Vischer and aesthetics

The science of beauty

With his major work, the six-volume "Aesthetics of the Science of Beauty", written from 1846 to 1857, Vischer had created one of the most important universal aesthetic descriptions of post-Hegelian aesthetics. Vischer's wish was to continue, expand and complete Hegel's idealist aesthetics.

In his work, he attempted to find a metaphysical justification for beauty. The "absolute idea" of beauty and the various forms in which it is realised in art and nature sublimates all "everyday" random aspects and contradictions by linking them to a "greater necessity" and thus leads to a reconciliation between "humans and the world". In this understanding, beauty functions as the last instance that helps humans to survive in the world.

Whereas Hegel's aesthetics were primarily permeated by theological concepts, Vischer's aesthetics had a fundamentally different objective in mind. Its purpose was to put post-theological humanity into a deeper and immediate relationship with the world based on a new, non-theological aesthetic approach.

Vischer wanted this work to constitute a complete aesthetic system. Yet he soon began to be plagued by doubts, and criticised his own work as early as 1873. He preferred to formulate criticism himself, as he found it difficult to tolerate criticism by other people.