著者

小田部 胤久

出版者

美学会

雑誌

美學 (ISSN:05200962)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.45, no.4, pp.23-33, 1995-03-31

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In European aesthetics in the first half of the eighteenth century "illusion theory" was predominant. This was founded on two basic postulates : 1) the copy, namely the work of art, should be 'transparent' in its representation of the original, 2) the 'address (i.e. skill) of the artist' arouses less interest as compared with "original'. The purpose of this paper is to show how Moses Mendelssohn, who had once accepted illusion theory in the Uber die Empfindungen (1755) and the Betrachtungen uber die Quellen...(1757), came to deny it, and what theoretical innovations he thence enabled. Lessing's explanation of the "vermischte Empfindungen" (see the Briefwechsel uber das Trauerspiel in 1757) made Mendelssohn aware of the insufficiency of the first postulate, and his own reflectiont on the sublime, especially on the 'subjective sublime' in the Uber das Erhabene... (1757) led him to deny the second postulate. The late Mendelssohn insisted : 1) the postulate of the transparency of representation is ill-founded because it does not take account of the representing subject, i.e. the recipient, 2) the work of art is a 'stamp of the abilities of the artist'. In conclusion : The traditional dualism 'original-copy' was about to transform itself into the modern scheme 'artist-work of art-recipient'.