As if Touched with a Brush. Sculpture by Johann Gottfried Herder

Abstract

This article examines the experience of sculpture in Herder’s aesthetic writings. I situate it in the space between visual, haptic, and linguistic perception. At the center of attention is the distinctive descriptive language built around an “as if” structure. I argue that, despite the evident valorization of the hand, Herder’s experience of sculpture—and the “living concept” bound up with it—cannot be reduced to a single sense. The exemplary Pygmalion from Plastik. Einige Wahrnehmungen über Form und Gestalt aus Pygmalions bildendem Traume ultimately does not touch the sculpture with his hand but with a brush. Yet, because the experience involves individual knowledge of the properties of matter and bodies, it apprehends sculpture differently than objects perceived solely by the eye.