Sculpture: Some Observations on Shape and Form from Pygmalion's Creative Dream

Abstract

Sculpture: Some Observations on Shape and Form from Pygmalion's Creative Dream. By JOHANN GOTTFRIED HERDER. Edited and translated by JASON GAIGER. University of Chicago Press. 2002. pp. ix + 139. $18 (pbk); $45 (hbk). ALTHOUGH Herder's Plastik was first published in 1788, this is the first complete translation into English. It is very welcome. Sculpture is not only of considerable historical significance, an important stage in the development of German aesthetics from Lessing to Hegel; it is also one of the most important contributions to a field that remains neglected, namely the aesthetics of sculpture. Sculpture is in key part a reaction against Lessing's Laocoon (1766). Where Lessing sought to describe the key aesthetic differences between, on the one hand, the art of poetry and, on the other, painting and sculpture, Herder is concerned to distinguish the latter two. The basis of his distinction is their differing relations to the senses. While ‘sculpture is created for the hand’ (p. 50), ‘painting is made for the eye’ (p. 56). This places Herder in the long tradition of those who have sought to understand sculpture as an art of touch. As any such view must, if it is to be plausible, his account concedes that sculpture can be appreciated visually. In such cases vision exploits its long association with tactual experience, so that the eye substitutes for the hand. Herder deepens his position by delineating the resources offered by the two senses. Vision puts us in contact only with adjacent colours, ‘surfaces’ (p. 43) or ‘appearances’ (p. 53). Touch makes accessible to us form, that is, the shape, in three dimensions, of things. Herder defends this by appeal to the performance of those born blind but given sight, as in the famous problem William Molyneux set Locke. He takes the experimental evidence on the matter to show that vision does not represent depth. He thus displays his allegiance to another distinguished tradition in eighteenth-century thought. Where Herder is distinctive is in the aesthetic consequences he draws from these two traditions. He makes the striking claim that touch is our true guide to beauty, since beauty is a matter of form, and touch is the source of our knowledge of that. Sculpture, as an art of form that appeals directly to touch, can thus present us with beauty as painting cannot. The latter must exploit the associative links that we have established between visual appearances and the forms we feel. It captures form at best indirectly. While ‘sculpture is truth … presentation’, ‘the most beautiful painting is a magnificent story, the dream of a dream’ (p. 45).

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