Empathy, Form and Space

Six essays, available here for the first time in English, present an overview of the German movement of psychological aesthetics, Kunstwissenschaft. Written at the end of the 19th century, when art's traditional historical theme appeared exhausted, these works redesigned the theoretical basis of artistic practice. The metaphysical problem of understanding form and space in the natural world gave way to the aesthetic problem of appreciating and exploiting pure form and space in painting, sculpture, music and architecture. The subjective psychological thesis of "empathy" and the more general search for art's "basic principles" together introduced the possibility of non-representational expression, stylistic change and radical reform. Included are essays by Robert Vischer, Conrad Fiedler, Heinrich Wolfflin, Adolf Goller, Adolf von Hildebrand and August Schmarsow. An introduction by the editors situates these writings within the historical and philosophical context of German formalist aesthetics.