Eighteenth-Century Aesthetics

Paul Oskar Kristeller famously argued that the modern “system of the arts” did not emerge until the mid-eighteenth century, in the work of Charles Batteux. On this view, the modern conception of the fine arts had no parallel in the ancient world, the middle-ages or the modern period prior to Batteux. I argue that Kristeller was comprehensively wrong. The ancient conception of the imitative arts completely overlaps with Batteux’s fine arts: poetry, painting, music, sculpture and dance.  Writers from the sixteenth century on adopted the ancient conception of the imitative arts and anticipated the views of Batteux by 200 years. Batteux simply popularized the rubric ‘fine arts’.

Just as Alexander Baumgarten is often credited with having established the modern discipline of aesthetics, Johann Winckelmann is said to have laid the foundations of art history. It’s notable that both were at the University of Halle in the late 1730s, Winckelmann as a theological student and Baumgarten in his first academic appointment as Professor of Philosophy. The question of the latter’s possible influence on his younger contemporary would thus seem worth asking. In its account of a possible link, however, the secondary literature is surprisingly inconclusive. Many studies of Winckelmann don’t mention Baumgarten’s name. And while some commentators have no doubts that there was a connection, others have pointedly rejected the possibility. The paper takes a critical look at the arguments both for and against a link, drawing on textual and other evidence to formulate what emerges as the most credible position.