as it is for the artist to feel

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/grey.2009.1.35.6 by guest on 29 September 2021 whether what he does is truly appropriate, it is as difficult for the connois - seur to evaluate the appropriateness of the decision. The principles of the architect’s creative process have been clearly severed from merely functionalist considerations. Goethe is proposing an even more exceptional kind of architecture, the architecture of genius, which somehow goes beyond all architectural goals and appeals to the educated intellect of its beholder, amazes and dazzles him in a way that seems to involve all of his faculties. Far beyond a mere pleasant sensation, what is at stake here is the conscious perception of appearance and semblance; for example, an allusion to a certain building material that then might not be used. This kind of architecture would appeal to a critical observer, a beholder who evaluates the architect’s conscious choices and his depar - ture from established conventions. But why should this kind of an aesthetic expe - rience, this coming together of sense perception, a certain bodily awareness of space, and the conscious reflection on types of illusion assume an almost ecstatic quality of wonder? And why is it that Goethe claims that the highest purpose of architecture lies in the production of this reaction as an effect of fiction? The reason for this exalted reaction seems to be that this kind of aesthetic expe - rience provides an insight into human creativity. Here—that is, when fiction is at stake and when an architectural work of genius is perceived as such—the human imagination can be intuited as a form of creativity that, unfettered by context, need, function, or stylistic conventions, knows how to address, take up, and trans - form these very fetters. This is how architecture becomes the medium of an emphat - ically humanist approach to art. 22 With this humanist approach to architecture Goethe departs from contempo - rary trends in architectural theory. Toward the end of the eighteenth century, archi - tecture was typically associated with a symbolic function that could be articulated in one of several ways: for example, to mean that specific buildings were to indi - cate in the design of their façade or their shape a specific function; or that they were to serve as symbols of a specific collectivity or nation. 23 Goethe’s notion of fiction in architecture does not imply either notion of architecture’s symbolic func - tion. For Goethe, the architecture of genius, in its ability to engage and enhance the human imagination, represents the human imagination as a productive rather than merely reproductive faculty. The architecture of genius invites the educated beholder to admire in a work of architecture not its reference to something else but the spe - cific choices and the creative selectivity of its artist. The educated beholder evaluates a building by paying attention to the specific

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/grey.2009.1.35.6 by guest on 29 September 2021 character of the individual building. His or her evaluation, the attempt to do justice to the way individual elements in a building come together as a unique totality, is distinct from both mere reaction to specific stylistic features and the more mechan - ical evaluation of certain proportions, evaluations that do not necessarily require an on-site visit but can also be based on engravings, etchings, and other merely graphic reproductions of the building. How should works of architecture be eval - uated according to Goethe? On the one hand, he insists that any evaluation requires a visit to and inspection of the actual building. Only exposure to the orig - inal, he believes, provides the beholder with the unique experience of how a build - ing organizes the space through which the beholder moves. On the other hand, the beholder must bring into play his knowledge of architecture, of alternative options and choices the architect would have had at his disposal, in order to grasp the unique achievement of any one building as the realization of a work of genius. By emphasizing the embodied aspect of the architectural experience, Goethe distin - guishes the emphatic aesthetic experience from a mere visual, cognitive, and imag - inative experience mediated by the architectural discourse of the journals, pamphlets, and architectural prints that were being widely circulated by the end of the eighteenth century. To the extent that the mature Goethe requires of the architectural work of genius that it entail an element of fiction, he demands that art insist on the ability to transcend what is given, what is required, what is necessary and predictable and to present its beholder with an anthropologically crucial dimen - sion of the human imagination—namely, its capacity to appropriate and transform dominant teleologies.

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/grey.2009.1.35.6 by guest on 29 September 2021 Notes This essay is for Tom Shrager.

1. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, [Review of J.G. Sulzer’s Die schönen Künste, in ihrem Ursprung, ihrer wahren Natur und besten Anwendung betrachtet ], in Ästhetische Schriften I: 1771–1805, vol. 18 of Sämtliche Werke, ed. Friedmar Apel (Frankfurt a.M.: Deutscher Klassiker Verlag, 1998), 97. Unless otherwise noted, all translations are mine. 2. See Michel Foucault, The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences (New York: Vintage Books, 1973), 71ff. 3. For an account of the engaged, embodied, and active observer, see also Jonathan Crary, Techniques of the Observer: On Vision and Modernity in the Nineteenth Century (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1991). 4. For a discussion of this paradigm change in aesthetic and semiotic theory, see my Virtue and the Veil of Illusion: Generic Innovation and the Pedagogical Project in Eighteenth-Century Literature (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1991), 163–179. 5. Edward Young, Conjectures on Original Composition (1759), facsimile reprint (Leeds, UK: The Scholars Press Limited, 1966), 26. 6. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Von deutscher Baukunst , in Ästhetische Schriften I, 112. (Hereinafter, page numbers for this text will be given in running text.) Goethe’s On German Architecture initially appeared as a one-off print in November 1772, without any information on its author or place of publication. The essay first drew attention through Herder’s reprint in the collection Von deutscher Art und Kunst (Hamburg, 1773). 7. See 1 Corinthians 3:9. 8. Although Jens Bisky acknowledges the systematic quality of Goethe’s architecture essay and sees in it an exemplary staging of a secular, aesthetic experience, he does not analyze the introduc - tory passage. See Jens Bisky, “Das fühlende Genie,” in Poesie der Baukunst: Architekturästhetik von Winckelmann bis Broisserée (Weimar: Verlag Hermann Böhlaus Nachfolger, 2000), 37–44. 9. See Richard Wittman, “The Hut and the Altar: Architectural Origins and the Public Sphere in Eighteenth-Century France,” Studies in Eighteenth Century Culture 36, no. 1 (2007): 235–259. 10. On this, see Aleida Assmann, “Die Säkularisierung des Andenkens—Memoria, Fama, Historia,” in Erinnerungsräume: Formen und Wandlungen des kulturellen Gedächtnisses (Munich: Beck Verlag, 1999), 33–61. 11. See Assmann, Erinnerungsräume, 45. 12. On the centrality of the exchange of the loving gaze for the poetics of the young Goethe, see David E. Wellbery, The Specular Moment: Goethe’s Early Lyric and the Beginnings of Romanticism (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996). 13. Goethe concludes by summing up his conception of the function of art as the affirmation of the decidedly anthropological dimension of free artistic form. The form of art must follow neither requirements nor rules. Rather, in its autonomy, artistic form represents the affirmative activity of human beings in their entirety: “Die Kunst ist lange bildend, eh sie schön ist, und doch, so wahre, große Kunst, ja, oft wahrer und größer, als die Schöne selbst. Denn in dem Menschen ist eine bil - dende Natur, die gleich sich tätig beweist, wann seine Existenz gesichert ist. Sobald er nichts zu sor -

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/grey.2009.1.35.6 by guest on 29 September 2021 gen und zu fürchten hat, greift der Halbgott, wirksam in seiner Ruhe, umher nach Stoff ihm seinen Geist einzuhauchen. Und so modelt der Wilde mit abenteuerlichen Zügen, gräßlichen Gestalten, hohen Farben, seine Cocos, seine Federn, und seinen Köper. Und laßt diese Bildnerei aus den will - kürlichsten Formen bestehn, sie wird ohne Gestaltsverhältnis zusammmenstimmen, denn Eine Empfindung schuf sie zum charkeristischen Ganzen” (116–117). (“Art is creative long before it is beautiful. And yet, such art is true and great, perhaps truer and greater than when it becomes beau - tiful. For in man there is a creative force which becomes active as soon as his existence is secure. When he is free from worry and fear, this demigod, restless in tranquility, begins to cast about for matter to inspire with his spirit. And thus savages decorate their coconut-fiber mats, their feathers, their bodies, with bizarre patterns, ghastly forms and gaudy colors. And even if this creative activ - ity produces the most arbitrary shapes and designs, they will harmonize despite the apparent lack of proportion. For a single feeling created them as a characteristic whole.” Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, “On German Architecture,” in Essays on Art and Literature, trans. Ellen von Nardroff and Ernest H. von Nardroff [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994], 8.) 14. Johann Arnd[t], Vier Bücher vom wahren Christentum . . . , ed. Joachim Langen (Berlin, 1712), 1144. 15. Seventeenth-century edification texts are characterized by an exemplary “I,” on the one hand, and by a situational description related to a specific personal experience, on the other. This combi - nation invokes both a total identification with the narrated “I” and an imaginary realization of the speech situation. See Wolfgang Brückner, “Thesen zur literarischen Struktur des sogenannten Erbaulichen,” in Volkskunde als historische Kulturwissenschaft 11 (1985): 209–218. 16. Contesting the Sacred: The Anthropology of Christian Pilgrimage, ed. John Eade and Michael J. Sallnow (New York: Routledge, 1991). 17. Johann Gottfried Herder, Sculpture: Some Observations on Shape and Form from Pygm alion’s Creative Dream (1778), ed. and trans. Jason Gaiger (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002). 18. In his autobiography, On Poetry and Truth, Goethe reports how he painfully trained himself to sustain the view from the tower of Strasbourg Cathedral without succumbing to vertigo, a procedure similar to that which he used when learning to tolerate the dissection of human corpses in anatomy theaters. 19. See Vittoria di Palma, “Architecture, Environment, and Emotion: Quatremère de Quincy and the Concept of Character,” AA Files 47 (Summer 2002): 45–56. 20. Goethe, “Baukunst ,” in Ästhetische Schriften I, 368. 21. See also Jens Bisky, who argues that Goethe uses the concept of fiction to direct our attention to the aspect of mediation and artificiality of all beautiful architecture, to make us aware of the grow - ing distance of architectural forms from their primitive beginnings, to make us see architectural history instead of quasi-natural archetypes. See Jens Bisky, “Die Fiktion der Baukunst,” in Poesie der Baukunst, 75. 22. In “Über Wahrheit und Wahrscheinlichkeit der Kunstwerke,” Goethe also defends the pur - poseful use of illusion in art and advocates for an art that resolutely insists on its artificiality, taken neither as nature itself nor as a reference to it. Because a successful work of art still appears as nature to its viewer, Goethe has his advocate of art explain, “Ein vollkommenes Kunstwerk ist ein Werk des

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/grey.2009.1.35.6 by guest on 29 September 2021 menschlichen Geistes, und in diesem Sinne auch ein Werk der Natur. Aber indem die zerstreuten Gegenstände in eins gefaßt und selbst die gemeinsten in ihrer Bedeutung und Würde aufgenommen werden, so ist es über die Natur. Es will durch einen Geist, der harmonisch entsprungen und gebildet ist, aufgefaßt sein, und dieser findet das Fürtreffliche, das in sich vollendete auch seiner Natur gemäß. Davon hat der gemeine Liebhaber keinen Begriff. . . . [A]ber der wahre Liebhaber sieht nicht nur die Wahrheit des Nachgeahmten, sondern auch die Vorzüge des Ausgewählten, das Geistreiche der Zusammenstellung, das Überirdische der kleinen Kunstwelt; er fühlt, daß er sich zum Künstler erheben müsse, um das Werk zu genießen, er fühlt, daß er sich aus seinem zestreuten Leben sam - meln, mit dem Kunstwerke wohnen, es wiederholt anschauen und sich selbst damit eine höhere Existenz geben müsse” (506). (“A great work of art is a work of the human mind, and thus also a work of nature. But because the work of art treats its diverse subject matter as a unified whole and reveals the significance and dignity of even the most ordinary subjects, it goes beyond nature. A work of art can only be comprehended by a mind that has been formed and developed harmoniously, because only such a mind can relate to what is excellent and complete within itself. The savage art lover has no concept of that. . . . But the true connoisseur sees not only the realism of what is imitated but also the excellence in the selection of subject matter, the imaginativeness in composition, and the supra- natural spirit of this micro-world of art. He feels that he must rise to the level of the artist in order to enjoy the work, that he must focus his scattered energies on the work of art, that he must live with it, must see it again and again, and thus achieve a higher level of awareness.” Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, “On Realism in Art,” in Essays on Art and Literature, trans. Nardroff and Nardroff, 77–78.) 23. On this, see Wittman, “The Hut and the Altar.” See also Anthony Vidler, The Writing of the Walls: Architectural Theory in the Late Enlightenment (Princeton: Princeton Architectural Press, 1987).

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Baumstudie (Tree Study) , 1787. Reprinted from Corpus der Goethezeichnungen , 1960.

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