GRP 2009

Forster and the Arts

University of Kassel, International House, June 19-20, 2009.

Triggered by the harsh criticism of Kant, Georg Forster, in his essay Über lokale und allgemeine Bildung (On Local and General Education), written in 1791, drafts the provocative thought that as long as "form and dogma" still reigned among the "mechanically educated people" and consequently humanity was "slaughtered", the philosophers of reason should be "banished" from the "republic". Their place should be taken by the arts, for only they protected the individual from becoming a mere "machine"; furthermore, they appealed to the "spontaneity of acting and receiving." Indeed, their "business" goes beyond the "representation of beautiful individuality": in the service of the free human being, the arts appeal to an unlimited capacity for enthusiasm. This high song of the 'Enthousiasmos' seems to contradict many a judgment of art from Forster's pen. Not exactly brittle, but at times quite restrained or summary, he deals with paintings, literature, plays, or architecture. Sometimes he even tends to make moral judgments. Thus, it is said on several occasions about Rubens that the painter is too fond of depicting the "most disgusting things in nature". Are we dealing here with obvious discrepancies between aesthetic theory and the painter's own feeling for art? Or is Forster cultivating an aesthetic individualism that attempts to mediate between the artistic ideal and the wholly unelicate living conditions of the public? In order to be able to answer such questions, Forster's thoroughly 'asystemic' interest in the arts will be at the forefront of the colloquium, as will his broad concept of art.