Genius [Genie] is the talent (natural gift) that gives the rule to art. Since the talent, as an inborn productive faculty of the artist, itself belongs to nature, this could also be expressed thus: Genius is the inborn predisposition of the mind (ingenium) through which nature gives the rule to art.
As the context implies, the Latin word ingenium meant a natural disposition or aptitude. The Latin term genius has its etymological roots in gene, as in ‘generation’, or giving birth. It referred to a male, protective household spirit or begetting spirit (‘begetting’ implying male procreation), identified with the paterfamilias or male head of the family. The term fell into disfavour during the Middle Ages because of its pagan origins, but was revived during the Renaissance in reference to creative power, picking up some of the meaning of ingenium as it went. The assumption was that a genius was male (hence any masculine gendering in my language below).
For Kant, genius is ‘inborn’: one is either born with it or not. As such, it is a gift of nature, not a product of culture. Whatever one thinks of this definition, says Kant, ‘fine art must necessarily be considered as arts of genius.’ It becomes clear why he thinks this:
Every art presupposes rules which first lay the foundation by means of which a product that is to be called artistic is first represented as possible.
Here, without mentioning the term, Kant presents art as a matter of adherent beauty, at least insofar as we cannot abstract away from those rules (non-representational art being an exception, though see §48 where Kant seems to forget or over-rule this). As we know, a pure judgement of taste cannot rely on a determining concept, so there can be no science of beauty.
Beautiful art cannot itself think up the rule in accordance with which it is to bring its product into being. Yet since without a preceding rule a product can never be called art, nature in the subject... must give the rule to art. (§46)
An artwork is a human-made product, and such it must presuppose a rule or concept that leads to it being the thing it is. Kant’s theory leaves him with a difficulty that Christian Helmut Wenzel has summarised perfectly:
On the one hand, a work of art is not an object of nature but a man-made thing, something that was produced under the influence of certain rules, the rules that lie at the basis of skills, purposes, intentions, deliberations, and whole traditions of artistic practice. On the other hand, a work of art is something that we find beautiful – at least usually, and this judging it to be beautiful must, according to Kant’s theory, be independent of rules. Hence the rules that went into the production of the work of art must somehow disappear, so to speak, in the free play that underlies the liking for the beautiful.1
‘There is a tension,’ Wenzel observes, ‘between rules and freedom’ (p95). Kant’s solution for this tension is to seize on genius, already a popular notion in late 18th century Germany: ‘beautiful art is possible only as a product of genius’. Giving the notion his own spin, he draws four conclusions.
One sees that genius 1) is a talent for producing that for which no determinate rule can be given, not a predisposition of skill for that which can be learned in accordance with some rule, consequently that originality must be its primary characteristic. (CoJ, p186)
This sounds like Kant is emphasising that genius is distinct from crafts or mechanical art; the comments are consistent with the claim that this sort of talent is inborn and not something that can be taught. Genius must be original, but it is not enough to be original:
2) That since there can also be original nonsense, its products must at the same time be models, i.e., exemplary, hence, while not themselves the result of imitation, they must yet serve others in that way, i.e., as a standard or a rule for judging.
We have encountered this idea of the exemplary already. The artist brings a new object into the world and others must try to work out the rules of production from the object itself; we have no rules, only the exemplar. Note the difference between an exemplar and an example: an example is simply an instance; an exemplar is a pattern or model to be followed. For Kant, exemplars are original – they break new ground – yet serve as a new standard.
3) That it cannot itself describe or indicate scientifically how it brings its product into being, but rather that it gives the rule as nature, and hence the author of a product that he owes to his genius does not know himself how the ideas for it come to him, and also does not have it in his power to think up such things at will or according to plan, and to communicate to others precepts that would put them in a position to produce similar products.
Here is the heart of how Kant turns the notion of genius to meet his own philosophical requirements. It flows from seeing genius as a gift of nature: the forces of nature manifest themselves through the mind and works of the genius. It even seems as if they, not the artist, are ultimately responsible for works of art – but only, as Kant notes in his final 4th point, beautiful/fine art.
The implications go further. If purposive or beautiful natural objects put us in mind of an intelligent designer, which in nature can only be God (in his practical philosophy Kant says it is morally necessary to assume God’s existence), and this creator gives the rule to art through genius, then the genius is the conduit for the divine. There is a long tradition of the artist receiving divine inspiration, starting with Homer and Plato’s Ion. But Kant is following a different, non-occasional model: he references the history of the Latin genius as the ‘spirit’ that is no passing visitation but ‘given to a person at birth’. He later remarks (p188) that genius ‘is apportioned to each immediately from the hand of nature, and thus dies with him, until nature one day similarly endows another.’
Comparison with science
Kant takes originality seriously. He begins §47 by asserting:
Everyone agrees that genius is entirely opposed to the spirit of imitation.
Kant coins the label of ‘blockhead’ [Pinsel] for one who merely copies without thinking for himself. Since learning is nothing but imitation, it does not count as genius.
Thus everything that Newton expounded in his immortal work on the principles of natural philosophy, no matter how great a mind it took to discover it, can still be learned; but one cannot learn to write inspired poetry, however exhaustive all the rules for the art of poetry and however excellent the models for it may be.
Even the greatest scientific mind cannot be called a genius, because science is determinate and can be set out so others can follow it, whereas
no Homer or Wieland2 can indicate how his ideas, which are fantastic and yet at the same time rich in thought, arise and come together in his head, because he himself does not know it and thus cannot teach it to anyone else either.
The great scientific mind differs from the apprentice ‘only in degree’, but differs from the artistic genius ‘in kind’. Kant means no disrespect to science – on the contrary, he is its keen advocate, and an admirer of Newton3 – only that for him ‘genius’ is a specific thing, limited to artistic production. Of course, this is controversial and goes against normal usage, in which figures like Newton or Einstein or, say, the maths prodigy Ramanujan are described as ‘geniuses’. Not to get into a debate on different uses of this label, but by dismissing learning as ‘nothing but imitation’ Kant is overlooking the place for creative thinking in the sciences, and indeed in every other area of human activity.
Rules of artistic production
If the gift of nature ‘gives the rule to [fine] art’ (p188), what is this ‘rule’ or rules? It cannot be set out in a formula, for then the judgement of taste would be based upon concepts. Instead:
the rule must be abstracted from the deed, i.e. from the product.
The work, again, must be exemplary – created according to a rule, but a rule that is only revealed in the product itself, ‘against which others may test their own talent, letting it serve them as a model not for copying but for imitation.’ The distinction between copying (Nachmachung) and imitation (Nachahmung) is that copying is just mechanical and plagiaristic, whereas imitation means following or emulating a standard set by another while creating one’s own original product4. It is clear that imitation alone is not enough – Kant has just demoted science for being ‘nothing but imitation’ and not counting as genius – so presumably one also needs one’s own portion of genius too. And this is what Kant goes on to say. He admits it ‘is difficult to explain’ how the rules of art may be abstracted from the product, and suggests:
The ideas of the artist arouse similar ideas in his apprentice if nature has equipped him with a similar proportion of mental powers. The models of beautiful art are thus the only means for transmitting these to posterity, which could not happen through mere descriptions.
Kant explains some of his thinking in expecting rules in art:
There is no beautiful art in which something mechanical, which can be grasped and followed according to rules, and thus something academically correct [etwas Schulgerechtes], does not constitute the essential condition of the art. For something in it must be thought of as an end, otherwise one cannot ascribe its product to any art at all; it would be a mere product of chance.
This is clear. There must be a concept, an end or purpose, otherwise the object would not have been made in the first place. Art demands design, and determinate rules. Kant is scathing towards people who think otherwise:
Superficial minds believe that they cannot show that they are blossoming geniuses any better than by pronouncing themselves free of the academic constraint of all rules, and they believe that one parades around better on a horse with the staggers than one which is properly trained.
Kant may be having a dig at his Romantic contemporaries in the Sturm und Drang movement here. He asserts:
Genius can only provide rich material for products of art; its elaboration and form require a talent that has been academically trained, in order to make a use of it that can stand up to the power of judgement. (my emphasis)
Kant began by saying nature gave the rule to art. Now he seems to be saying that nature gives the gift of genius, then the genius provides ‘rich materials’, and it is academic training that supplies the rule. This seems contradictory. No one who has experience of academic training in art (as I have), could be left unable to ‘describe or indicate... how they bring their product into being’ or to ‘communicate to others precepts that would put them in a position to produce similar products’. On the contrary, academic training – by which we mean here the classical ‘atelier’ tradition – is explicit and precise about technique. But this apparent contradiction can be solved if we look back to the start of the paragraph, already quoted: even fine art has ‘something mechanical’ that follows rules and is academically correct. The academic training provides the mechanical aspect; genius provides the inspiration or spirit, and it is that imaginative aspect which the artist cannot account for. ‘The originality of his talent constitutes one (but not the only) essential element of the character of the genius.’
Kant then has another dig, this time against the ‘charlatan’ (Gaukler) who spreads about him a ‘mist’ or haze (Dunst) of genius in matters of ‘careful rational inquiry’ i.e. where genius does not belong – and against the public that is awestruck by his nonsense and mistakes it for genuine insight.
Something to note: it used to be customary to speak of ‘genius’ as something a person, more precisely a male, has (‘he has genius’). But it gradually became something a person is (‘he is “a” genius’). Kant makes that shift, I think for the first time, in this section, e.g. when he talks of people ‘who have the honour of being called geniuses’ (p188).
What does Kant achieve through his conception of the genius? He has an artist who follows rules (the mechanical, academic training side) but also seems not to follow rules (the inspired, original talent side), thus bringing together and solving the two sides of the tension between rules and freedom.
Must all artists possess genius? Plainly, no. As we saw in my previous post, Kant puts art through several divisions: he lists ‘mechanical art’ as coming under the heading of ‘art in general’, so it is produced by artists, but he goes on to dismiss it in §47 as ‘a mere art of diligence and learning’, which in his system bars the artists who practice it from genius. That leaves us with ‘aesthetic art’, which Kant subdivides as fine arts and agreeable arts. May one be an agreeable artist of genius? Well, Kant claims it is beautiful/fine art that ‘seems at the same time to be nature’, and that genius is the means by which nature gives the rule to art, and that therefore ‘beautiful art must necessarily be considered as arts of genius’. It seems clear that Kant does not mean to include the charms, jokes and muzak of agreeable art in the purview of genius. The genius belongs only to fine art.
In the next sections, §§48-50, Kant continues his discussion on genius through the topics of taste, spirit and aesthetic ideas, which we will write about separately. But there is a little more to say about genius when we get to §49.
§49
In this section Kant discusses what he calls spirit, which is the faculty, peculiar to genius, for presenting aesthetic ideas. I will discuss that in the next post.
He closes §49 with some additional thoughts on genius, in the new light cast by the aesthetic idea. Normally the mental powers of imagination and understanding are in a certain relation, with imagination constrained by the understanding and having an (adequate) concept imposed upon it. In a genius, however, the powers attain an aesthetic relation or proportion in which the imagination is free to search beyond the understanding.
Thus genius really consists in the happy relation, which no science can teach and no diligence learn, of finding ideas for a given concept on the one hand and on the other hitting upon the expression for these, through which the subjective disposition of the mind that is thereby produced... can be communicated to others. (p194-5)
Kant goes on to break down four properties of genius:
- It is a talent for art, not science, determined by rules.
- It requires a particular relation of the imagination (intuitions) and the understanding (concepts).
- It displays itself through the expression of aesthetic ideas, and the imagination appears as purposive.
- The free correspondence of imagination and understanding relies on a proportion and disposition based not on rules but in the subject.
Genius is the exemplary originality of the natural endowment of a subject for the free use of his cognitive faculties.
In a coda, Kant talks again about the genius’s work of art serving as an exemplar, calling him a ‘favourite of nature’ (ein Günstling der Natur) and a ‘rare phenomenon’ who can give rise to a school, insofar as it proves possible to extract the rules he used from his works. He saves some disdainful remarks for those who ‘ape’ by mere copying because they lack the talent to be exemplary themselves, and for the ‘bungler’ (Stümper) who puts on individualistic flourishes just to be gaped at.
Notes
1. Christian Helmut Wenzel, An Introduction to Kant’s Aesthetics (2005), p98.
2. Christoph Martin Wieland (1733-1813) was a classicist German poet who wrote the epic Oberon. The comparison with Homer is exaggerated.
3. Part of the purpose of the First Critique was precisely to make science possible in the face of scepticism and relativism.
4. Here ‘imitation’ is used approvingly, but Kant in §49 uses ‘imitation’ in a sense closer to ‘copying’ and prefers ‘emulation’ for a distinct, laudable approach proper to another genius.
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