Chapter 37 Part Three Revisiting the World as Appearance §37

According to what we have said, though it may be said that genius consists in the faculty of being able, independently of the principle of sufficient reason, to know not individual things which have their existence only in relation, but of the Ideas; to be able to be their counterparts [in terms of subjects] opposite them, i.e. man no longer an individual but a mere subject of "knowing"; The superiority, though lower and individual, is necessarily common to all; otherwise the common man would be as incapable of enjoying a work of art as he could be of making it; The capacity to feel something, even the terms graceful and sublime, mean nothing to them.If, therefore, it cannot be said that there are some persons who are at all incapable of deriving any pleasure from the sense of beauty, we must admit that the faculty of recognizing their ideas in things, and therefore of putting oneself aside for a moment, is common to all.The reason why genius is superior to all people is only in the higher degree and long-term duration of this way of knowing, which enables genius to maintain a calm and contemplative ability during cognition. It is indispensable that what is known in this way is reproduced in an ingenious work.This reproduction is a work of art.Through works of art, genius communicates to others the ideas he has grasped.At this time the idea is unchanged, it is still the same idea, so aesthetic pleasure, whether it is caused by a work of art or directly by looking at nature and life, is essentially the same pleasure.A work of art is merely a means of making this pleasure possible, easier to know.The reason why we can see ideas more easily from works of art than directly from nature and reality is that the artist only knows ideas and no longer knows reality. He only reproduces ideas in his works and strips ideas from reality. Come out, eliminating all interfering contingencies.The artist lets us see the world through his eyes.As for the artist having this kind of eye, he recognizes the essence of things, what is outside all relations, this is the endowment of genius, it is innate, but he can also lend this endowment to us, His eyes are set on us [on the head], which is an acquired, technical aspect of art.Therefore, since I have revealed the inner essence of the way of aesthetic cognition in the most superficial outline in the previous article, I will also discuss the more detailed philosophical investigation of the beauty and magnificence in nature and art at the same time. Instead of drawing a line [between nature and art] anymore.We shall first examine what happens in a man when he is moved by beauty or grandeur.As for whether a person gets this impression directly from nature, from life, or indirectly from art, it does not constitute an essential difference, but only a superficial difference.