Sculpture: Some Observations on Shape and Form from Pygmalion's Creative Dream

"The eye that gathers impressions is no longer the eye that sees a depiction on a surface; it becomes a hand, the ray of light becomes a finger, and the imagination becomes a form of immediate touching."—Johann Gottfried HerderLong recognized as one of the most important eighteenth-century works on aesthetics and the visual arts, Johann Gottfried Herder's Plastik (Sculpture, 1778) has never before appeared in a complete English translation. In this landmark essay, Herder combines rationalist and empiricist thought with a wide range of sources—from the classics to Norse legend, Shakespeare to the Bible—to illuminate the ways we experience sculpture.Standing on the fault line between classicism and romanticism, Herder draws most of his examples from classical sculpture, while nevertheless insisting on the historicity of art and of the senses themselves. Through a detailed analysis of the differences between painting and sculpture, he develops a powerful critique of the dominance of vision both in the appreciation of art and in our everyday apprehension of the world around us. One of the key articulations of the aesthetics of Sturm und Drang, Sculpture is also important as an anticipation of subsequent developments in art theory. Jason Gaiger's translation of Sculpture includes an extensive introduction to Herder's thought, explanatory notes, and illustrations of all the sculptures discussed in the text.

Arts & Photography

Herder, Johann Gottfried

History & Criticism

University of Chicago Press

"The eye that gathers impressions is no longer the eye that sees a depiction on a surface; it becomes a hand, the ray of light becomes a finger, and the imagination becomes a form of immediate touching."—Johann Gottfried Herder Long recognized as one of the most important eighteenth-century works on aesthetics and the visual arts, Johann Gottfried Herder's Plastik (Sculpture, 1778) has never before appeared in a complete English translation. In this landmark essay, Herder combines rationalist and empiricist thought with a wide range of sources—from the classics to Norse legend, Shakespeare to the Bible—to illuminate the ways we experience sculpture. Standing on the fault line between classicism and romanticism, Herder draws most of his examples from classical sculpture, while nevertheless insisting on the historicity of art and of the senses themselves. Through a detailed analysis of the differences between painting and sculpture, he develops a powerful critique of the dominance of vision both in the appreciation of art and in our everyday apprehension of the world around us. One of the key articulations of the aesthetics of Sturm und Drang, Sculpture is also important as an anticipation of subsequent developments in art theory. Jason Gaiger's translation of Sculpture includes an extensive introduction to Herder's thought, explanatory notes, and illustrations of all the sculptures discussed in the text.

This volume combines Rousseau's essay on the origin of diverse languages with Herder's essay on the genesis of the faculty of speech. Rousseau's essay is important to semiotics and critical theory, as it plays a central role in Jacques Derrida's book Of Grammatology, and both essays are valuable historical and philosophical documents.

On the Origin of Language

Politics & Social Sciences

Rousseau, Jean­Jacques

Philosophy

The first English translation of some of the early works of Johann Gottfried Herder. Johann Gottfried Herder was one of the central figures in eighteenth-century European intellectual history. As a philosopher and historian, a literary critic and theoretician, a poet, translator, and educator, he was one of the last great universalists and one of the pioneers of the Sturm and Drang movements as well as the mentor of the young Goethe in Strassburg. His literary fame rests on his early publications, which until now have been available only in German. Although Herder addresses in these texts the state of German literature during the Enlightenment, he goes far beyond mere literary criticism by basing his ideas on anthropological considerations within the boundaries of an established national identity. The editors have chosen texts that anticipate most of Herder's ideas on aesthetics and philosophy of the later years.

Johann Gottfried Herder: Selected Early Works, 1764-1767 : Addresses, Essays, and Drafts; Fragments on Recent German Literature

Literature & Fiction

Menze, Ernest A.

World Literature

Pennsylvania State Univ Pr

Johann Gottfried V. Herders Christliche Reden und Homilien, Vol. 2 (Classic Reprint) (German Edition)

Forgotten Books

Song Loves the Masses: Herder on Music and Nationalism

Distinguished ethnomusicologist Philip V. Bohlman compiles Johann Gottfried Herder’s writings on music and nationalism, from his early volumes of Volkslieder through sacred song to the essays on aesthetics late in his life, shaping them as the book on music that Herder would have written had he gathered the many strands of his musical thought into a single publication. Framed by analytical chapters and extensive introductions to each translation, this book interprets Herder’s musings on music to think through several major questions: What meaning did religion and religious thought have for Herder? Why do the nation and nationalism acquire musical dimensions at the confluence of aesthetics and religious thought? How did his aesthetic and musical thought come to transform the way Herder understood music and nationalism and their presence in global history? Bohlman uses the mode of translation to explore Herder’s own interpretive practice as a translator of languages and cultures, providing today’s readers with an elegantly narrated and exceptionally curated collection of essays on music by two major intellectuals.

Bohlman, Philip V.

Music

University of California Press

A seminal figure in the philosophy of history, culture, and language, Johann Gottfried Herder (1744-1803) also produced some of the most important and original works in the history of aesthetic theory. A student of Kant, he spent much of his life striving to reconcile the opposing poles of Enlightenment thought represented by his early mentors. His ideas influenced Hegel, Schleiermacher, Nietzsche, Dilthey, J. S. Mill, and Goethe.
 This book presents most of Herder's important writings on aesthetics, including the main sections of one of his major untranslated works, Kritische Wälder (Critical Forests). These notes, essays, and treatises, the majority of which appear here in English for the first time, show this idiosyncratic thinker both deeply rooted in the controversies of his day and pointing the way to future developments in aesthetics. Chosen to reflect the extent and diversity of Herder's concerns, the texts cover such topics as the psychology and physiology of aesthetic perception, the classification of the arts, taste, Shakespeare, the classical tradition, and the relationship between art and morality.
 Few thinkers have reflected so sensitively and productively on the cultural, historical, anthropological, ethical, and theological dimensions of art and the creative process. With this book, the importance of aesthetics to the evolution and texture of Herder's own thought, as well as his profound contribution to that discipline, comes fully into view.

Selected Writings on Aesthetics

Poetry

Princeton University Press

Without Johann Gottfried Herder (1744-1803), we simply would not understand Shakespeare in the way we do. In fact, much literature and art besides Shakespeare would neither look the same nor be the same without the influence of Herder's "Shakespeare" (1773). One of the most important and original works in the history of literary criticism, this passionate essay pioneered a new, historicist approach to cultural artifacts by arguing that they should be judged not by their conformity to a set of conventions imported from another time and place, but by the effectiveness of their response to their own historical and cultural context. Rejecting the authority of a dominant and stifling French neoclassicism that judged eighteenth-century plays by the criteria of Aristotle, Herder's "Shakespeare" signaled a break with the Enlightenment, the approach of Romanticism, and the arrival of a distinctly modern form of aesthetic appreciation.
 With a vivid new translation and a fascinating introduction by Gregory Moore, this edition of Herder's classic will speak to today's readers with undiminished power and persuasiveness.

Shakespeare

Dramas & Plays

One of the most important works of the Enlightenment--in the first new, unabridged English translation in more than two centuries Published in four volumes between 1784 and 1791, Herder's Ideas for the Philosophy of the History of Mankind is one of the most important works of the Enlightenment--a bold, original, and encyclopedic synthesis of, and contribution to, the era's philosophical debates over nature, history, culture, and the very meaning of human experience. This is the first new, unabridged English translation of the Ideas in more than two centuries. Gregory Martin Moore's lively, modern English text, extensive introduction, and commentary bring this neglected masterpiece back to life. The Ideas--which engages with many of the leading thinkers of the eighteenth century, such as Montesquieu, Kant, Gibbon, Ferguson, Buffon, and Rousseau--is many things at once: an inquiry into the unity and purpose of history, a reflection on human nature and the place of humans in the cosmic order, an examination of what was beginning to be called "culture," and a narrative of cultural progress across time among different peoples. Along the way, Herder considers a dizzying variety of topics, including the formation of the earth and solar system, species change, race, the immortality of the soul, the establishment of society, and the pursuit of happiness. Above all, the Ideas is an anthropology--what Alexander Pope had termed an "essay on man"--pervaded by an appropriately humane spirit. A fresh and much-needed modern translation of the complete Ideas, this volume reintroduces English readers to a classic of Enlightenment thought.

Ideas for the Philosophy of the History of Mankind

History

World

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Herder, Johann Gottfried. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Herder, Johann Gottfried

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Herder, Johann Gottfried. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Sculpture: Some Observations on Shape and Form from Pygmalion's Creative Dream

Sculpture: Some Observations on Shape and Form from Pygmalion's Creative Dream

On the Origin of Language

Johann Gottfried Herder: Selected Early Works, 1764-1767 : Addresses, Essays, and Drafts; Fragments on Recent German Literature

Johann Gottfried V. Herders Christliche Reden und Homilien, Vol. 2 (Classic Reprint) (German Edition)

Song Loves the Masses: Herder on Music and Nationalism

Song Loves the Masses: Herder on Music and Nationalism

Selected Writings on Aesthetics

Shakespeare

Ideas for the Philosophy of the History of Mankind