HERMANN VON HELMHOLTZ 



translation may give us an impression in the highest 

 degree distinct and forcible, not merely of the objects 

 themselves, but even of the greatly altered intensities 

 of light under which we view them. ... If in 

 these considerations, my having continually laid 

 weight on the lightest, finest, and most accurate 

 sensuous intelligibility of artistic representation, may 

 seem to many of you as a very subordinate point, 

 a point which, if mentioned at all by writers on 

 aesthetics, is treated as quite accessory, I think this 

 is unjustly so. The sensuous distinctness is by no 

 means a low or subordinate element in the action 

 of works of art ; its importance has forced itself the 

 more strongly upon me the more I have sought to 

 discover the physiological elements in their action.' 



This brief statement contains an expression of the 

 main aesthetical principles enforced by Helmholtz. 

 The combination of qualities found in him was of the 

 rarest kind, and it was fitting these qualities were 

 brought to bear on such questions. Schelling wrote 

 that science in its highest perfection has the same 

 problem to solve as art, but the method of its 

 solution is different. In science the method may 

 be mechanical, and the possession of genius is not 

 absolutely necessary, but genius alone can solve 

 artistic problems. In Helmholtz we had all that 

 science could teach, and all that genius could 

 inspire. 



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