The German “Mittelweg”: Garden Theory and Philosophy in the Time of Kant [1 ed.] 041597674X, 9780415976749, 9781003061991

Table of contents :
Cover
Title
Series Page
Original Title
Copyright
Dedication
Contents
List of Figures
Acknowledgments
Chapter One Introduction: Garden Theory as Topographical Thought
Chapter Two The Garden in the Academy
Chapter Three The Semiotics of Strolling: Karl Heinrich Heydenreich (I)
Chapter Four The Legibility of Agency: Karl Heinrich Heydenreich (II)
Chapter Five The Historical Narrative of Mediation: Friedrich Schiller
Chapter Six The Background of Discourse
Chapter Seven Architectonics and Topographics
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

Studies in Philosophy

Edited by

Robert Bernasconi University of Memphis

A Routledge Series

Studies in Philosophy Robert Bernasconi, General Editor Names and Nature in Plato’s CRATYLUS Rachel Barney Reality and Impenetrability in Kant’s Philosophy of Nature Daniel Warren Frege and the Logic of Sense and Reference Kevin C. Klement Topics in the Philosophy of Possible Worlds Daniel Patrick Nolan Understanding the Many Byeong-uk Yi Anthropic Bias Observation Selection Effects Nick Bostrom The Beautiful Shape of the Good Platonic and Pythagorean Themes in Kant’s Critique of the Power of Judgment Mihaela C. Fistioc Mathematics in Kant’s Critical Philosophy Reflections on Mathematical Practice Lisa Shabel Referential Opacity and Modal Logic Dagfinn Føllesdal Emmanuel Levinas Ethics, Justice, and the Human beyond Being Elisabeth Louise Thomas The Constitution of Consciousness A Study in Analytic Phenomenology Wolfgang Huemer

Dialectics of the Body Corporeality in the Philosophy of T.W. Adorno Lisa Yun Lee Art as Abstract Machine Ontology and Aesthetics in Deleuze and Guattari Stephen Zepke The German GĪTĀ Hermeneutics and Discipline in the German Reception of Indian Thought, 1778–1831 Bradley L. Herling Hegel’s Critique of Essence A Reading of the Wesenslogik Franco Cirulli Time, Space and Ethics in the Philosophy of Watsuji Tetsuro, Kuki Shuzo, and Martin Heidegger Graham Mayeda Wittgenstein’s Novels Martin Klebes Language and History in Theodor W. Adorno’s NOTES TO LITERATURE Ulrich Plass Diderot and the Metamorphosis of Species Mary Efrosini Gregory The Rights of Woman as Chimera The Political Philosophy of Mary Wollstonecraft Natalie Fuehrer Taylor The German “Mittelweg” Garden Theory and Philosophy in the Time of Kant Michael G. Lee

The German “Mittelweg” Garden Theory and Philosophy in the Time of Kant

Michael G. Lee

Routledge New York & London

Routledge Taylor & Francis Group 270 Madison Avenue New York, NY 10016

Routledge Taylor & Francis Group 2 Park Square Milton Park, Abingdon Oxon OX14 4RN

© 2007 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis Group, an Informa business Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 International Standard Book Number-10: 0-415-97674-X (Hardcover) International Standard Book Number-13: 978-0-415-97674-9 (Hardcover) No part of this book may be reprinted, reproduced, transmitted, or utilized in any form by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying, microfilming, and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without written permission from the publishers. Trademark Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Lee, Michael G., 1962-0 The German “mittelweg” : garden theory and philosophy in the time of Kant / Michael G. Lee. p. cm. -- (Studies in philosophy) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-415-97674-X (hardback : alk. paper) 1. Philosophy, German--18th century. 2. Gardens--Philosophy. 3. Kant, Immanuel, 1724-1804. 4. Heydenreich, Karl Heinrich, 1764-1801. I. Title. B2615.L44 2006 193--dc22 Visit the Taylor & Francis Web site at http://www.taylorandfrancis.com and the Routledge Web site at http://www.routledge.com

2006032122

For my parents

Contents

List of Figures

ix

Acknowledgments

xi

Chapter One Introduction: Garden Theory as Topographical Thought

1

Chapter Two The Garden in the Academy

13

Chapter Three The Semiotics of Strolling: Karl Heinrich Heydenreich (I)

59

Chapter Four The Legibility of Agency: Karl Heinrich Heydenreich (II)

113

Chapter Five The Historical Narrative of Mediation: Friedrich Schiller

137

Chapter Six The Background of Discourse

159

Chapter Seven Architectonics and Topographics

221

Notes

239

Bibliography

301

Index

315 vii

List of Figures

1.

Wörlitz, plan, 1784

3

2.

Wörlitz, view of Schloss from across the lake 1794

4

3.

Hirschfeld’s house in the Fruchtbaumschule

17

4.

Reconstruction of Pliny’s Laurentian villa by Krubsacius, 1760

20

5.

Leipzig, Großbosescher Garten, 1709

25

6.

Leipzig, Löhrs Garten

27

7.

Leipzig Promenade, 1777

30

8.

Leipzig, Apels Garten

31

9.

Leipzig, Breiters Kaffeegarten

31

10.

Leipzig, map, 1784

33

11.

Leipzig, views of Grimmische Tor, 1775, 1804

34

12.

Leipzig, Englische Anlage plan, 1810

35

13.

Leipzig, Englische Anlage, 1804

38

14.

Leipzig, Englische Anlage, 1804

39

15.

Isle of Rousseau, Ermenonville, France

85

16.

Hohenheim, English Village plan, 1795

154

17.

Hohenheim, English Village temple ruins, 1800

155

18.

Luisium, plan, ca. 1790

167

19.

Luisium, Nonnenthor, ca. 1830

168 ix

x

List of Figures

20.

Diagram of ha-ha’s

202

21.

Leipzig, Kleinbosescher Garten bird’s-eye view

208

22.

Vignette by Johann Heinrich Brandt

209

23.

Seifersdorfer Tal, Hirschfeld Memorial

211

24.

Wörlitz, “Stein,” 1797

219

25.

Humphry Repton’s tradecard, ca. 1790

232

26.

Wörlitz, “Toleranzblick”

235

Acknowledgments

This project could not have been completed without the help of many fine people, most of whom have contributed in both scholarly and personal ways. Mirka Benes was my primary guide for the entire journey, and it was her lectures during my first year at Harvard that initially planted the seeds of this study in my mind. Her tremendous intellectual gifts, always displayed with such warmth and grace, have been a source of inspiration and encouragement throughout the time we have worked together. I owe a debt of gratitude to Peter Burgard and Claudia Brodsky, who have each altered my understanding of this material in important ways. And at various stages of the work, I have benefited from the advice of Frederick Neuhouser, Joachim WolschkeBulmahn, David Blackbourn, John Czaplicka, and Daniel Monk. I am especially grateful to Gert Gröning and Michael Niedermeier, who were such excellent hosts during my two summers of research in Berlin. The Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies granted the funds for the first of these stays; the Center also provided the first public forum in which I presented some of the early results of my research. Mimi Truslow was of crucial assistance with administrative matters and also gave much personal support. I am also grateful to Robert Bernasconi and Max Novick for their assistance in bringing the manuscript to publication. Many of the best sources I used in this study came as holiday and birthday gifts from Vicky Brandt, whose wit, loyalty, and sheer intelligence have made her a friend like no other. Mark Hollmer has been my companion during the most wonderful and difficult days of this work, and his love has meant everything. Finally, there would have been no getting through this process without the love, support, and patience of two parents who have always believed in me.

xi

Chapter One

Introduction: Garden Theory as Topographical Thought

At the beginning of his description of Wörlitz, the most famous “English” garden in late eighteenth-century Germany, the Belgian prince Charles Joseph de Ligne exhorts his readers, “Gärtner, Maler, Philosophen, Dichter, gehet nach Wörlitz. Ihr werdet das nämliche Vergnügen geniessen.” (Gardeners, painters, philosophers, poets, go to Wörlitz. You too will enjoy this pleasure there.)1 The significance of this quotation, taken from a 1799 translation by Wilhelm Gottlieb Becker, lies as much in its availability to German readers as it does in what de Ligne actually says. For the late eighteenth century in Germany was a time when garden theorists like Becker, along with many other intellectuals east of the Rhine, were absorbing the cultural currents of French- and English-speaking Europe in unprecedented ways. A treatise written in French, describing an “English” garden in Germany, and available in German translation, was in that context simply par for the course. And despite the seeming marginality of the topic, it was not unusual that such an array of persons, representing divergent areas of expertise, would be expected to take a special interest in gardens. In a world where agriculture was still the basis of most economies and where much of cultural life centered around country estates, garden art and its theorization were very much on the minds of educated persons. Moreover, it would appear from the long history of scholarship surrounding the garden at Wörlitz and the movement in Germany it represented that many had indeed taken the prince’s advice. The contributions of gardeners, painters, and poets to the reception and propagation of the “English” garden in Germany are now well known, and the wealth of literature on the topic, at least in German, rivals that for English and French gardens of the same period. What has been less well understood, however, is the place in these developments of the other person that de Ligne addresses—the philosopher. Relegated to a supporting role in most studies of eighteenthcentury German gardens, the philosopher’s function has usually been merely 1

2

The German “Mittelweg”

to introduce “background” issues, such as a vaguely conceived “relationship to nature,” against which more specifically formulated concerns are placed in relief. In contrast, this study offers a narrative that treats garden philosophy as a subject in its own right. By placing the philosopher in the foreground of German garden theory for the first time, it examines the particular means by which this crucial figure, like so many others, responded to the call to “go to Wörlitz.” The appearance of the garden in German philosophy can be attributed to several key factors. It is possible, however, to think of them in terms of two broad phenomena by way of introduction: (1) the proliferation of a popular garden literature among the German reading public in the decades following the Seven Years War (1756–1763), and (2) what amounted to a revolution in both the content and institutional practice of German philosophy after the publication of Kant’s three Critiques between 1781 and 1790, one component of which was a new emphasis on aesthetics. Garden philosophy was made possible by the eventual intersection of these two developments, and an already existing, substantial body of garden literature outside Germany proved an important source of ideas. It is no accident, for example, that the early phases of construction at Wörlitz in the late 1760s and 1770s coincided with this explosion of new literature in England and France that announced itself as “theory.” Devoted almost exclusively to the promotion of the new irregular style, these works tended to be written in treatise form as a compilation of essays on a standard range of topics. Most concentrated on the fundamental elements and compositional principles necessary for laying out a country estate, usually elaborated with descriptions of historical and contemporary gardens and appeals to aesthetic concepts derived from related, but more academically established, arts.2 The German reading public’s first acquaintance with the new, irregular garden and its theoretical justification came primarily through these treatises, which tended to appear in translation within a year or two of the original publications.3 When German writers began to produce their own garden treatises by the late 1770s and 1780s, however, a trend unique to Germany began to manifest itself. Whereas in England and France, garden theory had been, and would continue to be, written almost exclusively by estate owners, gardeners, amateurs, and connoisseurs, the emerging German tradition became increasingly dominated by a new class of author, the professional academic philosopher. It was through this unprecedented migration of garden theory into the academic discipline of philosophy that one of Germany’s most important contributions to the field came to be elaborated during the 1790s: the theory of the Mittelweg garden, or “middle path” garden. This concept, although originating in the

Introduction

3

Figure 1. Wörlitz, plan by Israel Salomon Probst, 1784 Reproduced by permission © Kulturstiftung DessauWörlitz, Bildarchiv.

1770s, took center stage in the decade following the inception of the French Revolution as a program for adapting the innovations of the irregular gardens of England to the culture, climate, and topography of the German states. The anticipated result was to be a new form of gardening, unique to Germany, that would avoid the perceived excesses of both the previously

4

The German “Mittelweg”

Figure 2. Wörlitz, view of Schloss from across the lake by Christian August Günther, 1794 Reproduced by permission © Anhaltishce Gemäldegalerie Dessau.

ubiquitous “French” formal gardens and the rapidly spreading new style.4 By embracing a certain freedom of imagination without sacrificing an overall sense of structure, the Germans hoped to discover a happy mean. The reasons for the attractiveness of the Mittelweg as a theory-building strategy during this period are many, and the proliferation of similar “middle path” rhetorical formulas in post-1789 German society suggests that the Mittelweg garden was but one manifestation of a much broader cultural phenomenon. In its most nationalist interpretation as a specifically “German” phenomenon, the Mittelweg garden mirrored other attempts by Germans to articulate an indigenous cultural tradition that was neither French nor English. This drive was perhaps most strongly exemplified in the call to develop a national literature, but it also found frequent expression in other domains such as political theory. Here, as with the Mittelweg garden, writers intent on

Introduction

5

charting a uniquely German course often continued reflexively to structure their arguments primarily in relation to French and English sources. Even the similarly termed Sonderweg thesis of later nineteenth- and twentieth-century German historiography, although a theory of German exceptionalism rather than of mediation, may be considered a spiritual descendent of these late eighteenth-century concerns with Germany identity.5 These widely shared habits of thought are important for interpreting the Mittelweg garden at the symbolic level, for it cannot be properly understood apart from the associational role that such central concerns as freedom, autonomy, and nationalism played in its reception during the Revolutionary Era. Most contemporary interpreters certainly viewed it as a vital expression of national character, an assertion of German autonomy in the face of French and English hegemony, and this aspect of its theoretical impetus should not be diminished. Upon closer inspection, however, the explanatory power of this approach turns out to be limited. For, ironically, it was at its most abstract level, as a structuring device within philosophy, that the Mittelweg found its most concrete application to gardens. Emerging from a specific set of problems within the German academic tradition quite remote from the French-English question, this specifically philosophical Mittelweg found in the garden a powerful locus within which to reconceptualize several long-standing disputes regarding the nature of binary opposition and its resolution. Several of the most important pairs of these binary concepts— including art and nature, freedom and determinism, and rationality and sensibility—could in the case of the garden now be reflected upon within the convenient purview of a single glance. It was as if the Germans, breathing deeply of the Greek atmosphere bequeathed by Johann Winckelmann, imagined themselves standing among the olive groves of Plato’s Academy or strolling with the Peripatetics along the shaded walks outside the Lyceum and suddenly paused to have a look around. No longer merely a setting for philosophical meditation, the garden became during the 1790s an object of philosophical study. The first German philosopher to give serious attention the garden was Johann Georg Sulzer (1720–1779), whose four-volume Allgemeine Theorie der schönen Künste (Leipzig, 1771–74) includes a short essay on garden art.6 But it was Christian C. L. Hirschfeld (1742–1792), professor of philosophy at Kiel University, who set the standard for such work, beginning with several books on garden theory written in the early 1770s and culminating in the monumental five-volume Theorie der Gartenkunst (1779–85).7 It was in the inaugural volume of Hirschfeld’s magnum opus that the concept of the German Mittelweg garden appears in print for the first time, and he can justly be

6

The German “Mittelweg”

seen as the originator of the term. He does not, however, provide a precise definition of the concept, at least not in a rigorously philosophical way, and this task would be left to those who followed him.8 It was about a decade later, far from the northern port town of Kiel, that these issues were pursued with greater intensity by a small group of philosophers centered at Leipzig University, the most important of whom were Karl Heinrich Heydenreich (1764–1801), Friedrich Schiller (1759–1805), and Johann Christian August Grohmann (1769–1847). Coming of age when Kant’s new Critical Philosophy was just entering the German academic world, these young thinkers translated Hirschfeld’s Mittelweg idea, which had been articulated within an eclectic blend of German scholasticism and British empiricism called “popular philosophy,” into Kant’s idiom. By working within a Kantian framework, they also succeeding in bringing an existing garden theory vocabulary into the institutional and disciplinary structures of the university, in effect translating that body of knowledge into a philosophy of topography, or what I term “topographical thought.” That is, by theorizing the garden according to the categories and methods of Kant’s philosophy, the Mittelweg garden theorists foregrounded as subject matter what had been only barely visible as structural background in Kant’s architectonic system: namely, the geographical setting of his philosophical “edifice.” It is this notion of “topographical thought,” along with the status of these authors as professional philosophers, that determines the bounds of the present study. For I have limited my analysis to academic authors who develop the Mittelweg garden theory in a way that illuminates the topographical dimensions of Kant’s philosophy. Heydenreich and J. C. A. Grohmann, professors of philosophy at Leipzig and Wittenberg respectively, clearly meet these criteria. Schiller, although nominally a professor of history rather than philosophy at Jena University, does so as well because of his deep immersion in Kant’s thought through the “table societies” (Tischgesellschaften) that sprang up among the faculty there in the late 1780s and early 1790s.9 Schiller’s garden theory is substantial in its own right and receives full treatment in this work; however, those developed by Heydenreich and Grohmann are especially complex. For that reason, of the latter two I have chosen to examine only Heydenreich’s theory at this time. A full analysis of Grohmann’s Mittelweg, which draws upon Johann Gottlieb Fichte’s critical idealism to posit a German garden based on moral “interest” rather than Kant’s aesthetic “disinterest,” will be left to a future study. There are other figures, including some professional philosophers, who contributed to garden theory in Germany during the period “um 1800,” but who do not fully meet the criteria outlined above. Both Johann Gottfried

Introduction

7

Grohmann (1764–1805), professor of philosophy at Leipzig University, and Wilhelm Gottlieb Becker (1754–1813), professor of philosophy at the Dresden Ritterakademie, published extensively on gardens, but neither developed a substantial Mittelweg theory. The Dresden superintendent of antiquities Christian August Semler (1767–1825) published a remarkable treatise in 1803, Ideen zu einer Gartenlogik, but he does not deal extensively with the Mittelweg question in that work, and his philosophical approach owes more to Leibniz than to Kant. It was also the case that after Kant outlined his own garden theory in the Critique of Judgment (1790), it became de rigueur for anyone publishing a system of aesthetics to include a short section on garden art. German philosophers who followed this pattern include Karl Ludwig Pörschke (1794), Johann H. G. Heusinger (1797), Wilhelm Traugott Krug (1802), and Friedrich Bouterwek (1806), but they do not address the Mittelweg question directly. Consequently, these thinkers do not receive separate treatment in this study, but are brought in at various points only when their insights prove particularly relevant. One other work of German garden philosophy that could have come under consideration, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Elective Affinities (Die Wahlverwandtschaften) (1809), is omitted primarily because it is written as a novel. Because this study is limited to garden theory of a particular genre—essays and treatises written by academic philosophers—Goethe’s text will not be dealt with here. ***

Despite the productive results that were achieved at this particular historical juncture in Germany, it is not self-evident that philosophy should be a significant, or even desirable, means by which to develop a garden theory. Even as multidisciplinary approaches have flourished in garden studies over the last twenty years, scholars have rarely availed themselves of the intellectual resources available within philosophy. Instead, they have tended to rely more on methods derived from such fields as cultural geography, social history, and literary studies. And unlike recent architectural theory, where philosophy has often played an important role, doubts about its usefulness as a potential tool for garden theory continue to be raised by some of the field’s most prominent scholars. John Dixon Hunt, for example, has recently argued in Greater Perfections: the Practice of Garden Theory (2000) that philosophy is too mired in verbal hair-splitting to be of much use in understanding a phenomenon as physically and sensually saturated as a garden.10 In voicing this criticism, Hunt appears primarily to have in mind two books published in the 1990s—Mara Miller’s The Garden as an Art (1993) and Stephanie

8

The German “Mittelweg”

Ross’s What Gardens Mean (1998)—that are among the very few attempts to approach garden theory from the standpoint of philosophical analysis.11 Both works are concerned with principles of a very general nature, applicable to gardens across many times and cultures. As a result, actual gardens, usually serving as illustrations for independently derived arguments, tend to be discussed in a historically de-contextualized way. Although Hunt is correct to point out that there are epistemological limits to such an approach, this is not necessarily a bad result given that these are works primarily of philosophy, not history. Similar objections could be raised, for example, with regard to the frequently ahistorical manner in which Schiller and J. C. A. Grohmann appropriate well-known gardens for their arguments, or even with regard to the noticeable absence of historical references in Heydenreich altogether. Given this recurring tendency, there is clearly something in the nature of philosophical method that puts it in tension with historical analysis. Perhaps, then, it is more helpful to think of the books by Miller and Ross less as having “failed” according to externally imposed criteria than as having accomplished important preliminary work in sketching the outlines of a contemporary garden aesthetics. The proper place of history in this endeavor remains an outstanding question for these works; however, the chapters they devote to issues for which philosophy is well suited, such as representation, offer persuasive evidence that philosophy can play a major role in tackling some of garden theory’s more abstract questions. What has not yet been considered in the exploration of these general questions, however, is the study of a situation where a significant cluster of garden theories has already been produced by philosophers.12 The reason, quite simply, is that the burst of attention that the garden received in late eighteenthcentury German philosophy appears to have been a unique phenomenon in the history of that discipline. Although works of garden theory penned by philosophers continued to appear sporadically in Germany throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, there was never again the same clustering effect that characterized the two decades immediately following Kant’s third Critique.13 Moreover, outside Germany, academic philosophy appears to have ignored garden theory entirely, for it is only in the confluence of works by Ippolito Pindemonte (1753–1828), Luigi Mabil (1752–1836), and others in northern Italy during the first decades of the nineteenth century that one can find a rough parallel.14 It is for this reason, then, that the basic agenda laid out by Miller, Ross, and others interested in the philosophy of gardens can perhaps best be furthered by considering the specific case of the German Mittelweg. And in doing so, it is necessary first to take stock of the work that has already

Introduction

9

been carried out on this topic in histories of German garden theory, and more broadly in histories of German gardens. Within the German secondary literature, there have been two defining motives that have shaped the reception of the Mittelweg garden theory and its authors ever since both began to appear in historical studies. The first is a long-standing tendency among scholars to structure the history of German gardens as a cycle of two basic styles, the formal and the informal, where the dominance of either extreme is occasionally broken by periods of a “mixed” eclecticism. The second is an equally strong tendency to reduce the cast of late eighteenth-century characters to a few names, with the result that the standard compressed narrative goes directly from Hirschfeld to the garden designs and theoretical publications of Ludwig von Sckell, Peter Joseph Lenné, and Hermann von Pückler-Muskau in the early nineteenth century. Because of these habits of mind, the Mittelweg authors routinely go unmentioned, and even the word Mittelweg has generally been lost in scholarly usage as a key term explaining the garden theory of this period. This general trajectory can be tracked from the first garden histories written in the nineteenth century to roughly the mid-twentieth century. A few of the Mittelweg authors are still represented in Gustav Meyer’s Lehrbuch der schönen Gartenkunst (1860), for example, but they have entirely disappeared, with the exception of Schiller, by the time of Marie Luise Gothein’s Geschichte der Gartenkunst (1914).15 Her treatment of the late eighteenth century includes what has now become the standard narrative of the period, repeated even as late as Alfred Hoffmann (1963) and Adrian von Buttlar (1980), that emphasizes Rousseau’s ideas of nature, Hirschfeld’s treatises, and the influences of the Sturm und Drang and Empfindsamkeit literary movements.16 It is also here that we see the codification of the “landscape garden” (Landschaftsgarten) as a type, spanning the period that is now uniformly termed the Goethezeit (roughly 1770–1830) after H. A. Korff ’s coinage. In this way, the customary periodization of literature has strongly shaped subsequent interpretations of late eighteenth-century gardens, which although separated in time from the works of Lenné and Pückler-Muskau by both the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars, have generally been treated as members of a single category. The result is that the period from 1790 to 1815 has usually been minimized or entirely overlooked. Several recent studies have begun to fill in many of these gaps. The most comprehensive look at the 1790s is Sigmar Gerndt, Idealisierte Natur (1981), which embraces a wide range of literary genres, including some philosophical works. Although Gerndt’s analysis of the Mittelweg authors other than Schiller is not extensive, she does include some commentary on J. C.

10

The German “Mittelweg”

A. Grohmann’s major treatise as well as Kant’s garden theory.17 A number of edited volumes since about 1990, such as Gärten der Goethezeit (1992),18 have also begun to give greater prominence to some of the lesser known gardens of the late eighteenth century. Hirschfeld, however, continues to be the only garden philosopher receiving much attention in the past two decades, with a major analysis of his Theorie der Gartenkunst, a study of his ideology of country life, and a significant biography.19 Wolfgang Schepers’ essay, “C. C. L. Hirschfelds Theorie der Gartenkunst (1779–85) und die Frage des ‘deutschen Gartens’” remains the most detailed examination to date of Hirschfeld’s Mittelweg concept, and it even includes some commentary on J. C. A. Grohmann. However, Schepers’ aim in the essay is to explore questions of German nationalism rather than strictly philosophical ones, so most of its concerns lie outside the scope of the present study.20 There are no comprehensive studies of late eighteenth-century German garden theory in the English secondary literature. In fact, between the publication of a seminal essay by Eva Marie Neumeyer (1947) and the major contributions by Sheila Benn (1991) and Linda Parshall (1993), very little on the topic was published in English. In her Pre-Romantic Attitudes to Landscape in the Writings of Friedrich Schiller (1991), Benn provides the most extensive analysis of Schiller’s garden theory that has been done to date, interpreting it within the context of his other writings on nature and landscape. Linda Parshall has recently (2001) translated Hirschfeld’s Theorie der Gartnkunst into English for the first time. Her substantial introduction to that translation follows up on an equally thorough essay on Hirschfeld published a few years earlier, which interprets his Mittelweg garden theory primarily in social terms as a mediation of crowded urban life and the solitude of the country.21 Sarah Richards has written an essay on one of the many garden journals published in Leipzig during the 1790s, which gives a clear analysis of both the issues that shaped that journal’s theoretical content and the make-up of its readership. Aside from these studies, however, the territory of German garden theory in the 1790s remains largely uncharted for English readers.22 It should equally be asked to what extent historians of German philosophy, especially those who deal with the period from Kant to Hegel, have both treated the Mittelweg as a philosophical concept and studied the “minor” philosophers who theorized it in garden form. The most important scholarly work to deal with these themes has been conducted by Frederick Beiser, who has devoted two major studies to German philosophy of the 1780s and 1790s. Significantly, in both The Fate of Reason (1987) and German Idealism (2002), Beiser on several occasions uses the term “middle path” either to describe the position taken by an individual philosopher or to characterize his own interpre-

Introduction

11

tative approach in relation to the secondary literature.23 Although he does not identify the “middle path” as a separate theme unto itself, it is striking nonetheless that he makes use of it as a structuring idea to interpret certain aspects of the philosophy of that period. Given the detailed nature of both books, and especially of the attention given to minor philosophers in The Fate of Reason, one might have expected that Beiser would mention Heydenreich or Grohmann at some point, but his omission of these two figures is consistent with their general disappearance from historical consciousness. Other than in bibliographical works, it is difficult to find a reference to Grohmann of any kind in the philosophical literature.24 Heydenreich has fared only slightly better, with one dissertation devoted to his aesthetics published several decades ago,25 and Paul Guyer’s short section on Heydenreich’s dispute with Karl Philipp Moritz in his Kant and the Experience of Freedom (1996).26 The following chapter, then, attempts to fill many of these gaps by presenting historical and biographical information on the Mittelweg philosophers that is no longer well known. In doing so, it also sets the physical and institutional stage that helps to account for the particular shape that their garden theories eventually took. At the conclusion of that historical narrative, the next section turns to a detailed analysis of the garden theories of Heydenreich and Schiller. Comprising Chapters 3, 4, and 5, it emphasizes major themes from the Kantian canon that are translated into the garden vocabulary of mediation by these two philosophers. On the whole, it is an argument that the Mittelweg garden theories can only be understood when the structuring motives of Kant’s philosophy are fully taken into account. The final section, comprising two chapters, looks at the relationship between garden theory and Kant’s philosophy “in reverse.” The first of these, Chapter 6, draws upon the insights and conclusions of the Mittelweg garden theories to explain the presence and function of “topographical thought” in Kant’s philosophy. In particular, it traces the means by which Kant’s object-oriented architectonics systematically treats topography as “background,” but then in the third Critique paradoxically brackets topography as subject matter in the form of garden art. In doing so, this chapter provides a detailed analysis of Kant’s garden theory for the first time27 and places it in the context of these larger systemic issues. Chapter 7 ends with a detailed look at Kant’s use of topographical analogies throughout his critical writings, arguing that they serve as a necessary complement to his more widely recognized architectural imagery. By drawing upon the insights of the Mittelweg garden theories, it adds historical and material depth to recent analyses of figure and metaphor in philosophical discourse28 and offers an interdisciplinary method for future explorations of this theme.

Chapter Two

The Garden in the Academy

The development of the Mittelweg garden theory is not just an episode in the history of German philosophy. It is also a story about one of the first sustained efforts to include the study of gardens within the institutional structures of academic life. Although taught in some German art academies as early as the 1760s, garden art was not proposed for formal admission there until an unsuccessful attempt by Hirschfeld in 1774. From these sporadic beginnings, the garden had to wait several years before it was more widely accepted into the academic world, at which point it was the university rather than the art academy that took the lead. The garden enjoyed its greatest prominence in German universities during the 1790s, where its appearance coincided with the rise of the discipline of aesthetics, which was itself a reflection of profound changes that were occurring in the balance of power among the university’s four faculties. Even then, however, the welcome was provisional and fleeting, for the garden faded from view again shortly after 1800. That it made an appearance at all, tentative as it was, is nonetheless noteworthy, and the impressive results of this brief encounter demand a historical accounting. In order to understand the concerns which drove the intellectual ambitions of those involved as well as the peculiar circumstances that were conducive to the theorization of gardens in this context, this section will examine the primary forces which brought the garden into the German academy. Set into motion during the 1760s and 1770s, these forces came together during the critical years 1785–90 in Leipzig and prepared the way for the major developments of the following decade. Through the confluence of several factors, including the presence of a major university, a budding art academy, and a thriving garden culture, the city became a center for the development and dissemination of garden theory throughout Saxony and the adjacent small states under its influence. By tracing the outcome of Hirschfeld’s initial proposal until its fruition in these years, it will become 13

14

The German “Mittelweg”

clear why and how Leipzig came to assume this leading role and what consequences this had for the content of the Mittelweg theories. Most importantly, these details will also begin to suggest how the migration of the garden into the disciplinary structures of the academy produced, in effect, many of the salient features of the Mittelweg philosophy. HIRSCHFELD AND ACADEMIC GARDENS Before it became an object of study for aesthetics, the garden was originally located within the curriculum of the medical faculty. As a reflection of this disciplinary location, many European universities had constructed botanic gardens by the eighteenth century, where they served as living laboratories for research and instruction in the medicinal uses of plants.1 Gardens devoted solely to pleasure were largely nonexistent, due in part to the dense, urban locations of most universities, but perhaps more importantly to the absence of any modern notion of a campus. Rather than being set within extensive grounds dedicated exclusively to academic use, university buildings tended simply to be clustered in districts within their resident cities and towns. The creation of academic pleasure grounds or ornamental gardens was thus effectively proscribed, both physically and conceptually. By the late eighteenth century, however, the possibilities for the garden as both academic subject matter and as part of the physical fabric of the university had expanded. Hirschfeld was probably the first in Germany to grasp this double potential. His efforts in this direction began shortly after he assumed his teaching duties at Kiel University in the summer semester of 1770. As a member of the philosophy faculty, his initial lectures dealt with such standard topics as moral philosophy and metaphysics. Within a short time, however, he grew increasingly occupied with the teaching of aesthetics and “schöne Wissenschaften.”2 Although not yet appearing in these lectures on fine arts, much of his early interest in gardens was also apparent by this point, summarized in his first book on the topic, Anmerkungen über die Landhäuser und die Gartenkunst (1773). By 1774, he was lobbying Johannes Wiedewelt3 (1731–1802), the director of the Copenhagen Academy, to have garden art accepted there as a formal course of study, not so subtly in the hopes that he might be offered a position as instructor of the new subject. Hirschfeld failed to persuade Wiedewelt, but he did continue independently to pursue the idea of including gardens in academic instruction, eventually delivering his own lectures on garden art at Kiel a few years later in the winter semester of 1780–81. Devoted exclusively to the topic, they were undoubtedly the first of their kind at a German university. Neither student transcripts nor

The Garden in the Academy

15

Hirschfeld’s own lecture notes survive, but it is reasonable to assume that he drew heavily upon the recently completed research for the first volume of his Theorie. To his great surprise and disappointment, the lectures were poorly attended, and he did not attempt them again.4 The sense of frustration that grew out of these experiences was clearly due in part to Hirschfeld’s thwarted career ambitions. However, there was more at stake for him with regard to his ongoing failure to secure a place for the garden in academic studies. As with his other fine arts courses, Hirschfeld saw the garden lectures in many ways as a substitute for the Grand Tour for those of higher social standing who chose not to participate in this traditional rite of passage.5 As such, he attributed their poor reception not just to a deplorable lack of interest among the young noblemen, but more deeply to their rejection of his core pedagogical aims, which represented a fundamental shift in attitude toward the purposes of an arts education. Rather than being inseparably tied to the representational functions of the old nobility’s social circuit, Hirschfeld viewed the arts more through the lens of the reformers of the Enlightenment, casting their role primarily in terms of the moral cultivation and private enjoyment of the individual.6 It was his hope that the teaching of garden art at the university level would contribute to this project, but after the response to his garden lectures and the repeated rebuffs from Wiedewelt, he redirected most of his energy back toward the more genial audience of the reading public. One important exception to this renewed focus on writing was his increasing devotion to the fruit tree nursery he had founded in 1784, just as he was completing the Theorie. Located in Düsternbrook on a hillside looking east over Kiel Harbor, the Fruchtbaumschule eventually comprised 100,000 saplings and other young trees by the time of Hirschfeld’s death in 1792. Not quite an “academic garden,” it did come to serve a similar purpose under Hirschfeld’s care. The frequent talks he gave there during the summer months on the practical aspects of fruit tree culture offered some degree of compensation for what he could not accomplish in the lecture halls. And despite being located some distance from the university, the Fruchtbaumschule also suggested some of the educational possibilities that even rudimentary gardens might offer if they were connected to academic life. In this respect, his efforts at Düsternbrook were a logical extension of the traditional function of the university botanic garden, but now taken beyond the confines of the medical faculty. Neither a physic garden nor a full-fledged pleasure garden, the orchards of the Fruchtbaumschule were more representative of the idyllic notions of rustic life depicted in his early book Das Landleben. More consonant with his artistic ambitions would have been his unrealized ideas for the

16

The German “Mittelweg”

nearby forestry nursery (Forstbaumschule), proposed in 1782 but not begun until 1788.7 Hirschfeld had pinned his hopes on becoming its director, envisioning it as a Garden Academy with instruction devoted equally to practical knowledge and aesthetics, but the position was awarded to the cameralist August Christian Heinrich Niemann instead. Had Hirschfeld been given the opportunity, it is likely that he would have transformed the wooded site of the Forstbaumschule along the lines of a Volksgarten, as described in his Theorie, with the intent that it serve the general public as well as the academy’s matriculated students. Overlaying aesthetic considerations with didacticism, it would have exhibited the ideals he had been prevented from achieving at Kiel University and the Copenhagen Academy, and only imperfectly realized in the Fruchtbaumschule. The full potential of what a university garden could be, however, remained confined in Hirschfeld’s time to his suggestive writings. Hirschfeld’s ideas for university gardens are found in the fifth volume of his Theorie (1785) in a short section entitled “Academy Gardens” (V, 7, ii). Given the novelty of his recommendations, he is unable to name any existing gardens which fulfill all aspects of his vision, although the grounds of Oxford, Cambridge, and Dublin universities are cited as the most exemplary of this type. He mentions the military academy in Stuttgart as having made a good beginning, but there are otherwise no examples of what he has in mind in Germany. The few walks and promenades found within some German universities lack the scope and extent to be called proper gardens. As for their general use, Hirschfeld sees his projected academic gardens primarily as places of respite for the students and faculty, where they can withdraw from the rigors of the classroom in search of quiet reflection or conversation. He allows, however, for certain areas to be set aside for recreational activities, including organized sports, riding, and swimming. The general plantings are to be composed of lawns, loose clumps of trees, and fragrant herbs and flowers, and in this they differ little from the compositional arrangements he recommends for small and medium sized private properties. In addition to this basic framework, there are also to be a number of specific elements related to the educational purposes of the institution. These include garden libraries; pavilions in the tradition of “cabinets of curiosities” housing collections of mineral specimens, dried plants, and other natural objects; and temples with inscriptions dedicated to the various branches of knowledge.8 Where desired, traditionally conceived botanic gardens would also be incorporated, with the plants systematically arranged and labeled for the purposes of instruction.9 As a type, the academic garden derives its identity primarily from its dedicated uses, whether they be overtly specified, as with the various

The Garden in the Academy

17

Figure 3. Hirschfeld’s house in the Fruchtbaumschule Reproduced by permission from Kehn, Christian Cay Lorenz Hirschfeld, Plate 10.

pavilions and recreational grounds, or negatively defined, as against the bustle and intensity of the classroom. The latter recalls Hirschfeld’s contrast of solitude with society, country with city, yet even as a foil to the lecture hall the function of the academic garden as a quiet haven owes more to specific notions of the contemplative life than it does to any associational theories of landscape character. In this respect, it is a departure from the

18

The German “Mittelweg”

main features of his theory. For rather than employing this more familiar aspect of his general aesthetics, Hirschfeld relies instead on the rhythms of university life to generate the garden’s character. Although quite sensible, the resulting eclecticism breaks little new ground either compositionally or philosophically. Yet it is significant in at least one way. As a vision, it represents Hirschfeld’s desire to see his two greatest passions—the garden and the academy—reconstituted into a novel, harmonious whole where academic life takes place in a garden and the garden has a place in academic life. If unrealized in his own context, the thought was still alluring enough to be pursued elsewhere by others.10 ART ACADEMIES IN SAXONY Outside of Hirschfeld’s experiences in Schleswig-Holstein, the German state where this vision was pursued most consistently was Saxony. There are a number of reasons why this was the case, and we will explore each of these in turn. But certainly of central importance was the establishment in 1764 of two art academies, one in Dresden and the other in Leipzig, that soon proved receptive to the teaching of garden art. First proposed to the Saxon Elector Frederick Christian in 1763 by Christian Ludwig von Hagedorn, the academies were opened the following year under the auspices of Frederick Augustus III (after 1806 King Frederick Augustus I), who had ascended to the throne upon his predecessor’s early death. The academy in Dresden was conceived as the central institution, devoted primarily to the fine arts, while the subsidiary branch in Leipzig was given a broader mandate that extended to various handicrafts and applied arts as well. The division of labor reflects the difference in status accorded to the two cities, with Dresden as Saxony’s royal seat and Leipzig as its main business center. As we shall see, it also created a slight difference between the two traditional rivals in their receptivity to new artistic trends, with Dresden being the more conservative. A third academy, similar in scope to the one in Leipzig, was established in nearby Meißen. It soon became famous for its royal porcelain manufacture, but did not contribute to garden art as did the other two.11 The Dresden Academy, although devoted primarily to painting and sculpture, also had a substantial faculty of architecture (Baukunst), whose first professor was Friedrich August Krubsacius (1718–1790).12 As a youth, Krubasacius had been encouraged by family members to study mathematics and architecture, and for a time he was under the tutelage of the Dresden architect Zacharias Longuelune (1669–1748).13 Before coming to the academy in 1764, his professional practice had consisted primarily of

The Garden in the Academy

19

architectural commissions, but his portfolio included some garden designs as well. Like most of his contemporaries, he worked primarily in the French formal style, deriving most of his principles from Dezallier d’Argenville’s treatise, La Théorie et la pratique du jardinage (1709). Under the motto “Natur und Antik,” he sought to renew and expand Dezallier’s conception of garden art by combining the principles of nature with the study of antiquity.14 The extent to which Krubsacius’s efforts were an advance over Dezallier is debatable, but it is clear that his search for new ideas eventually led him to English sources. The earliest evidence of this influence is his illustrated translation (1760) of Pliny the Younger’s famous letters15 describing his Tuscan and Laurentian villas. The images recall Robert Castell’s Villas of the Ancients Illustrated (1728), especially in the way Krubsacius combines irregular elements along the edges with the basic formality of the scheme. In this, his visualization of Pliny’s gardens seems to owe more to the innovative ideas being explored in England during the 1720s-40s than it does to a close reading of Pliny’s text.16 Any doubt as to the provenance of these images is removed in the book’s preface, where Krubsacius states quite simply that his reconstructions are intended to incorporate both the old (formal) and the new (English) manners of gardening. Hugo Koch probably puts the matter best when he credits Krubsacius’s study of ancient Roman gardens with his willingness to adapt the new English style to his own vision of garden design.17 This conclusion is perhaps counterintuitive, given that most eighteenth-century interpretations of Pliny’s gardens emphasize their formality. But for Krubsacius, the significance of Pliny and the other Romans was that they had recognized the wider landscape surrounding the gardens as an indispensable component of the villa complex. In learning from antiquity to value the countryside as an extension of the gardens, Krubsacius was in turn more open to the modern resurrection of this sensibility in the English country estate. The ancient Romans and the modern English were certainly not the only possible sources for this idea.18 Nevertheless, the line Krubsacius drew between the two ensured that his pursuit of “Natur und Antik” would include some adaptation of the English garden. By the time Krubsacius published his book on Pliny, his interest in English gardens began to take a more practical turn. The following year, in 1761, he began to experiment with these new ideas in a design for the Polish prince Czartorisky.19 Next to the main formal garden, Krubsacius proposed that a small area termed the “Arcadian fields” (arkadische Gefilde) be executed in the English manner.20 Reached from the central paths without transition, it was to serve as a contrast to the rest of the more traditional design. The garden was never constructed due to events of the Seven Years War, but

Figure 4. Reconstruction of Pliny’s Laurentian villa by Krubsacius, 1760 Reproduced by permission from Tanzer, Villas of Pliny, 57.

20 The German “Mittelweg”

The Garden in the Academy

21

Krubsacius felt that its contribution to his oeuvre was important enough that he included it in the Dresden Academy’s annual exhibition of student and faculty work ten years later in 1771. A review of the exhibition in the Neue Bibliothek der schönen Wissenschaften maintains that Krubsacius’s design was conceived according to the principles of Lord Kames’s Elements of Criticism (1762).21 Given the discrepancy in dates, we must assume that the anachronistic attribution was provided either by the reviewers or by Krubsacius himself. In either case, it strongly indicates that Lord Kames had become an important figure for Krubsacius in his teaching of garden design during the 1760s. Krubsacius did not limit himself to one strand of the English tradition, however. At the same 1771 exhibition, several of his students exhibited garden designs billed as “Landschaften im Kleinen” after the manner of William Kent (1685–1748).22 And in his undated garden design for Johann Georg in Dresden, Krubsacius also drew upon the ideas of William Chambers, most evident in the inclusion of a Hermitage within the “English” portion of the layout. With regard to this design Koch says, “Thus [Krubsacius] decided on a compromise. In his later creations he combined both systems, the severe architectonic garden with the English.”23 This approach was also reflected in his teaching: “Both garden styles were taught at the academy in equal measure so that the young architects could satisfy all the demands placed upon them.”24 The teaching of the old style drew primarily upon skills learned in the basic architecture curriculum; the new taste was supported by such activities as the drawing of pastoral landscapes, which became a significant part of the curriculum under his direction. Krubsacius’s balanced approach at the Academy prefigures the line of thinking eventually adopted by the Mittelweg philosophers. Oddly enough, however, his last documented garden plan, dating from 1772, was completed entirely in the old style. Krubsacius’s main contribution to German garden theory is without doubt his introduction of English garden design into the Dresden Academy. One other aspect of his influence should be mentioned briefly here as well, namely the spread of his ideas through the careers of his more prominent students. The most important of these was the Dresden artist and architect Christian Friedrich Schuricht (1753–1815 or 1832). After studying under Krubsacius, Schuricht went on to design a number of gardens in Saxony in the English style, including the parks at Gaussig and Lockwitz. In 1782 he accompanied Joseph Friedrich Freiherr von Racknitz (1744–1818) on the travels that provided the material for the baron’s Briefen über die Kunst an eine Freundin (1792).25 An influential excerpt was re-published as “Gedanken über die ehemals gewöhnlichen regelmäßigen französischen Gärten, und die itzigen sogenannten englischen Gärten” in the first volume of Becker’s

22

The German “Mittelweg”

Taschenbuch in 1795.26 The essay is strongly reminiscent of Krubsacius’s equal treatment of French and English gardens, and one is left to wonder whether his former pupil’s companionship during the trip helped shape Racknitz’s views. But Schuricht is perhaps best known today for the illustrations he provided for Hirschfeld’s Theorie.27 Hirschfeld praises him in the introduction to the third volume for the quality of his landscape drawings, which like many others in the treatise typically show temples and ruins set in picturesque scenes. The “Temple of Melancholy” and “Gothic Ruins,” both found in volume four, are typical of Schuricht’s contributions.28 LEIPZIG AS A CENTER FOR GARDEN ART Dresden may have been the entry point into the academy for garden art, but it was Leipzig that subsequently gave birth to an unprecedented period of theoretical creativity. During the 1780s and 1790s, Leipzig served as a center for the education of garden theorists, the development of their social networks, the publishing of their ideas, and the gardened setting in which many of these new ideas were discussed and tested. In addition to the existing Dresden circle, two subsidiary centers were spun off in the process, each with well-known, innovative gardens nearby: Wittenberg, with the DessauWörlitz Gartenreich only a few kilometers away; and Jena, a short carriage ride from Weimar’s Ilm Park. The dynamics of Leipzig’s rise conform strikingly to the model developed by the sociologist Randall Collins to explain intellectual revolutions and the creation of philosophical schools.29 Of particular importance are several features he identifies as fundamental to these movements: concentrated chains of personal contacts stretching across generations, face to face encounters that structure the daily life of intellectual centers, the creative role of oppositional stances, the law of small numbers governing the available slots in any given attention space, and the effects of the material bases of intellectual production (institutions, patronage, publishing markets, etc.) on the distribution of these slots.30 All of these factors were at work in the rise of German Idealism in the late eighteenth century, especially in the relation of this ideology to changes in the structure of the university system. The situation of garden theory in Leipzig, which was essentially a subset of this broader development in philosophy, can best be explained as a microcosm that recapitulates its main features. After a brief look at the institutional world of Leipzig intellectuals, we will turn our attention to a matter that significantly extends the notion of material base found in Collins’s model—the physical character of Leipzig as a built environment. The peculiar nature of garden theory as a philosophical enterprise, as distinct

The Garden in the Academy

23

from more physically removed subdisciplines such as metaphysics or epistemology, requires that we give greater attention to the setting within which its practitioners were working. Consequently, our account will include a summary of Leipzig’s garden history, including the changing forms of sociability its designed outdoor spaces supported. Finally, we will return to a detailed discussion of the garden theorists’ social networks and to the question of change and continuity across generational lines. Unlike their counterparts in Dresden, professional scholars in Leipzig who wished to pursue work related to the fine arts were able to take advantage of an unusual institutional arrangement. Leipzig was unique among German cities in the late eighteenth century in that it had both a major university and an academy of art. Berlin, in contrast, had an established academy but as yet no university. Nearby Jena had an influential university, but no academy. And Dresden, although it boasted an unusually strong academy, was also without a university. Other German territories showed a similar pattern.31 Leipzig’s good fortune to have both institutions in close proximity meant that the study of the arts, or Kunstwissenschaft as it was then being developed, could be enriched through various forms of exchange. Students at the university, for example, could take courses in drawing, sculpture, and architecture in the academy’s rooms in the Pleißenburg. And those members of the philosophy faculty giving lectures in art history could make use of the small collection of objects that the academy was beginning to assemble for its own teaching purposes.32 The young Goethe, while a student at the university, was among the first to take advantage of this arrangement. It was here, under the influence of the academy’s first director, Adam Friedrich Oeser (1717–1799), that his deep appreciation of drawing and painting began to develop. Perhaps without coincidence, his interest in gardens can be traced to this time as well.33 Oeser’s directorship of the academy during the first thirty-five years of its existence left its mark in a number of ways. One of the most important was his consistent championing of the neoclassicism of Winckelmann, with whom he had shared a house in Dresden from 1754 to 1755.34 Although primarily a sculptural and architectural sensibility, the “edle Einfalt und stille Größe” of Winckelmann’s gospel also found its way into Oeser’s work with gardens. His commissions for several monuments and pavilions in and around Leipzig, such as the Gellert memorial35 (widely known through its publication in Hirschfeld’s Theorie),36 show his interest in applying neoclassical principles to garden structures. Oeser’s professional garden practice was not entirely limited to architectural embellishments, however, for recent research has documented his role in the laying out of parks in both Weimar and

24

The German “Mittelweg”

Tiefurt.37 Nevertheless, his primary contribution to garden design lies with his teaching legacy at the Leipzig academy. Following Krubsacius’s approach in Dresden, the curriculum in Leipzig incorporated both the French and the English styles of garden composition.38 Any significant difference between Leipzig and Dresden on this point appears to rest on the theoretical texts each favored in the clarification of their shared aim. Whereas Krubsacius seems to have relied primarily on d’Argenville, Lord Kames, and William Chambers, Oeser preferred to supplement his Winckelmannian precepts with Marc-Antoine Laugier’s Essai sur l’architecture (1753).39 Given the approach to garden instruction at the Leipzig and Dresden academies, it is understandable that the portion of Laugier’s text devoted to gardens would have been attractive to Oeser. Essentially an effort to invigorate the classicism of geometrical gardens through an appeal to nature as an archetype, Laugier’s principles could easily have been seen as lending support to a synthetic treatment of garden composition. As important as these textual sources were, garden pedagogy in the Saxon academies owed at least as much to concurrent developments in professional design practice. This reciprocal relationship was especially evident in Leipzig and its environs, where attitudes in the academy and the university usually mirrored, and sometimes led, the prevailing fashions in garden construction and renovation. Leipzig’s place as a center of garden culture in Saxony dates from the last decades of the seventeenth century, when the accumulation of wealth from trade and manufacturing reached levels that permitted the wealthiest families to construct sumptuous villas on the city’s outskirts. Although Dresden was the royal seat of Saxony, Leipzig rivaled its ability to fund artistic embellishments through its advantageous location at the confluence of several important trade routes. The one-upmanship among the leading families of Leipzig had become so intense by the 1730s that most of these villa gardens were listed as points of interest (Sehenswürdigkeiten) in the address books consulted by tourists.40 While the royal court culture of Dresden looked to Versailles and Paris for inspiration, the non-noble elite of Leipzig tended to look instead toward their bürgerlich counterparts in the Netherlands, their most important trading partners. The adoption of Dutch sensibilities in garden design led many contemporaries to describe the Leipzig gardens of this period as having been constructed in “French-Dutch taste.”41 Although hardly distinguishable from French-inspired gardens insofar as they employed a common language of terraces, parterres, allées, clipped vegetation, and canals, the “Dutch” flavor noted by visitors seems primarily to have been a function of their comparatively modest scale, simplified ornamentation, and frequent use of fruit trees.42 By aiming for something less

The Garden in the Academy

25

Figure 5. Großbosescher Garten in Leipzig, plan by Elias Peine, 1709 Courtesy of Koch, Sächsische Gartenkunst, 77.

ostentatious than the grand gardens of the Dresden nobility and by placing fruit trees on display rather than relegating them to the potager,43 these garden owners proudly proclaimed the non-noble source of their high status: the utilitarian productivity of business and commerce. As such, they sought to replace the negative symbolic weight of the gardens of the Frenchified Dresden aristocracy with the more sober virtues of frugality, modesty, and hard work. It should be emphasized, however, that the bürgerlich connotations of Dutch gardens were not limited to perceptions among the Leipzig commercial elite. For example, when Hirschfeld writes about bürgerlich gardens in his Theorie he also looks to the Dutch as a model. He seems to have in mind situations like the suburban villas around Leipzig when he writes: “There are many examples of this genre (private gardens, domestic gardens, flower gardens); they can be found near almost all well-built, populated, and prosperous cities, especially around commercial centers. The activities of their owners mean that such gardens are rarely found at any distance from cities.” In its conception, the bürgerlich Garten helps to construct the familiar public/private split that was to become characteristic of the middle class by the nineteenth century: “In addition, a man grown tired of the turmoil of commerce seeks out places where he can recuperate on quiet days, breathe more freely, and enjoy his own and his family’s company. So he builds a house in the country, not far from the city, and plants a garden.” Hirschfeld then makes the Dutch connection: “Most gardens around significant trading centers, especially in Holland and in certain parts of Germany, arose in

26

The German “Mittelweg”

this way, as much through need as through pretense.”44 He then goes on to complain about the general lack of taste in such gardens, fueled by imitation of more princely gardens but done without sufficient knowledge. In this passage the Dutch garden, like many contemporary Dutch stereotypes,45 carries a negative connotation linked to middle class sensibilities. In striving to emphasize their bürgerlich credentials, the owners of these Leipzig gardens were thus caught in a bind that was typical for eighteenth-century Germans of their social level. One might say that they distinguished themselves primarily in their contradictory effort to be conspicuously non-French while craving the status accorded to everything French. The particular conditions in Saxony, where commerce and court were divided between two major cities, only heightened the sense that they needed to establish an identity that was equal to, yet distinct from, that of the Dresden nobility. At the beginning of the century this tension was less apparent, for Leipzig and Dresden enjoyed a rough parity in their arts patronage. Any advantage that might have accrued from Leipzig’s economic success tended to be offset by the zeal for patronage exhibited by August der Starke and his followers. By mid-century, however, Leipzig had fallen behind in its support of the arts, and conditions were made even worse by economic setbacks resulting from the Seven Years War (1756–63).46 The situation for the arts in Leipzig improved, however, after the end of the war. Spurred by renewed economic activity and the establishment of the art academy, funding for new projects increased, with one of the results being a new wave of garden construction. Leipzig’s conflicted attitude toward French gardens continued to manifest itself, although it was now articulated within the increasingly dominant polemic of the 1770s and 1780s that portrayed the “new” English style as the simple opposite of the “old” French. As they had previously done when appropriating the Dutch model as an alternative to French taste, the commercial elite of Leipzig demurred at the complete acceptance of the new outside fashion. Attempting to forge a third way they could call their own, they sought to create a garden type that would accommodate the new ideas from England without abandoning the framework of existing conventions. Some estates in the countryside around the city, such as that of Countess Johanna Luise (Jeanette-Louise) von Werthern (1752– 1811) at Eythra, underwent a wholesale transformation according to the new manner.47 However, none of the suburban villa gardens ringing Leipzig were altered to such an extent. Instead, only small portions were added or remodeled in the new style. The earliest of these alterations, made to the Löhr Garten in 1770–71, was typical of this approach.48 Löhr’s addition consisted

The Garden in the Academy

27

of an island in a small pond, embellished with a temple and surrounded by a small area of sinuous paths and irregular plantings. The plan, in Koch’s estimation, “clearly demonstrates the unification of both styles in a highly progressive manner.”49 Such endeavors gained even more currency after the highly visible beginnings of Leipzig’s “Englische Anlage” in 1785, with new construction at the Trier’scher Garten and Winkler Garten two of the more noteworthy examples.50 The Englische Anlage was the latest in a series of projects, begun in the first quarter of the century, through which the fortifications surrounding the city were transformed through filling, regrading, and planting into a linear park. Some stretches of the old moat system were turned into ponds; others were left as canals; still others were filled in entirely and reshaped into gentle swales with winding paths and clumps of trees. In addition, the flat areas outside the swales were planted as a ring road with rows of lindens and poplars in imitation of French promenades. The allée system on the western edge of the city, known as the Promenade, was especially popular for strolling, and the northern end culminated in a bridge and path which led to a popular wood known as the Rosenthal. Those desiring more solitary wanderings

Figure 6. Löhrs Garten in Leipzig, model by Merzdorf in the Stadtgeschichtliches Museum Leipzig, 1823 Reproduced by permission © Stadtgeschichtliches Museum Leipzig.

28

The German “Mittelweg”

often sought out this place as a respite from the more gregarious activities of the Promenade.51 The Promenade was especially crowded during the summer months, when people would congregate on its shaded paths in the late afternoon. The large crowds reflected the full diversity of Leipzig society, with those of both high and low station on view simultaneously as in a moving tableau. Johann Karl Wezel (1747–1819) marvelously captures this sense of spectacle when he uses the Leipzig Promenade as a setting in his novel Herrmann und Ulrike (1780). In the following passage, Wezel describes in knowing detail the scene that customarily greets the male protaganist on his frequent strolls there: [Herrmann] durchstrich an den volkreichsten Tagen und Stunden den Spatziergang ums Thor, sahe geputzte Damen und Herren, die in einem kleinen Bezirke drängend durcheinander herumkrabbelten, alle etwas suchten, und zum Theil zu finden schienen. Gähnende Damengesichter, von der Langeweile auf beyden Seiten begleitet, suchten den Zeitvertreib, und rechnende Mathematicker suchten zu der Größe ihres Kopfzputzes und ihrer Füße die mittlere Proportionalzahl, oder suchten in den Garnirungen ihrer Kleider Parallelopipeda, Trapezia, Würfel und Kegel: schöne Mädchen suchten Bewunderer ihrer Reitze, und funfzigjährige Magistri Bewunderer ihres Schmutzes; Doctores Juris à quatre epingles suchten die Jurisprudenz, und veraltete Koketten die Jugend: junge Anfängerinnen suchten die ersten Liebhaber, und junge Docenten die ersten Zuhörer: Scheinheilige suchten Sünden und Aergernisse, um sie auszubreiten; Moralisten suchten Laster und Thorheiten, um dawider zu eifern, und Kennerinnen des Putzes suchten Sünden des Anzugs, um darüber zu spotten: ein Jedes suchte die Gesichter der Andern, ein Jedes in den Gesichtern der Andern Zeitvertreib, und in großer Theil des Geländers war mit lebendigen Personen (Studenten, die gemeiniglich auf dem Geländer sitzen, und die Anwesenden, vorzüglich Frauenzimmer, in Augenschein nehmen) verziert, die mit stieren Augen die übrigen Alle suchten, um sich auf ihrer Unkosten zu belustigen. Aus dieser suchenden Gesellschaft drängte sich Herrmann in den größeren, verachteten Theil der Promenade: Hier suchte ein tiefsinniger Philosoph mit gesenktem Haupte und wackelndem Schritte die Monaden mit dem Stock im Sande, ein denkender Kaufmann suchte Geld für verfallene Wechsel, ein Almanachsdichter Gedanken für seine Reime, und ein bleicher Hypochondrist das Vergnügen in der Luft; und alle suchten vergebens—52

The Garden in the Academy

Figure 7. Leipzig Promenade, engraving by J. A. Roßmäßler, 1777 Courtesy of Benndorf, Hundert Bilder zur Geschichte Leipzigs, 49. [Herrmann strode the length of the Promenade outside the city gate during those days and hours when it was most crowded. There he saw well-dressed ladies and gentlemen milling about and circling one another within a rather small area, appearing to be looking for, and occasionally finding, something. Yawning countenances of ladies, escorted on both sides by boredom, sought to while away the time; calculating mathematicians sought to ascertain the mediating proportion between their hats and their feet, or looked at their embroidered garments to discover parallelograms, trapezoids, cubes and spheres; beautiful young women sought admirers of their charms, and fiftyyear-old magistrates, admirers of their baseness. Girls sought their first lovers, and young docents their first pupils. Hypocrites sought out sins and offenses in order to spread them; moralists sought out vice and folly in order to rail against them; and style mavens sought out the sins of fashion in order to ridicule them. Each sought the face of the other, and each sought diversion in the others’ faces. The greater part of the rail fences was adorned with living persons (mostly students, who habitually sit there and look the women over) who

29

30

The German “Mittelweg” vacantly stare at all the pomp and expensive finery in order to laugh and make fun of it. Herrmann pressed his way out of this searching society into the more expansive, but less frequented, section of the Promenade. Here a philosopher, with tottering steps and head bowed deep in thought, sought monads in the sand with his cane; a shrewd merchant sought profit in dropped change; an almanac poet sought thoughts for his rhymes; and a pale hypochondriac, refreshment in the open air; and all sought in vain—]

Strikingly different in atmosphere from the market square or the street—the traditional exterior spaces for assembly and interaction—the Promenade brought the pursuit of leisure into the civic outdoors. Its everchanging parade of earnest officials, bored ladies, hypocritical moralists, fashion mavens, absent-minded professors, mocking students, and other social types guaranteed that it would be a primary site for making visible, and in a sense constructing, the emerging notion of a “public.” The Promenade was not, however, the only place for people to mingle outdoors in Leipzig. Since at least the middle of the eighteenth century, many of the large, private gardens ringing the city had been open to the public. At least one of these, the Groß-Bosesch garden, had a small area set aside as a coffee garden within its grounds near the orangery.53 Apel’s garden, on the western edge of the city, had two similar establishments at the edge of its property facing the Church of St. Thomas: the Rudolph and Weißleder coffee gardens. With these two ventures flanking its entrance onto the Promenade, Apel’s garden served as a focal point for those wishing to meet with friends in a shaded outdoor setting or simply to rest for a few moments while observing the activities of the busy allée. The public function of these coffee gardens, which in addition to providing food and beverages also offered amusements such as billiards and music,54 can be compared to the coffeehouses located in Leipzig’s urban center of which they were usually subsidiary ventures.55 As Jürgen Habermas has shown, the coffeehouses in eighteenth-century European cities were important centers for the development of a new conception of the public sphere. As physical gathering places, they facilitated the lines of communication that were essential to the formation of a self-conscious notion of public opinion, with most of this exchange taking place either through face to face encounters or through the distribution of pamphlets and broadsheets.56 Their coffee garden counterparts in Leipzig were no less important in this regard. If anything, they expanded the notion of what constituted public space by transporting the forms of sociability found in the interiors of the

The Garden in the Academy

31

Figure 8. Apels Garten in Leipzig Courtesy of Benndorf, Hundert Bilder zur Geschichte Leipzigs, 55.

Figure 9. Breiters Kaffeegarten in Leipzig Courtesy of Benndorf, Hundert Bilder zur Geschichte Leipzigs, 56.

coffeehouse to the open air, blending them with the peculiar pleasures of voyeurism and strolling that characterized the Promenade.57

32

The German “Mittelweg”

The exact timetable of the development of Leipzig’s allées and promenades is somewhat difficult to reconstruct, but the general outline is clear.58 Markus Fauser dates the construction of the Promenade from the first quarter of the eighteenth century.59 The Hohmaennisch Plan of 1749 indicates that the rows of lindens and poplars had completely encircled the city by that time, but the fortifications and moat system were still intact.60 Ortlef Brüning states that the demolition of the fortifications began immediately after the Seven Years War, with most of the trenches being filled in by 1778.61 Jugler’s 1779 text confirms this, adding that the Hällische Bastion, on the east side between the Hällische and Grimmische Gates, was among the last to be razed.62 By this time the linden allée encircling the city had been augmented with mulberry hedges and fences, and it was now punctuated with open spaces at various nodal points. These included large turfed areas just outside the main gates as well as a new square on the south side known as the Esplanade.63 The earliest indications of English style improvements in the reclaimed land date from the mid-1770s. Jugler states that the former glacis adjacent to the city gates were the first to receive this treatment, which he refers to in the diminutive as “pretty little gardens” (artige Gärtchen). He does not give a date for their construction, but the context suggests that they were only a few years old at the time of his writing.64 An image in Benndorf (1910) dated 1775 and depicting the area just north of the Grimmische Gate, confirms Jugler’s observations. Looking toward the southwest, it shows a large swale, framed by trees and high shrubs, through which a winding path is threaded. The last of the old bastion walls next to the city core rises in the background.65 Jugler does not refer to the “pretty little gardens” as English in conception, but the 1775 image suggests that the newly gardened areas next to the gates were being developed in this way. It would be ten years, however, before reclamation of the northeast quadrant of the old fortifications had reached a point where these small gardens could be extended and joined. Jugler states that the section between the Hällische and Grimmische gates was still in such bad shape in 1779 that its stagnant waters gave off an unpleasant stench during the summer months.66 Heinrich Müller’s map of 1784 makes no attempt to provide any detailed information for this area, instead simply labeling it in the key as a demolished bastion (abgetragene Bastey).67 As the former moat was still in the process of being filled and the glacis regraded, the mapmaker understandably chose not to depict its transitional state graphically.68 The idea for radically transforming the northeast quadrant of reclaimed land into an “Englische Anlage” originated with the mayor of Leipzig, Karl

The Garden in the Academy

33

Figure 10. Map of Leipzig by Heinrich Müller, 1784 Courtesy of Jugler, Leipzig und seine Universität, [129].

Wilhelm Müller (1728–1801). Müller, who had held the office since 1778, grasped the possibilities that lay in the newly available land and proposed that it be laid out as an English garden, but for public use. Under his leadership, work commenced in 1785 and was largely completed by 1800. Significantly, Müller drew upon the expertise of the Leipzig academy’s current and former faculty to execute his vision. Oeser was given the task of designing the architectural details, but it was the director of public works (Stadtbaudirektor), Johann Friedrich Dauthe (1749–1816), who devised the general layout of grading, paths, and plant massing.69 Before becoming director in 1781, Dauthe had been professor of architecture at the academy, where under

34

The German “Mittelweg”

Figure 11. Leipzig, views of Grimmische Tor, 1775, 1804 Courtesy of Benndorf, Hundert Bilder zur Geschichte Leipzigs, 40.

Oeser he was responsible for much of the instruction in garden design.70 His practical experience included the aforementioned alterations to the Löhr

The Garden in the Academy

35

garden in 1770–71, making him one of the earliest enthusiasts of the English style in Leipzig. Given his experience with English gardens, ties to the academy, and current position in the civic government, he was ideally suited for the work at hand.71 Bearing in mind the established success of the Promenade on the western side of the city core, Dauthe and Müller conceived the new project as a pendant destination for strolling on the city’s eastern edge. In contrast to the crowds on the Promenade, however, the winding paths, lawns, and irregular plantings were intended to invite a different form of sociability, with strollers wandering about either in small groups or individually. Perhaps they had in mind these words from Hirschfeld, where he contrasts irregular tree groupings with allées—not merely according their visual appearance, but on the basis of the possibilities for strolling that each strategy’s distinctive shaping of vision presents:

Figure 12. Englische Anlage plan, 1810; north is oriented left Reproduced by permission from Volk, Leipzig, 196.

36

The German “Mittelweg” Selbst der Spaziergang zwischen [Baum]Gruppen eröffnet hier eine größere Ergötzung. Jeder kleine Trupp der Spazierenden macht sich gegenseitig ein Schauspiel; anstatt wie in den langen, breiten Alleen einer aufmarschirenden Wache zu gleichen, scheinen sie sich wie Liebende zu zerstreuen; die umher sich schlängelnden Wege lassen sie bald von dieser, bald von jener Seite sehen; verbirgt sie hier das Buschwerk auf einen Augenblick, so macht sie dort eine unerwartete Oeffnung wieder in einer andern Stellung sichtbar.72 [Indeed a promenade between groups of trees introduces an even greater delight. Each small troupe of strollers reciprocally fashions itself as a scene in a play. Instead of resembling marching soldiers, as is the case on the long, broad allées, the strollers appear to scatter themselves about as lovers do. The sinuous, curving paths allow them to be viewed first from one side, then soon from another. If the shrubbery conceals them here in one moment, it unexpectedly opens up again in the next to reveal them in a different configuration.]

The elements and composition of the Englische Anlage were certainly suggested by the undulating topography of the reconstructed site, but they also owed much to this particular conception of strolling. The two dominant forms of walking for pleasure—public promenading on crowded allées and solitary wandering in the countryside—were already accommodated in Leipzig’s most popular pedestrian destinations, the Promenade and the Rosenthal.73 The proposal for the Englische Anlage, with its small groups moving about in shifting scenery akin to stage sets, articulated a form of polite strolling that mediated between the other two. Any understanding of the varieties of strolling that were practiced in Leipzig during this time must begin with Karl Gottlob Schelle’s Die Spatziergänge, oder die Kunst spatzierenzugehen (1802).74 Schelle (b. 1777), a philologist,75 had come under the influence of Heydenreich while he was a student at Leipzig University during the 1790s.76 Although Schelle mentions his mentor by name only once in Die Spatziergänge, the text is permeated by themes closely associated with the philosopher. The subject matter itself was probably suggested by Heydenreich’s garden theory, which employs the figure of the “wandering stroller” (Herumwandler)77 as its core notion. Schelle, however, generalizes this theme far beyond the scope for which Heydenreich had intended it. Whereas Heydenreich’s interest in strolling is limited to its theoretical potential for defining gardening as a fine art, Schelle takes a more phenomenological approach, considering

The Garden in the Academy

37

strolling in all of its ordinary, everyday forms.78 Deeply informed by his first-hand experience of Leipzig’s open spaces and promenades,79 Schelle’s extension of Heydenreich’s ideas led him to develop a virtual taxonomy of the phenomenon that includes a detailed theory of its proper settings and its relations to body and mind. In Die Spatziergänge, Schelle concerns himself not only with solitary walks and public promenades, but also with less obvious forms of “strolling” such as horseback riding, carriage drives, and boat excursions. With these more wide-ranging categories, the notion of strolling for Schelle comprises all forms of travel or locomotion done solely for pleasure. Lacking a specific destination and having no goal other than the free, reflective play of the mental faculties, it is a “disinterested” experience of movement in the spirit of Kant’s aesthetics.80 It is within this richly varied conception of strolling, so exhaustively cataloged by Schelle, that the activities intended for the Englische Anlage can best be understood. Of the various forms of strolling Schelle examines, the one that most closely resembles the situation envisioned by Dauthe and Müller is found in the chapter on “pleasure gardens” (Lustgärten).81 Located in his text immediately after the chapters devoted to solitary walks in the countryside and to urban promenades, the section on pleasure gardens identifies a type of strolling that takes place in extensive gardens located on the peripheries of large cities. Significantly, Schelle states that these gardens must be of the “English” variety in order to accommodate the specific class of strolling he now wishes to describe: “One must keep in mind that in this context we can speak only of gardens laid out in the free English manner.”82 It is surely not accidental that his terminology recalls Dauthe and Müller’s Englische Anlage, for Schelle proceeds quickly to the notion that this type of garden is ideal for public strolling: Ist der in diesem Geschmack angelegte Garten öffentlich und wird er von der geselligen Welt zu bestimmten Zeiten besucht—in welchem Fall es zum guten Ton gehören würde, sich da einzufinden—so wäre das Vergnügen des Lustwandelns darin ein gesellschaftlicher Genuß der Natur. Man nähme an der Natur zwar keinen besondern Antheil, aber man erhielte doch von ihr den allgemeinen Eindruck, den der Garten auf die Lustwandelnden machte.83 [If the garden laid out in this taste is public and if it is visited at certain times by those of social rank—in which case it would be fashionable to find oneself there—then the pleasure of strolling would consist in the social enjoyment of nature. One does not take particular notice

38

The German “Mittelweg”

Figure 13. Englische Anlage, view from Grimmische Tor by Carl Benjamin Schwarz, 1804 Courtesy of Benndorf, Hundert Bilder zur Geschichte Leipzigs, 41. of nature, but rather one takes in the general impression that the garden makes as a setting for those who are strolling.]

As a place for the “social enjoyment of nature” among the fashionable, a public English garden would bring into balance the two dominant ideas associated with the promenade and the country walk: the former’s foregrounding of society and the latter’s emphasis on nature.84 Although it is only in the public English garden that Schelle envisions the equal treatment of society and nature, it is worth noting that his accounts of both the promenade and the country walk are actually more dialectical in this regard than his initial dichotomy would suggest.85 In one instance, he writes that any natural elements on a promenade serve only as a neutral background against which the true object of the stroller’s attention—society—is seen as an object in relief: Man nimmt da an ihr [Natur] nicht besonders oder gar, wie im Freyen, einzig Antheil. Vielmehr dient sie den Lustwandlern nur als Folie, um die Gemüther derselben durch den sanften Reitz ihres erquickenden Grüns, das in immer andern und andern Gestalten der

The Garden in the Academy

39

Figure 14. Englische Anlage, view from Schwanenteich by Carl Benjamin Schwarz, 1804 Courtesy of Benndorf, Hundert Bilder zur Geschichte Leipzigs, 41. verschiedenen Gewächse und Blätter auf die mannigfaltigste Weise anzieht, mehr für Geselligkeit zu beleben. Sie ist der grüne Grund, der das Gemählde der lustwandelnden Welt hebt.86 [One does not take particular notice of nature, or, as when in the open countryside, one only notices what is unique. Moreover, nature serves merely as a foil to the strollers to enliven their minds toward greater sociability through the delicate charm of its refreshing greenery, which, with its ever-changing shapes and variety of foliage, provides interest in the most diverse manner. It is the green [back]ground against which the portrait of strolling society is set in relief.]

Yet as he continues his analysis, he qualifies the assertion that the dominant experience on the promenade is the stroller’s observation of other strollers. Suddenly remembering the actual configuration of a typical German promenade, such as the one he knew in Leipzig, he reconsiders the effect that its physical location plays in the construction of views, including those of “nature.” The passage is worth quoting at length:

40

The German “Mittelweg” Alleen zum Lustwandeln vor den Thoren einer Stadt vereinigen demnach den doppelten Eindruck der Natur und Menschheit; aber auf eine eigene Art gemischt. Die Natur erscheint durch den schnellen Uebergang zu ihren freyen Verhältnissen von dem Schauplatz menschlicher Künstlichkeit, der dem Gemüthe auf den Promenaden in beständigem Anblick der Stadt noch immer gegenwärtig bleibt, in Kontrast mit der Kunst. Wenigstens ist dieß der dunkele, freylich oft unempfundene oder unbeachtete Eindruck, den ein so schneller Wechsel und ein so nahes Berühren von Natur und Kunst im Anblick einer Stadt und des sie umgebenden Naturparks seiner Natur nach macht und den nur die Gewohnheit, beyde stets da beysammen zu sehn, endlich verwischt. Aber selbst bey demjenigen, der, mit ausgebildetem Geiste, den Eindruck beyder in dieser Nähe zum ersten Mahle an sich erführe, müßte sich dieser Gegensatz, auf der Promenade, in den reinen Eindruck des Lustwandelns auf einem öffentlichen Spatziergange auflösen;87 [Allées for strolling outside the gates of a city combine the dual impression of nature and society, but in a unique, intermingled way. Nature contrasts with art through the abrupt transition to its unfettered conditions from the stage set of human artifice, of which one is always conscious on the promenade because the city perpetually remains in view. At least this is the obscure, and admittedly often imperceptible or unnoticed, impression made by such rapid oscillation and close contact between nature and art while viewing a city and its surrounding natural park. Only through the habit of always seeing the two next to each other is the abruptness finally blurred. Even a person of cultivated spirit who experiences the impression of nature and society in close proximity for the first time must resolve this opposition on the promenade into the pure impression of strolling on a public esplanade.]

So even on urban ring promenades, where “nature” ostensibly functions only as a green canvas or Folie, Schelle is forced to recognize a potentially distracting dialectic between society and nature that must be “resolved” (aufgelöst) by the “cultivated” (ausgebildet) observer. Schelle’s worry is that the “pure” (rein) experience of the promenade, which he identifies in the next paragraph as “a disinterested pleasure in mankind, its being and activity” (ein uninteressirtes Wohlgefallen an Menschen, ihrem Seyn und Thun), will be lost on the uninitiated. Rather than maintaining a stance of aesthetic disinterest toward the promenading crowds, the attention of the ordinary stroller will unconsciously be pulled back and forth by particular objects, of both nature

The Garden in the Academy

41

and the city, lying to either side. It is only through habitually seeing the two categories juxtaposed (a necessity even for the exceptionally cultivated), that one learns to blur, and eventually to obliterate (verwischen), the distinction between them, i.e., to construct the scene as a neutral Folie. The psychological state of aesthetic distance, as practiced by the stroller on the urban ring promenade, depends then on recognizing and “resolving” this dialectic. The problems raised by the dialectics of the promenade, rather than detracting from Schelle’s analysis, in the end prove helpful in clarifying his brief comments on public gardens in the English style. By extension, they also deepen our understanding of Leipzig’s Englische Anlage. The Englische Anlage, occupying the same “middle ground” between country and city as the ring promenade, makes a virtue out of what had been a potential problem for the latter. It does so by means of a particular strategy for controlling vision.88 In contrast to the experience on the promenade, where visual attention continually oscillates between city and country, the stroller’s field of vision on the Anlage is held firm within its mediating zone by a series of scenes that fuses together the categories of society and nature on roughly equal terms. By rendering small groups of strollers as subjects within framed “landscapes”89 and then arranging these scenes such that the stroller’s gaze is constantly redirected along oblique sight lines back into the Anlage itself, the potentially jarring juxtaposition of the elements lying to either side is mitigated. In short, the “resolution” that must be effected through effort by the cultivated observer on the promenade is presented ready-made for consumption by polite society on the Englische Anlage. Because neither society nor nature dominates the view, and because this mediation is doubled through the traversing of a middle ground lying between city and country, the Englische Anlage presents what Schelle would have considered to be the ideal setting for the gesellschaftlicher Genuß der Natur. There is an implied consensus or unanimity in such an enjoyment due to the fact that it is to be experienced socially rather than individually. The putative source of this agreement is none other than a shared sensibility for nature, essentially Kant’s sensus communis.90 Acquired in the context of intimate friendships and nurtured through reading and conversation, this sensibility arises only within a sociability based on small groups of the like-minded.91 The intimation of a class distinction in this formulation is pronounced, especially when we recall Schelle’s remark that a public English garden would ideally be populated by the members of fashionable society (die gesellige Welt).92 The ideal strollers for the Englische Anlage, then, would comprise a class distinguished less by outward appearances than by the inner possession, and mutual recognition, of a certain attitude.93 This

42

The German “Mittelweg”

mutual recognition is staged when one group of strollers, pausing to admire the way a similar group completes the scene just ahead, reflects upon its own identical performance as landscape staffage for those who now return its gaze. Through a visual editing that cannot be accomplished on the crowded promenades, polite society views its idealized image on the Anlage as in a framed mirror. Considered in this light, Schelle’s pre-occupation with the difficulties of maintaining a proper state of mind on the promenade can be more fully comprehended as a form of class anxiety. For his worry over the potential distractions that await the “cultivated” stroller in that setting implies the additional presence there of another class of persons, the “uncultivated.” By refusing to name them, Schelle’s text re-enacts the cultivated stroller’s efforts to render these distracting persons invisible, or at least neutral, so that the prescribed reverie can be indulged without disruption. But the task is made difficult because their behavior and comportment, which fail to conform to the unspoken rules of polite society, continually push these persons forward into the stroller’s attention space as distracting elements.94 Lacking knowledge of the proper mental habits that are to be cultivated through strolling, they unintentionally interfere with the bürgerlich project of constructing a shared sensibility. That is to say, they cannot return the gaze of mutual recognition. In this sense, the “detachment” or “disinterest” that was so highly prized as an aesthetic attitude among bürgerlich strollers is not easily distinguished from the social distance that the members of this rising class wished to put between themselves and those just below them. The Englische Anlage, constructed in such a way that possession of the invisible sensus communis was requisite for its proper navigation, was one device through which such distinctions were enacted. Thus, although it was physically accessible to all inhabitants of Leipzig, the new Englische Anlage was in subtle ways more exclusive, and less democratic, than the older promenades.95 ACADEMIC SOCIAL NETWORKS It is hardly surprising that the Englische Anlage would reflect the social strivings and anxieties of bürgerlich Leipzig, for the park had been intimately connected with the city’s elite from its inception. What is of particular consequence, however, is that among the elite who first walked the paths of its “middle ground” during the late 1780s and 1790s were the academics who would produce the Mittelweg garden philosophy: Karl Heinreich Heydenreich (b. 1764), Friedrich Schiller (b. 1759), Johann Christian August Grohmann (b. 1769), Johann Gottfried Grohmann (b. 1763),96 and Chris-

The Garden in the Academy

43

tian August Semler (b. 1767). It is perhaps more accurate to say that only the first three men actually “produced” the Mittelweg theory, for as we noted in the Introduction, the latter two theorized somewhat outside the purview of the Mittelweg thesis. They are included here, however, because their presence was essential to the project in ways that exceeded the impact of their writings, influential as these texts were in their own right. Their membership in this Leipzig cohort depends instead on something that was as fundamental to the group’s identity as the actual content of its theoretical work: a shared network of relationships based on institutional lineage, personal contact, and scholarly collaboration. Before detailing these personal interconnections, it should be briefly noted that the previous generation of German garden theorists, Sulzer (b. 1720) and Hirschfeld (b. 1742), had also been closely associated with the city.97 Even though they built their professional lives elsewhere—Sulzer in Berlin, Hirschfeld in Kiel—both men spent time in Leipzig and developed important relationships there.98 Among their most essential contacts were the publishers who brought their major works into print: Weidmann & Reich,99 and Siegfried Lebrecht Crusius. Hirschfeld’s connection to Leipzig was especially strong, for after a brief stay in July 1767 he returned to live there from June 1768 to March 1769. During his ten-month residence, he matriculated as a student at Leipzig University, where he became acquainted with several of its professors, including the well-known Popularphilosoph Christian Gellert. Hirschfeld’s entrance into the city’s cultural circles also brought him into contact with Leipzig Academy artists such as Carl Lebrecht Crusius,100 who provided the illustrations for the expanded second and third editions of his Das Landleben (1768, 1771).101 In addition to these academic, cultural, and publishing connections, Hirschfeld gained during this time yet another well-placed contact who helped further his writing career. While working on the new material for Das Landleben as well as his next book, Der Winter: eine moralische Betrachtung (1769), Hirschfeld had the good fortune to meet the prominent Berlin-based editor and publisher Friedrich Nicolai (1733–1811). Hirschfeld began a lifelong correspondence with Nicolai, and their frequent exchanges kept him in touch with the German literary scene during the many years of his relative isolation in Kiel. From a professional standpoint, the relationship also provided Hirschfeld with the opportunity to write a number of literary reviews for Nicolai’s Allgemeine Deutsche Bibliothek, broadening his exposure as a writer and potentially expanding the audience for his other works. So although Hirschfeld’s name is associated almost exclusively with the city of Kiel, it is fair to say that his connections to Leipzig were, in fact, just as crucial for launching and sustaining his career.

44

The German “Mittelweg”

Just a few years later, Leipzig would assume an even more central role in establishing the next generation of garden theorists. As a group, this younger generation of garden theorists shared several important characteristics. With only one exception—Schiller—they were born in Saxony during the years immediately after the Seven Years War102 and educated at Leipzig University between 1782 and 1789. Because they matriculated in the 1780s, they were part of that first generation of German scholars to be trained in the midst of the Kantian revolution and to begin publishing in the wake of the French Revolution. Moreover, as students in the philosophical faculty, they were among the first to witness, and in part to benefit from, the significant changes in that body’s status during the last two decades of the eighteenth century. Thus, as they entered their formative years and began to forge a generational identity, they confronted an array of issues that their immediate predecessors had not: a formidable new philosophy was commanding the attention of the German intellectual world, the status of the professional, university-based philosopher was rising in unprecedented ways, and political events across the Rhine were prompting a re-appraisal of what it meant to be German. Given the sense of moment that accompanied these events, these young scholars and their contemporaries felt an urgent need to marshal the resources of philosophy on behalf of a new social vision. For many this meant the integration of the era’s forces of change into a novel cultural synthesis, as typified by the numerous experiments in syntheticism carried out by the German Romantics.103 For this particular group in Leipzig, the physical environment itself suggested a specific avenue of expression. Immersed as they were in a highly visible and academically established garden culture, their collective response took the form of a synthetic garden theory, the Mittelweg. Heydenreich was the first of the group to enter Leipzig University. He was a student from 1782 to 1785 and after graduation prepared for work as an instructor. In this capacity, he delivered his first public lectures in 1787 and became an assistant professor in 1789. J. G. Grohmann entered the university in 1785 at age twenty-two. Like Heydenreich, he remained to teach and was eventually appointed full professor in 1794. J. C. A. Grohmann and Semler matriculated together in 1786 and completed their studies in either 1788 or 1789. Grohmann established his academic career at the university in Wittenberg, where he began lecturing in 1792. In 1798 he was made an assistant professor and by 1803 he had received a full professorship. Semler, in contrast to the others, did not pursue a university career. After teaching at the royal Pädagogium in Halle from 1790 to 1799, he was forced to resign due to health problems. He then moved to Dresden, where through influen-

The Garden in the Academy

45

tial connections he became secretary of the royal public library in 1800 and assistant overseer of the royal antiquities collection in 1804.104 The only Mittelweg garden theorist who did not follow this educational trajectory through Leipzig was Schiller. Unlike the rest, who were all born in Saxony, he was from the Stuttgart area of Württemberg and attended a military school rather than a university. In the absence of this shared background, what ties him to the other members of the cohort is his presence in Leipzig from April 1785 to September 1785, and then again for shorter periods in 1787, 1789, and 1792.105 Schiller’s fruitful stay there in 1785, at the invitation of Christian Gottfried Körner (1756–1831), Körner’s fiancée, and another young couple, occurred at a pivotal moment in his life that brought him both financial stability and a burst of creativity in his writing. It also gave him ample opportunity to befriend many of the city’s cultural and literary elite, including two important figures from the academy who had an interest in gardens and landscapes: Adam Friedrich Oeser and the landscape painter Johann Christian Reinhart (1761–1847).106 For most of those summer months Schiller lived in a rented house in Gohlis, a suburb of Leipzig. Gohlis’s location at the northern edge of the Rosenthal, about a half-hour walk from the city center, provided Schiller with an idyllic setting for his regular early morning strolls as well as occasional gondola rides with friends on the Pleiße river. Besides his own recreational habits, his references to Leipzig’s gardens and promenades in his letters and journal entries indicate that he was keenly aware of their importance in the city’s social life.107 There appears to be no documentation that Schiller personally knew Semler, the two Grohmanns, or Heydenreich (except later through correspondence),108 but their overlapping biographies are nonetheless suggestive. A brief look at the previous dates shows that all of them were in Leipzig in 1787. Most were there at any given point between 1785 and 1789. Regardless of the degree of their personal interaction, by being present in Leipzig during these critical years, they were all witnesses to the major construction project of the Englische Anlage as well as the general ambiance of the city’s innovative garden culture. These shared experiences created a common repository of impressions that the theorists continued to draw upon as they developed their individual approaches to a French-English garden synthesis after 1790. One of the most tangible manifestations of this shared experience is the substantial collaborative work that Heydenreich and J. G. Grohmann undertook during the 1790s while they were members of the Leipzig philosophical faculty. Their areas of specialization were not identical, but they shared a strong interest in the arts and complemented one another well

46

The German “Mittelweg”

in their scholarly skills. Heydenreich taught courses across the full range of philosophy proper, from such traditional standards as metaphysics and logic to the newer discipline of aesthetics. Occasionally, he also lectured on classical literature and modern literary theory, indicative of his early interest in philology.109 Grohmann, on the other hand, offered courses exclusively in classical literature and the fine arts. Unlike Heydenreich, he did not have a background in the technical aspects of philosophy, but his education had equipped him with other advantages that Heydenreich did not possess. Through both his earlier studies in secondary school and his tutelage under Oeser while a university student, he was highly skilled in drawing and painting.110 Moreover, the depth of his language training gave him a greater proficiency with modern Romance languages than his more philosophically inclined colleague, who was better versed in English.111 Together, their combined talents made possible a remarkably productive collaboration over the course of about five years. The first of these projects, published in 1791, was a translation of Appiano Buonafede’s history of modern philosophy, to which Heydenreich appended critical notes and an original essay on Kant’s philosophy.112 Only Heydenreich is credited on the title page, but it was Grohmann who actually penned the German translation.113 The historiographical impetus behind the project, which is apparent even in its form, was to present Kant’s system as both the culmination and transcendence of three centuries of European philosophy. In doing so, Grohmann and Heydenreich were among the first in Leipzig not only to place themselves within the Kantian camp but also to promote Kant’s philosophy (and, by extension, the German cultural synthesis it epitomized) as uniquely appropriate to the conditions of the Revolutionary era.114 The second collaboration likewise involved a translation and an original essay, this time on the subject of landscape gardens and rural scenery. The original work was Sur la nature champêtre (1787) by ClaudeFrançois-Adrien, Marquis de Lézay-Marnézia (1735–1800). Grohmann again provided the translation, while Heydenreich contributed an essay on garden theory, “Einige Ideen über den Charakter des Gartens, als eines Werks schöner Kunst.” The work was published in 1792 as Ländliche Natur, and a second edition appeared in 1798 under the title Schöne Gartenkunst. Heydenreich revised and expanded the garden essay in 1793 as “Philosophische Grundsätze über die Nachahmung der landschaftlichen Natur in Gärten” and included it in the first volume of his Originalideen über die interessantesten Gegenstände der Philosophie. During the next two years, Grohmann and Heydenreich continued to pursue their common interest in aesthetics with their jointly edited two-volume Kurzgefasstes Handwörterbuch über die

The Garden in the Academy

47

schönen Künste, von einer Gesellschaft von Gelehrten (1794–95).115 Heydenreich contributed several articles, the most important of which was the essay on general aesthetics; Grohmann had primary responsibility for the overall shape of the project and wrote most of the essays on the plastic arts, including architecture. This time, however, it was Grohmann rather than Heydenreich who wrote the entry on gardens.116 In addition to the shared educational experiences, overlapping biographies, and collaborative relationships just described, there is yet another layer of interconnection that helps explain the collective development of the Mittelweg garden theory in the 1790s. As Randall Collins has shown, the development of a circle of intense intellectual creativity also demands an organizer, one who performs the essential functions of facilitating relationships and promoting the group even though his devotion to these organizational tasks typically means that his own intellectual production suffers.117 For the German garden theorists of the late eighteenth century, the person who most clearly fulfilled this necessary structural role was Wilhelm Gottlieb Becker (1753–1813). Becker belonged to neither the older nor the younger generation of philosophers and garden writers, and in many respects he served as a bridge between them. His enrollment at Leipzig University from 1773 to 1776 places him halfway between Hirschfeld’s brief matriculation there in the 1760s and younger group’s student days in the 1780s. Like J. G. Grohmann, Becker took art lessons from Oeser while he was a university student and seems to have developed his initial interest in gardens under his tutelage.118 This interest only deepened after he accepted a teaching position at the Dessau Philanthropin in 1776, for the appointment gave him first-hand knowledge of Prince Franz’s Gartenreich and its creators. One of the results of this year-long encounter with Dessau-Wörlitz, especially with the Rousseauian ideas behind both the gardens and the Philanthropin, was Becker’s inspiration to translate René-Louis, Marquis de Girardin’s 1777 treatise, De la composition des paysages.119 After traveling in France, Switzerland, and northern Italy from 1778 to 1782, Becker returned briefly to Leipzig before settling in Dresden. There he became professor of moral philosophy and history at the Ritterakademie, a finishing school for young noblemen. Although Becker subsequently published several significant works on gardens, including Das Seifersdorfer Thal (1792), Neue Garten- und Landschafts-Gebäude (1798), Der Plauische Grund bei Dresden: mit Hinsicht auf Naturgeschichte und schöne Gartenkunst (1799), and a German translation of Prince Charles-Joseph de Ligne’s Coup d’œil sur Beloeil (1799),120 the theoretical content of his writing tends to be less rigorous than that of

48

The German “Mittelweg”

his most important contemporaries. Despite the value of these works on other grounds, his primary contribution lies instead in his editorship of the Taschenbuch für Gartenfreunde from 1795 to 1799. Published annually in Leipzig by Voß and Company, this journal provided an essential forum for ongoing discussions in garden theory, most of which centered on the contentious issues of the development of a German national style and the FrenchEnglish debate. Along with Johann Friedrich Cotta’s similar Taschenkalender für Natur- und Gartenfreunde (1795–1806) published in Stuttgart, Becker’s journal self-consciously carried on the tradition of Hirschfeld’s Gartenkalender auf das Jahr . . . (1782–1789) and its successor Kleine Gartenbibliothek (1790).121 In addition to providing an avenue for garden theorists to introduce their ideas in a public arena, often as advertisements for forthcoming works, Becker’s journal typically included reviews of recently published garden theory texts,122 descriptions of notable gardens of recent construction, and numerous essays devoted to the practical aspects of gardening. Becker seems to have written many of the unsigned essays himself and probably authored many of the book reviews as well. Far from being unique in terms of its format, Becker’s Taschenbuch was part of a much broader proliferation of periodical literature in Germany during the latter decades of the eighteenth century.123 Leipzig was at the forefront of this innovation due to the city’s long history as a major center for the publishing industry and book trade. Many of these journals were directed toward a wide readership among polite society and were devoted to the latest trends in fashion and consumer goods.124 Others were written for specialists, particularly academics, and were used to stake out intellectual positions and promote certain schools of thought. Some, such as Becker’s Taschenbuch and Cotta’s Taschenkalender, tried to do both by presenting essays varied enough in character that each issue contained something for everyone—estate owner, Frauenzimmer, tradesman, and academic alike. The pocket-sized format of these two journals indicates that they were designed to be portable, easily consulted in the field for technical information or taken along on a walk or a carriage ride for pleasure reading. As such, they stood in marked contrast to the two other most popular and influential garden journals of the time:125 J. G. Grohmann’s Ideenmagazin für Liebhaber von Gärten (1796–1806)126 and the Leipzig publisher Friedrich August Leo’s Magazin für Freunde des guten Geschmacks (1794–1800), which included in each volume a section entitled, “Ideen für Gartenfreunde.”127 Both of these journals were printed as folio editions and richly illustrated with plates, many of them colored, that were intended as evocative suggestions or even patterns for the embellishment of substantial private gardens. Grohmann himself provided many of the images

The Garden in the Academy

49

for the Ideenmagazin, while Leo relied primarily on graduates and faculty of the Dresden Academy for the Magazin’s artwork.128 With the emphasis in both publications on images rather than text, Grohmann and Leo were competitors for the same “coffee table” market of expensive journals intended for display. The articles, which tend to repeat and summarize aesthetic principles already expounded in such standard works as Hirschfeld, served as a primer for a readership assumed to have little or no knowledge of the subject. Given its comprehensiveness, the unattributed text of the Magazin seems, like Grohmann’s, to have had its origins in academic circles, especially considering that its theoretical content and tone are actually more substantial and didactic than that of the Ideenmagazin.129 Nevertheless, neither of the two “magazines” exhibits the same philosophical ambition that characterizes both Becker’s and Cotta’s “pocketbooks.” As would be expected, Becker’s success as an editor depended as much on the quality and extent of his personal contacts as it did on his ability to elicit good writing from them. As a result, he made it his business not only to keep abreast of the most recent garden theory texts, whether just published or still in manuscript, but also to cultivate relationships with the most promising writers in hopes of securing original pieces from them. Quite naturally, this list included some of those authors most closely associated with the Mittelweg theory such as Schiller, who was an occasional dinner guest at Becker’s house in Dresden.130 In the cases of both J. C. A. Grohmann and Semler, Becker was not only personally acquainted with them, but he also assisted them in their careers at important junctures. Becker met Grohmann in 1790 when the young scholar came to Dresden shortly after his graduation to study the royal art collection. Grohmann had just won a competition sponsored by the Amsterdam Academy of Arts and Sciences with his essay, “Aesthetische Beurtheilung des Klopstock’schen Messias,” and he used the prize money to fund the trip. Becker was impressed enough with Grohmann’s philosophical acumen that he was among those in Dresden who recommended him for his first university teaching position in Wittenberg.131 Becker’s friendship with Semler began somewhat later, shortly after Semler’s move from Halle to Dresden in 1799, and continued for many years through their shared professional responsibilities at court. When Semler was promoted to supervisor of the royal antiquities collection in 1804, it was due in no small part to assistance from Becker, who in addition to teaching at the Ritterakademie had held the supervisory post himself since 1795. Becker’s own accession in 1804 to Privy Councillor (Hofrath) in oversight of the treasures in the Grüne Gewölbe had provided the opportunity to suggest Semler as his successor.

50

The German “Mittelweg”

The range of Becker’s personal network, which brought with it the ability to exert influence across the borders of both court and university, points to another, essential dimension of the social world of the Mittelweg theorists: the institutional location of academic work and its sources of material support. Although Becker was able quite successfully to traverse both worlds—the traditional world of royal or noble patronage and the ascendant world of the university—the ease with which he moved between the two was rather exceptional among his contemporaries. Most were at home in either one or the other, and for many young scholars of the Mittelweg generation a university-based academic career was a simple, even logical, choice. The improving material conditions of the university made it an increasingly attractive prospect for professional advancement, even if that terrain remained during the 1790s somewhat uncharted and occasionally unstable. Whereas throughout most of the eighteenth century, salaries and prestige in the philosophical faculties had remained quite low, by the 1780s and 1790s they began to rise as a result of a series of state-sponsored reforms. A university career was becoming not only financially more feasible, but it also now carried with it the respect that attended other occupations under the aegis of the state bureaucracy. For those from a middle class background, as most of the Mittelweg theorists were, an academic appointment appeared for the first time to be a viable avenue for upward social mobility.132 There were, however, risks and pitfalls for those who chose this path. As more students trained in the newly empowered philosophical faculties, they emerged from their studies to face a limited number of available employment slots. Competition for these few academic opportunities was one factor that led to a veritable epidemic of emotional illnesses and, sometimes, early death among the generation of the Romantics.133 This was no less the case for some of the Mittelweg theorists and their colleagues. Heydenreich died at age thirty-seven of “exhaustion” and “enervation,”134 due in no small part to complications from opium and alcohol addictions he developed while trying to insinuate himself among the social circles of the young noblemen attending the university. His ongoing difficulties with these addictions were exacerbated both by debts incurred through his social climbing and by lingering depression associated with his repeated failure to secure a permanent chair at the university.135 Heydenreich’s young protégé, Schelle, met with a similar fate. Despite the early recognition he received for his writing, Schelle was never able to turn this literary success into a university position. After several short stints as a secondary school teacher, a private tutor, and then a school rector, he

The Garden in the Academy

51

suffered a breakdown in 1807 at age thirty from which he never recovered. Schelle spent the rest of his life in obscurity at a sanitarium in the countryside, with the year of his death remaining unknown.136 Even J. G. Grohmann, despite enjoying the relative security of a full professorship at Leipzig University, died at the early age of forty-two. The cause of his death is not recorded, but one is left to wonder whether his health, too, succumbed under the weight of the publishing pressures and excessive teaching workloads of which Heydenreich complained so vociferously.137 Such travails were not uncommon for ambitious young men of modest background who were hoping to take advantage of the new, but uncertain, professional opportunities of the Revolutionary era. This pervasive sense of striving is reflected, for example, in image-oriented publications like J. G. Grohmann’s Ideenmagazin, where many of the readers (along with the editor, it might be added) complicitly indulged a lifestyle fantasy that relatively few of them could afford. In fact, it is not a stretch to attribute similar social ambitions to the Mittelweg garden theory itself, for it was conceived primarily by authors from middle class backgrounds and directed toward a scale of property typically owned by persons at the upper end of this bürgerlich stratum. Heydenreich’s Herumwandler can hardly be conceived without also envisioning the extensive grounds that are required for its perambulation. And as we shall see, neither Schiller’s narrative progression through a Gartenlandschaft nor J. C. A. Grohmann’s series of Ruhepünkte can be theorized in the absence of a similar pre-supposition of generously-proportioned property. Even Semler’s introduction to the Gartenlogik, which contrasts the rational methods of the new class of professional garden designers with the love of “luxury and publicity” (Luxus und Publizität) said to motivate newly wealthy dilettantes, assumes a similar situation at the upper end of bürgerlich society.138 As for their family backgrounds, the Mittelweg theorists and their colleagues were typical of the German middle class. Both Heydenreich and J. C. A. Grohmann were sons of Lutheran pastors. Such an upbringing usually assured access to a good education, and Grohmann had the additional fortune of a family connection in the academic world of Leipzig through his mother, who was a relative of Johann Christoph Gottsched (1700–1766).139 Schiller’s father was a commissioned army officer. J. G. Grohmann’s father was a lawyer. There is no mention of Becker’s father in his biographical entries, as he was orphaned in childhood, but these accounts note that a noblewoman (identified only as Frl. von Ingersleben) sponsored his education. This arrangement probably indicates that Becker’s family had only modest financial means, but better social connections. The only person who seems to have come from a

52

The German “Mittelweg”

higher social standing was Semler, whose father served as city treasurer (KammerCommissair) and mayor of Weisenfels, his birthplace. Not surprisingly, Semler’s circle of friends at Leipzig University included the sons of some of Saxony’s best families.140 These brief considerations of academic institutional change and social class also help explain some the differences in professional trajectories that can be observed in the span of theorists from Sulzer to Semler. The evolution of the university accounts for the most fundamental differences between the older and younger generation, while the particularities of individual social origin tend to be more determinative for additional distinctions in the latter. Sulzer is typical of the older generation in that patronage was the primary means by which he found support for his scholarly activities. As satisfactory as this situation was for him, he managed to improve his financial security first by marrying well, namely the niece of his wealthy patron, and then by earning a coveted appointment to the Berlin Academy, which eventually placed him on the payroll of the royal treasury.141 In contrast, Heydenreich, Schiller and the two Grohmanns typified the younger generation’s pursuit of university careers. They were certainly not averse to taking advantage of powerful connections whenever they could, but their expectations regarding income sources and job security were at a distant remove from Sulzer’s. Hirschfeld, in contrast, is a somewhat transitional figure between the worlds of patronage and university in that throughout most of his career he had one foot simultaneously in each. He began, traditionally enough, as a private tutor for two Russian princes, who were orphaned nephews of the Lübeck prince-bishop Friedrich August (1711–1785) and charges of Catherine the Great. Within a few years he left this tutoring job due to conflicts with his employer and accepted a full-time appointment at Kiel University. Even though Hirschfeld now answered nominally to an institution rather than to an individual, he found to his dismay that his new employer too frequently resembled the patron he had just left. Unlike the more independent situation of university professors only two decades later, Hirschfeld served the university quite explicitly at the pleasure of the Danish royal family. Many of his professional disappointments during these years, especially those involving broken promises and blatant displays of favoritism, can be traced to issues of court politics in which the university was often enmeshed.142 Hirschfeld’s intellectual successors at Leipzig in the 1790s, although still technically under royal patronage, were happily more insulated from the abuses of royal fiat as the actual running of university affairs came increasingly under the control of the state bureaucracy. While not guaranteeing fairness on the part of decisionmakers, the hope of at least some measure of protection from individual

The Garden in the Academy

53

arbitrariness further increased the attractiveness of a university career for many of the younger generation. A fair number of scholars, however, chose to remain within the older tradition, some with great success. Becker and Semler were among those who followed this more familiar path, first finding teaching work in royal- or noble-sponsored schools outside the university system and eventually other employment at court. In Becker’s case, he advanced from posts at the Dessau Philanthropin and Dresden Ritterakademie143 to oversight of the Saxon court’s antiquities collection and the Grüne Gewölbe; Semler, from the Royal Pädagogium in Halle to secretary of the Saxon royal library and, eventually, superintendent of antiquities as Becker’s successor. Both Becker’s and Semler’s early connections with members of the nobility seem to account for their ability to have secured royal patronage in an era in which it was beginning to be eclipsed as the most important avenue for conducting academic work. Semler’s social position may also explain, at least in part, his relative lack of interest in Kantian aesthetics, which had overtaken university-based thinking by around 1790. His somewhat anachronistic use of Leibniz’s ars combinatoria as a point of departure for his garden theory144 seems almost a nostalgic attempt at reconnecting with previous forms of intellectual life, or at least the social bases of its production. In a sense, he may have been signaling that he was above the middle class strivings and ambitions of those who had embraced Kantianism as a means to work their way up through the university system. THE KANTIAN SYSTEM VS. POPULARPHILOSOPHIE AT LEIPZIG UNIVERSITY The widespread triumph of Kant’s philosophy within German universities is the last major component that accounts for the particular shape given to garden theory when it entered the German academy. Each of the Mittelweg garden theorists held a distinct position with regard to Kant’s system, ranging from an almost direct application of his principles to a radical re-working of the critical method more typical of post-Kantian Idealism. They may have differed on their interpretation of Kant, but they could not ignore him. Because of the timing of their education, they were introduced to Kant’s philosophy when it was first being hotly debated in public, but before the now familiar early interpretations had been articulated and canonized. And as they formulated their garden theories a few years later, they were positioning themselves, as were most other philosophers, almost entirely in terms of their relation to this emerging new orthodoxy, the exact contours of which were still being contested. The breadth of the Mittelweg theorists’ response to Kant reflects these

54

The German “Mittelweg”

conditions, as well as the vitality of their individual critical capacities, to be sure. But this variety also has its roots in the particular components of their university education at Leipzig, where their exposure to a number of philosophical traditions provided them with a wealth of material with which to test, critique, and modify Kant’s ideas. The reception of Kant’s philosophy at Leipzig was more complex than at most other universities due in part to the size of the institution as well as to the presence of major personalities who resisted conversion. Like most other German universities, Leipzig had been dominated since about 1750 by a broad movement known as Popularphilosophie, which was both an outgrowth of, and reaction to, the Leibniz-Wolff scholasticism of the early eighteenth century. Popularphilosophie was, in fact, an umbrella term for two rather distinct camps within this movement, one emphasizing the more rationalist strain of the indigenous tradition (the “Wolffians”) and the other, those features more consonant with British empiricism (the “Lockeans”).145 Only during the “pantheism controversy” of 1785–87 did Kant begin to find adherents on the Leipzig philosophical faculty, and even then acceptance was relatively slow and initially limited to the younger members of the professoriate. Strong voices from both branches of the Popularphilosophie tradition could still be heard in Leipzig’s lecture halls well into the 1790s and beyond.146 The exponent of Popularphilosophie most influential for the Mittelweg theorists was undoubtedly Ernst Platner (1744–1818), professor of medicine and physiology. Despite his title, Platner was more widely known for his work in philosophy, with both his Anthropologie and Aphorismen considered in their time to be classics. Because of his reputation as an eloquent speaker, Platner’s philosophy lectures were eagerly attended by an entire generation of Leipzig students, although they were considered by many observers too advanced and difficult for those with only a minimal knowledge of the subject.147 His lectures on aesthetics were especially well regarded, and it is these that left their mark on Heydenreich, J. C. A. Grohmann, Semler, and perhaps others of the Mittelweg cohort.148 An avowed Wolffian, Platner based his work up through the mid-1780s on a rationalist epistemology derived from that tradition. This remained so even after his engagement with Kant’s philosophy led him to develop what he termed a “skeptical criticism,” which sought to turn Kant’s own critical enterprise against itself.149 Without detailing the exact nature of Platner’s skepticism, it is enough in this context simply to emphasize that during the 1780s and 1790s one of the ablest and most influential of Kant’s Wolffian critics was firmly ensconced at Leipzig University, where he used his “pulpit” to great effect. The primary consequence for garden theory is that it

The Garden in the Academy

55

was Platner’s popular philosophy, not Kant’s critical one, that provided the Mittelweg theorists with their initial vocabulary of aesthetic concepts. In a similar vein, the Lockeans in Leipzig had their champion in Christian Garve (1742–1798), professor of moral philosophy and well known as a translator of several British classics.150 In actuality, Garve held the professorship in Leipzig only from 1769 to 1772, having been forced by poor health to relinquish the post and return to Breslau, but he nonetheless remained for many years the central personality around which the Lockean camp in Leipzig rallied. Perhaps most importantly for those empiricists who had set themselves against the advance of Kant’s thought, he was also the author of the infamous “Göttingen review.” Published anonymously in January 1782, this essay was the first scholarly response to Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, which up until that time had received little attention. Garve received notoriety not just for the content of the piece, which charged that Kant’s “new” philosophy was nothing more than a form of discredited Berkeleyian idealism, but also for its rather nasty, acerbic tone. Kant’s Prolegomena (1783)151 is essentially an extended reply to the review, and the second, revised edition of the Critique (1787) also takes into account some of Garve’s arguments.152 Of the Leipzig-trained garden theorists, it is Schelle, rather than one of the Mittelweg cohort, who appears to have been most affected by Garve’s work.153 As Heydenreich’s student, Schelle was deeply immersed in Kant’s philosophy. However, Leipzig University was not a place where only one ideology held sway, and Schelle developed a concurrent interest in the empiricist strand of Popularphilosophie. In his Briefe über Garve’s Schriften und Philosophie (1800), a study of Garve’s criticism of Kant, Schelle displays a considerable understanding of Garve’s arguments even as he simultaneously (and successfully) defends Kant against them. If he could not on rational grounds adopt Garve’s doctrines, Schelle nonetheless possessed an unusual empathy for the intellectual sensibilities that inform Garve’s brand of Popularphilosophie. This is perhaps most evident in Die Spatziergänge, in which he devotes an entire treatise to an ostensibly mundane activity of everyday life, exactly the kind of topic favored by those who disdained the abstraction and “elevated tone” that characterized much of the newest academic philosophy.154 And when we recall that the primary motif of Popularphilosophie was the “strolling philosopher,” Schelle’s study comes into focus as a reflexive meditation on the practice of Popularphilosophie itself. In a novel twist on Kant’s dictum to discover the “a priori conditions of the possibility of experience,”155 Schelle’s investigation of strolling thematizes the paradigmatic material and social conditions within which the “thinking” and “experience” of Popularphilosophie take place.156 Seen in this light, Schelle’s Die Spatziergänge is,

56

The German “Mittelweg”

in fact, a highly original and synthetic study that brings together the major strands of his intellectual formation. More broadly, it is representative of the peculiar blend of Kantianism and Popularphilosophie that characterized much of Leipzig academic life in the 1790s. The first philosopher at Leipzig University to embrace Kant’s philosophy was Friedrich Gottlob Born (1743–1807), who announced his support at the height of the pantheism controversy in 1786.157 He was followed by Heydenreich around 1789 and, soon thereafter, by others including Johann Christian Zwanziger and Christian Friedrich Michaelis. There were conflicts within the philosophical faculty resulting from these decisions, some of which made their way into print. Born, for example, penned a reply to Platner’s criticisms of Kant that had appeared in the latest edition of the Aphorismen.158 Zwanziger did the same with his short essay “Zweifel wider einige Philosophische Aphorismen des Herrn Doktor Platner.”159 There is evidence that the Kantians had gained much ground by 1792. In April of that year, the university course notice listed the “critical philosophy” separately for the first time, with Born delivering lectures based on a textbook by Carl Christian Erhard Schmid (1761–1812) of Jena University. Born’s course was followed a large number of others on every aspect of Kant’s philosophy for the next several years. In the term beginning April 1795, for example, there were no less than three on the Critique of Pure Reason alone. As nearby Jena was the center for the promotion of Kant’s philosophy, it is not surprising that Born looked there for a text to use in his lectures. The Jena group had been the first to wholeheartedly accept Kant and had, consequently, spent more time than anyone grappling with the intricacies of his system. Others at Leipzig followed Born’s example and turned to Jena-based authors for lecture material. These included Heydenreich’s use of Schmid, Theodor Anton Heinrich Schmalz (1760–1831), and Gottlieb Hufeland (1760–1817) as well as Michaelis’s introduction of Karl Leonhard Reinhold’s (1758–1823) Elementarphilosophie (the first significant re-working of Kant’s system) to Leipzig.160 And in a somewhat humorous turn, at least from the viewpoint of the Kantians, the borrowing of textbooks also took place in reverse, with numerous Jena instructors using Platner’s Aphorismen for philosophical target practice in their classrooms.161 Ideological allegiances were also signified through the publishing of articles in particular venues, whether in the leading Kantian journal, the Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung (Jena, beginning in 1785) or in any number of anti-Kantian periodicals, such as Johann August Eberhard’s (1739–1809) Philosophisches Magazin (published from 1788 to 1792). The Leipzig-based Born entered the journalistic fray by teaming up with Johann Heinrich Abi-

The Garden in the Academy

57

cht (1762–1816), a disciple of Reinhold. Together, they co-edited the proKantian Neues Philosophisches Magazin (Leipzig, 1789), which was a reply to Eberhard’s similarly titled journal.162 It was in Born and Abicht’s journal that Heydenreich chose to publish some of his first essays, including “Grundriss einer neuen Untersuchung über die Empfindungen des Erhabenen” and a historical survey of aesthetics that became a chapter in his System der Ästhetik.163 The content of these essays did not as yet indicate that Heydenreich was a Kant partisan, but his choice of publishing organ did.164 It is to Heydenreich’s work, at that moment when he first began to embrace Kantianism, that we now turn.

Chapter Three

The Semiotics of Strolling: Karl Heinrich Heydenreich (I)

The first significant garden theory in Germany among those philosophers influenced by Kant was the one produced by Karl Heinrich Heydenreich (1764–1801), professor of philosophy at Leipzig University from 1789 to 1798. Heydenreich’s theory, developed between 1789 and 1793, reflects the peculiar contours that had come to dominate German philosophy in the wake of the two most important philosophical events of the 1780s: (1) the publication of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason in 1781 and the subsequent dissemination of its doctrines within German universities, and (2) the so-called “pantheism controversy” (Pantheismusstreit) of 1785–87, which occupied center stage not only among philosophers during those years but also commanded wide attention among the general reading public as well. Heydenreich’s garden theory, by incorporating elements from both of these major developments, brought garden theory in Germany forward from the initial stage of philosophical articulation it had received during the 1770s and early 1780s. While continuing to employ the language of affect, association, emotion, and moral sentiment that had characterized the work of Sulzer and Hirschfeld, Heydenreich recast this existing terminology and conceptual heritage within the more rigorous framework of cognitive theory that was being developed in German philosophy during the 1780s. In this sense, his theory is indicative of the wider forces that were at work in the philosophical world at that time and shows in an unusually clear way the manner in which these controversies would begin to be articulated in garden terms by a handful of philosophers during the 1790s. Heydenreich was the first among this small group to engage in this line of thinking. The most complete exposition of Heydenreich’s garden theory is found in his 1793 essay, “Philosophische Grundsätze über die Nachahmung der landschaftlichen Natur in Gärten,” published in the first volume of his Originalideen über die interessantesten Gegenstände der Philosophie (1793).1 This 59

60

The German “Mittelweg”

essay is a slightly altered and expanded version of “Einige Ideen über den Charakter des Gartens, als eines Werks schöner Kunst,” which had appeared the year before in Ländliche Natur, a German translation of Claude-François-Adrien, Marquis de Lézay-Marnézia’s Sur la nature champêtre.2 In addition, there are scattered passages in Heydenreich’s 1790 treatise System der Ästhetik and in later essays that contain important statements of his views on the nature of gardens and their relationship to other art forms. Although, as we shall see, Heydenreich’s theory attempts to incorporate a broad spectrum of insights derived from such disparate disciplines as semiotics, empirical psychology, aesthetics, and ethics, it is his reaction to the notion of a garden “median” (Mitte), first articulated in the 1792 essay, that proves decisive in the development of his mature garden theory. The Mitte principle not only offers a unified way of understanding many of his otherwise seemingly unrelated observations, but also lends the theory a certain philosophical weight and interest that it would not otherwise possess. This central notion marks both his continuity with and departure from the Hirschfeld Mittelweg, and it is Heydenreich’s particular version of this mediating strategy that the following analysis attempts to elucidate and evaluate. BACKGROUND Heydenreich was born in Stolpen, Saxony, in February 1764, the second son of a clergyman (Oberpfarrer).3 After showing academic promise as a youth under the tutelage of a classics teacher, he was sent in 1778 to the Thomasschule in Leipzig. He entered Leipzig University in 1782, where he began to attend lectures in history and classical literature. Although he fancied himself becoming a poet and playwright, he met with only limited success in his early endeavors and was persuaded by a friend at the university to try his hand at philosophy instead. This route proved more congenial to his talents and he subsequently busied himself with the study of Descartes, Malebranche, Leibniz, Wolff, and particularly Spinoza. In 1785 he received the degree of Magister der Philosophie. In focusing his energies on these philosophers, Heydenreich was already displaying a tendency that, although not uncommon within the scholastic philosophy (Schulphilosophie) of the university environment, was at odds with the prevailing fashion of Popularphilosophie that had flourished in many circles since the late 1750s and to which both Sulzer and Hirschfeld belonged. Initiated by the Berlin Aufklärer (analogous to the philosophes in France) in an effort to elevate and enlighten the general reading public, this movement sought to communicate philosophical principles in a literary,

The Semiotics of Strolling

61

“common sense” style that was more accessible than the neo-scholastic exposition characteristic of the Leibniz-Wolff tradition. As a result, these “popular philosophers” tended to eschew the construction of unified systems in favor of eclectic observations that had clear applications to daily life. Heydenreich, in preferring the classical, unified systems of the rationalists to the eclecticism of Popularphilosophie, was part of the rising tide that would soon usher in the both the triumph of Kantianism and the revival of interest in Spinoza among the post-Kantians. RECAPITULATION OF THE 1793 ESSAY Heydenreich begins the essay by invoking the argument, first articulated in Germany by Hirschfeld, that the essence of gardening as a fine art is to be found somewhere between the two extremes represented by the French and English manners. Hirschfeld had used the term “middle path” (Mittelweg) to describe the new garden type which he enjoined his fellow Germans to develop; Heydenreich uses the term “median” (Mitte): In doing so, he suggests that his own theory is conceived in relation to this general framework, but he soon states that this relationship is a negative one. For according to Heydenreich, all previous Mitte theories have been premised on several interrelated assumptions that have prevented theorists from reaching consensus. Although he does not explicitly say what these assumptions are, the beginning of his text suggests that he sees the following three at work: (1) all possibilities of garden composition are rooted in two distinct—and opposed—conceptions of formal organization; (2) an ideal form of composition will lie somewhere between these two extremes; and (3) we must think of this “between” condition as a form of unification that incorporates elements of both. But unfortunately, Heydenreich believes, these efforts by previous theorists to articulate a Mitte have fallen short: Alle Bemühungen derjenigen, welche die Wahrheit in der zwischen beyden Extremen liegenden Mitte suchen, und die wahre Schönheit eines Gartens in der Vereinigung von Regelmäßigkeit und Nachbilden der Natur setzen, haben noch bis jetzt keine Vereinigung jener Theorieen bewirken können.4 [All efforts in this regard, which seek the truth in the median lying between both extremes, and posit the true beauty of a garden as the union of regularity and the imitation of nature, have not yet been able to bring about the unification of these theories.]

62

The German “Mittelweg”

The 1792 version of the essay opens with a slightly different text, occasioned no doubt by its being appended to Grohmann’s translation of Lézay-Marnézia, but the argument is essentially the same. In this case Heydenreich attributes the Mitte strategy to the Frenchman: Der Verfasser des Gedichtes sur la nature champêtre [Lézay-Marnézia] gehört unter dieienigen Theoristen, welche die Wahrheit in der Mitte zwischen beiden Extremen zu finden glauben, und die wahre Schönheit eines Gartens, als Werkes des Genies, in der Vereinigung einer gewissen Regularität mit der Nachbildung der Natur sezzen.5 [The author of the poem “On rural nature” [Lézay-Marnézia] belongs to those theorists who believe they can find the truth in the median between both extremes, and posit the true beauty of a garden, considered as a work of genius, as the union of a certain regularity with the imitation of nature.]

In place of this approach, Heydenreich offers an ostensibly independent principle, the unique garden genius (Genie), as a solution which purports both to solve the Mittelweg dilemma and to move beyond its limiting, dichotomous conception of two extremes and their mediation: Ein ganz eignes Vorurtheil vieler Theoristen scheint darin zu bestehen, dass sie den schönen Garten nicht als Werk des Genies ansehn, und überhaupt nicht anerkennen, dass es eben so gut ein besonderes Genie zur schönen Gartenkunst, als zu jeder andern schönen Kunst gebe, und dass aus der spezifischen Beschaffenheit dieses Genies eigentlich die ganze Theorie der schönen Gartenkunst entwickelt werden müsse.6 [A peculiar prejudice of many theorists is that they do not seem to regard a beautiful garden as a work of genius. They completely fail to recognize that there is a genius unique to garden art just as there is for every other fine art and that the entire theory of garden art must be developed from the characteristics specific to this type of genius.]

Thus, previous theorists have erred not because they lacked the skill or insight to find the elusive Mitte, but because they began with a false conception of the first principles by which a garden theory should be developed. Something other than a Mitte is called for.

The Semiotics of Strolling

63

After announcing his intention to posit a theory which does not suffer from the shortcomings of either of the two extremes or of their indiscriminate blending, Heydenreich next deals with several preliminary considerations which he believes must be addressed before any theory can be constructed. The first concerns the limitation of his field of inquiry to those gardens considered to be works of fine art. Here, he builds his case on a tri-partite division of the arts which was probably borrowed directly from Kant’s Critique of Judgment: (1) arts that are merely gratifying for the senses, (2) mechanical arts which serve useful purposes, and (3) the fine arts (schöne Künste).7 He states that even though there are many types of gardens which belong to the first two categories, such as kitchen gardens and orchards, it is the business of aesthetics to concern itself only with the third, gardens devoted to pleasure. Furthermore, even though all five senses may be employed in the experience of a pleasure garden, it is our perception of beauty through vision alone that distinguishes these gardens as works of fine art. Thus, any theory of the garden as a fine art must be a visual theory. Having delineated what he considers to be the boundaries of schöne Gartenkunst, Heydenreich then tries to demonstrate that of the two predominate forms of garden composition, the regular and the irregular, only the second employs principles that have application to the practice of gardening as a fine art. He makes this claim by first arguing that both manners were originally developed by analogy with other arts rather than from any principle unique to gardening itself: the former with architecture and the latter with landscape painting. He immediately disqualifies regular, geometric garden compositions from consideration because he does not consider their analog, architecture, to belong among the fine arts. This is the case because architecture’s forms are understood to be determined primarily by utilitarian ends, making it a mechanical rather than a fine art. In contrast, he thinks that landscape painting provides a better model for developing garden principles because it, too, like schöne Gartenkunst, is aimed at the awakening of particular moods, emotions, and other cognitive activities in the viewer without reference to use. Painting, however, is not entirely adequate as a model in that it considers only one scene at a time. The essence of garden art, then, must be expressed in a different principle, and the form of genius which is specific to it is one which is capable not only of uniting a single scene into a harmonious whole but also of combining a succession of these scenes into a final, unified character or mood (Hauptstimmung). This peculiar faculty (eigentümliches Vermögen) of the Genie for combining successive scenes is the unique principle of garden art.

64

The German “Mittelweg”

The main body of the essay which follows these preliminary passages consists of Heydenreich’s exposition of his “succession” or “moving stroller” theory in light of three main questions: (1) What material does nature present to the garden artist for selection and imitation? (2) What can the genius do with this material, i.e., what is possible? (3) Which of these possibilities will satisfy the highest demands of moral reason (Vernunft)? In attempting to answer these questions, Heydenreich employs a range of intellectual resources that were not available to him during the writing of his 1790 System der Ästhetik, leading him largely to abandon some of his earlier, semiotics-based insights in favor of a theory that squares more firmly with the results of Kant’s Critique of Judgment. In doing so, Heydenreich leaves undeveloped some of the potential of his earlier aesthetics, but gains a new, and somewhat unique, solution to the Mittelweg problem. That his theory is best interpreted as a Mittelweg strategy in spite of his stated aims to the contrary will become evident once we look more closely at the details of his arguments and, in particular, at the patterns of thought which structure them. For Heydenreich’s ambivalence toward the Mittelweg is present throughout, from the simultaneous appropriation and negation of its terms in the inauguration of his theory to the unstated dichotomies which are presupposed in the singular (eigentümlich, spezifisch) principle of the garden Genie. In the end his theory will be seen to rely as heavily on the framework of binary opposition and mediation as the previous Mittelweg theories had done. Rather than being detrimental, however, this filiation serves as the source of much of the theory’s creative impulse and significance. FINE ART AS A DISTINCT PRACTICE Heydenreich’s decision to open the 1793 essay with a discussion of a more general theory of fine art is decisive for his garden theory in a number of ways. His particular conception of the fine arts leads him to emphasize four principles which ground the centerpiece of his theory, the garden Genie. Stated briefly these are: (1) the relative autonomy of the fine arts in relation to similar forms of human activity, (2) the exclusive claims of vision over the other senses in aesthetic judgment, (3) the requirement in aesthetic judgment of a unified perception by a unified subject, and (4) the cultivation of morality as the highest purpose of fine art. In Heydenreich’s hands, these principles delineate the circumference of a particular form of garden making he considers worthy of the designation schöne Gartenkunst. As a distinct field of operation, he posits it as a superior alternative to the synthetically derived notions of Mitte characteristic of previous theorists.

The Semiotics of Strolling

65

This initial, circumscribing move is essential to Heydenreich’s project in that the appeal to fine arts is meant to dispense with each of the two poles of the Mittelweg through a priori exclusion and, therefore, any attempt at their subsequent mediation or synthesis. By demonstrating their formative principles to be incommensurate with his principles of fine art, he hopes to disqualify them from the outset as beginning points for a garden theory. As a result, fine art becomes the logical point from which to erase the boundary markers of the Mittelweg in order to sketch out a new, more rigorously grounded, territory generated by a different principle. Whether this new territory turns out to be, in fact, new ground or is best understood as the reconfiguration of the Mitte that Heydenreich professes to avoid depends largely on how we understand the role of the fine arts in Heydenreich’s thinking about gardens. Art and autonomy. As stated in the summary, Heydenreich begins his 1793 garden essay by declaring that the fine arts differ in essence from the mechanical and pleasant arts. The tri-partite distinction probably comes directly from Kant’s Critique of Judgment and is based on the relationship of the sensible representations of the object to our cognitive faculties. Kant explains the division as follows: If art which is adequate to the cognition of a possible object performs the actions requisite therefore merely in order to make it actual, it is mechanical art; but if it has for its immediate design the feeling of pleasure, it is called aesthetical art. This is again either pleasant or beautiful. It is the first if its purpose is that the pleasure should accompany the representation [of the object] regarded as mere sensations; it is the second if they are regarded as modes of cognition.8

Heydenreich applies this framework to garden art in the following manner: Die mechanische Kunst hat jederzeit das Geschäft der Befriedigung eines, für die Fortsetzung und Bequemlichkeit des menschlichen Lebens, nothwendigen Zweckes, übt allezeit, dem Erkenntnisse eines möglichen Gegenstandes angemessen, bloss um ihn wirklich zumachen, die hierzu erforderlichen Handlungen aus. Die Kunst der angenehmen Sinnenempfindung bezweckt nichts weiter, als wohlgefälligen Reitz für den Sinn, nach Regeln. Die schöne Kunst hat allezeit die Absicht, einem Ganzen interessanter Vorstellungen eine an sich gefallende Form zu geben. Die schöne Gartenkunst hat mit Befriedigung physischen Bedürfnisses, als schöne Kunst, gar nichts zu thun; man muss demnach, um ihr Wesen,

66

The German “Mittelweg” als einer solchen, rein zu bestimmen, alles darauf sich Beziehende wegrechnen.9 [Mechanical art is always concerned with the satisfaction of a purpose necessary to the furtherance and convenience of human life; it always requires the cognition of a possible object in order to guide the actions necessary for bringing it into existence. The art of pleasant sensation requires nothing further than the pleasurable stimulation of the senses according to rules. The art of the beautiful always has the aim of presenting a form that is pleasing in itself through a composed totality of interesting representations. Garden art, as an art of the beautiful, has absolutely nothing to do with the satisfaction of physical needs; in order to clearly determine its character in this regard, one must remove all such physical associations from consideration.]

Working within these basic distinctions, Heydenreich moves quickly to dismiss both the “regular” and “irregular” poles of garden design on two grounds: (1) they are based on ends that lie outside aesthetic judgment according to the Kantian critical philosophy and (2) their methods, or compositional principles, are derived from other arts and lack an original principle. The “regular” manner is removed from consideration not only because it supposedly has its ends squarely within the bounds of mechanical purposes, lying therefore outside the purview of fine art, but its compositional principles are derived from an art, namely architecture, that isn’t really a fine art anyway.10 That Heydenreich would dismiss the regular side of the equation is of little surprise, and for several reasons. The equating of regular forms with utility had already enjoyed a long history in German aesthetics, and architecture had even, in the Wolffian system, been subsumed within the discipline of applied mathematics. That regular forms, especially in architecture, had often been employed for symbolic, rather than utilitarian purposes, seems to have been ignored by Heydenreich and his contemporaries, but for them there remains a necessary connection between regularity and utility.11 One could further object that it is not so much that regular forms in the garden suggest utility as that for an eighteenth-century German audience they served as reminders of French cultural hegemony and absolutist politics, these associations being a more potent reason for rejection than the one Heydenreich actually invokes in his text. Nevertheless, Heydenreich’s critique of regular gardens rests upon the notion that the formal aspects of works of fine art cannot be derived primarily from utilitarian purposes.

The Semiotics of Strolling

67

The irregular side of the dualism is criticized as well and for similar reasons. Its ends are those of the merely pleasant arts, such as polite conversation and cooking,12 and it fails in this regard to avail itself of compositional resources based on unity that would raise it to the level of fine art. The means which it attempts to employ are those of painting, but even here this “regellos” gardening fails in that it derives its working methods from an ancillary discipline rather than developing a set of principles from within the conditions of gardening itself. Unlike the parallel argument about the regular garden and architecture, however, there is an ambiguity regarding the status of painting. Whereas Heydenreich clearly thinks that architecture belongs to the mechanical arts, he takes it as a matter of course that painting, especially landscape painting, is firmly ensconced within the polite company of the fine arts. Rather than arguing that painting presents a mere concatenation of sense perceptions, which would have directly paralleled the architecture/ utility argument and placed painting under the heading of the pleasant arts, he argues instead that the regellos aspect of gardening arises from the failure to connect individual scenes, not from the fact that the individual scenes are composed analogously to painting. Significantly, like Hirschfeld before him and others, especially Schiller, who would come after him, Heydenreich does not reject the compositional principles of painting outright. This rapprochement to painting suggests that Heydenreich’s “new” principle, like the Mittelweg of the others, will not be some sort of compromise lying halfway on a line between two endpoints. Rather it will be based on a principle that relies heavily on the basic features of one pole while transforming the central concepts of the other—regularity and unity—into something quite different. Strikingly, he brings about this transformation at the moment he introduces motion into the theory through that quintessential figure of Popularphilosophie, the “moving stroller,” but the implications of this move do not come into play until he takes up the topic in detail later in the text. One further aspect of Heydenreich’s argument on the autonomy of art is that he wishes to deny that schöne Gartenkunst has its origins in the gradual refinement of fruit and vegetable gardens, irrigation systems, and pastoralist land usage. The conclusion that he wishes to reach is that the principles of composition and their effects on human emotions, which he takes to be the distinctive feature of works of art,13 are wholly distinct from the material conditions through which they are deployed. Thus, a garden constructed as fine art would have a great deal in common with a painting, a poem, or a sonata, but nothing in common with an orchard except for the fact that they both consist of trees, soil, and grasses.14 The vigor with which Heydenreich presses this point is noteworthy, especially since many of his contemporaries

68

The German “Mittelweg”

and predecessors maintained just the opposite. He cites one of them, Friedrich Wilhelm Basilius Ramdohr, at some length: Die schöne Gartenkunst ist nur die jüngere reitzendere Schwester einer ältern Kunst, die ihren Ursprung dem Bedürfniss und dem Nutzen verdankte. Die geschmückte Erdentafel ist eine Verädlung oder Verschönerung des eingeschlossenen Feldes, (enclos,) oder des Fruchtgartens, den der Mensch um seine Hütte anlegte, mit einem Zaun umgab, um ihn vor dem Einbruche der Thiere und der Diebe zu schützen, und um der guten Ordnung willen in reguläre Felder abtheilte. So wie die Hütte zum Pallast geworden ist, so ist der Fruchtgarten zum Lustgarten geworden.15 [Garden art is simply the younger, charming sister of an older art that owes its origins to necessity and utility. The ornamented piece of earth is an ennoblement or embellishment of the enclosed field (enclos), or the orchard, which man laid out around his huts and surrounded with fences for protection from animals and thieves, and divided into regular fields out of a desire for a sense of order. Just as the hut evolved into the palace, so the orchard evolved into the luxury garden.]

One thinks, of course, of Laugier’s primitive hut as the seminal argument for this point of view and of its continuing influence down to Heydenreich’s time,16 yet in order to remain within the rigor of Kant’s aesthetics, Heydenreich rejects the empirical argument of Laugier and Ramdohr in favor of Kant’s transcendental one. And it is not just that there is, according to Heydenreich, no connection between schöne Gartenkunst and utilitarian gardens in either the past or the present, but that there have been no pleasure gardens up to the present that meet the requirements of fine art. So the uniqueness of schöne Gartenkunst is a development in human culture with several points of rupture, both with past endeavors and with other forms of gardening in the present.17 While it is clear that the theoretical motivation behind this strand of Heydenreich’s argument is two-fold—the elimination of both utilitarian gardens and formal pleasure gardens from consideration through a single principle—there is also a strong sociological element at work as well. Although this point will be taken up in detail in the last section of the chapter dealing with Heydenreich’s ethics, it is worth mentioning in passing in this context as a prelude to that discussion. Furthermore, it is a reminder that these social considerations are implicit in what Heydenreich subsequently presents as a

The Semiotics of Strolling

69

strictly theoretical set of propositions and deductions that are meant to follow from the foundational principles of the fine arts. For in pressing the notion that schöne Gartenkunst is distinct from both the utilitarian gardens of the laboring classes as well as the French-derived pleasure gardens of the upper classes, he is, in effect, proposing that its autonomous realm is the sole province of a new literate, bürgerlich public emerging somewhere between those two social worlds. That this radical separation between aesthetic activity and its material conditions is a difficult one for Heydenreich to maintain is readily apparent to a modern reader, but for more detailed reasons than were understood by Ramdohr and his contemporaries. It is significant, for example, that Georg Lukács, one of the few major philosophers since Heydenreich’s era to publish substantial comments on gardens, chooses to elaborate this same line of thought in his Ästhetik Teil I. For Lukács, ornamental gardens, like other works of art, must be understood as possessing a double structure consisting of the initial transformation of nature according to the material needs of everyday life and the subsequent aestheticized reflection (aesthetische Widerspiegelung) and presentation of these new “raw” materials according to different categories: Der Garten ist ebenso wie die Architektur aus rein praktischen Lebensbedürfnissen entstanden und auch im Laufe der späteren Entwicklung bleibt die überwältigende Mehrheit der Gärten von diesem Gesichtspunkt wesentlich unberührt (Gemüsegärten etc.). . . . Darüber hinaus noch scheint es sicher, daß die ersten Prinzipien der Regelung der organischen Natur, das Ordnen der Pflanzen in regelmäßige Linien, die geometrisch abgezirkelten Formen der einzelnen Beete, oft des ganzen Gartens aus Gründen der besseren Nutzbarkeit entstanden and erst sehr allmählich zu Aufbauprinzipien einer ästhetischen Gestaltung geworden sind. Die Dialektik der gedoppelten Mimesis muß also auch hier die herrschende sein: eine dem Wesen nach desanthropomorphisierende Widerspiegelung der objektiven Gesetze des Wachsens und Gedeihens der Pflanzen im Dienste einer Zielsetzung, die aus gesellschaftlichen Gründen entstanden ist, wird dann von ästhetischen Kategorien reproduziert und entsprechend umgeformt.18 [The garden, like architecture, has its origins in purely practical everyday needs. Even through the course of later developments, the overwhelming majority of gardens (vegetable gardens, etc.) have remained essentially unchanged from this point of view. . . . Moreover, it appears certain that the first principles of the regulation of organic nature—the

70

The German “Mittelweg” ordering of plants in regular lines, the geometric encircling forms of individual beds and, often, the entire garden—were devised to improve utility and only very gradually became compositional principles for an aesthetic design. The dialectic of double mimesis, therefore, must also in this case be the dominant [principle]: one in which the essence of the objective laws of the growth and development of plants, having been put into the service of a socially-derived objective through a disanthropomorphizing process of contrastive reflection, is subsequently reproduced and reconfigured in conformity with aesthetic categories.]

While we will return to the problem of raw materials and their transformation into garden “elements” when we consider Heydenreich’s semiotics, it is enough to note here that the signifying capacity of these altered materials has a social as well as a formal dimension. Heydenreich clearly believes that the radical separation between purely aesthetic motives and those rooted in material circumstances performs necessary work for his theory. This work, however, is not merely the formal solution to a conundrum generated by the antinomies of a received binary system. Instead, it is also an implicit aesthetic program for an emerging literate class that is seeking to legitimate itself through a “direct” connection with nature, one that bypasses the first moment of the Widerspiegelung. Heydenreich’s efforts to secure an autonomous realm for his garden theory, then, are also meant to open a path to a nature that is equally autonomous, a “landschaftliche Natur” that is neither bent to the whims of a decadent upper class nor subdued toward agricultural ends by farmers and peasants. The exclusive claims of vision. Heydenreich does not confine himself to arguments concerning utility as he seeks to determine the bounds of schöne Gartenkunst. He also maintains that for garden design, vision is the only one of our senses that is capable of providing the sort of cognitive experience requisite for aesthetic judgment: Ein andrer Fehler vieler Theorieen besteht darin, dass man das Schöne der Gartenkunst, statt es bloss auf den Gesichtssinn zu beziehen, auch auf Gehör, Gefühl und Geruch ausdehnt. Diese Sinne werden nun freylich in jedem schönen Garten auf mannigfaltige angenehme Weise gerührt, allein diese Rührungen gehören nicht zum eigentlichen Schönen des Gartens.19 [Another error of many theories consists in [the following]: rather than being limited to vision, garden art’s relation to the beautiful is extended

The Semiotics of Strolling

71

to hearing, touch, and smell. These senses will, of course, be pleasantly stirred by various means in every beautiful garden; however, these sensations do not belong, strictly speaking, to the actual beauty of the garden.]

This stance is directly related to his initial tri-partite division of the arts. Gardens of the first category, the pleasant arts (Künste der blossen Sinnenempfindung), work immediately through the various senses, especially through touch, hearing, and scent, and merely cause fleeting pleasant sensations. Yet they don’t provide enough complex visual information to furnish material for an aesthetic judgment. Even simple arrangements of flowers in a meadow (Blumenflur) though they might appeal primarily to the eye satisfy only the first category in that they please through a play of color (Farbenspiel) that does not invite a cognitive reflection based on form. Remarkably, Heydenreich even includes the grottos, arbors, and waterfalls of pleasure gardens in this category because their artificially cool environments satisfy the needs of physical comfort on a hot day.20 As pervasive, even constitutive, as these qualities are in the experience of a garden, for Heydenreich they do not determine its essence as fine art, which as an art of the beautiful remains solely visual: Die schöne Garten, als solcher, is nur schön für das Auge. Ansicht, Einsicht, Umsicht, Aussicht, Uebersicht, bestimmen seinen ästhetischen Charakter.21 [The beautiful garden, as such, is beautiful only for the eye. Views, scenes, panoramas, prospects, and vistas determine its aesthetic character.]

As in the tri-partite division of the arts, Heydenreich’s debt to Kant is strongly in evidence here. This is the case both in the emphasis on vision and in the preference for form at the expense of color in defining a pure aesthetic judgment. Two passages from the Critique of Judgment make the point quite clearly: The formative arts, or those by which expression is found for ideas in sensible intuition (not by representations of mere imagination that are aroused by words) are either arts of sensible truth or of sensible illusion. The former is called plastic, the latter painting. Both express ideas by figures in space: the former makes figures cognizable by two senses, sight

72

The German “Mittelweg” and touch (although not by the latter as far as beauty is concerned); the latter only by one, the first of these.22 In painting, sculpture, and in all the formative arts—in architecture and horticulture [Gartenkunst], so far as they are beautiful arts—the delineation is the essential thing; and here it is not what gratifies in sensation but what pleases by means of its form that is fundamental for taste. The colors which light up the sketch belong to the charm; they may indeed enliven the object for sensation, but they cannot make it worthy of contemplation and beautiful.23

By opening his garden theory with echoes of these passages, Heydenreich is consciously announcing himself to be working in the Kantian mode. However, the fit is an uneasy one. Heydenreich never achieves the degree of consistency found in Kant’s work nor is he ever entirely comfortable with the rigorous demands of Critical Philosophy with regard to a priori explanation and transcendental method. His own early interests in empirical psychology24 as well as the strong tradition of one of its offspring, associationism, in eighteenth-century garden theory25 make the attempted transition difficult for him. Yet his adoption of Kant’s emphasis on visual form remains decisive for his theory in one important respect: it leads him toward a re-appraisal of his early thoughts on the legibility of signs, which results in their transformation into the framing ideas for his “succession of scenes” principle. This transformed framework is made possible by a creative interpretation of the principle of coordinated unity, the third important feature of Heydenreich’s theory of fine art. Coordinated unity. The necessity of unity, both in the sense manifold and in the structure of the perceiving subject itself, is presupposed in much of what Heydenreich has to say about the garden Genie, the composition of individual scenes, and the bringing together of several scenes in a “primary mood” (Hauptstimmung). He is generally unreflective about the notion, but it is worth sketching briefly how his assumptions about unity structure much of his subsequent discussion. The most important of these assumptions is what, in some analyses of Kant’s epistemology and aesthetics, has been called the “bundle theory.”26 Put crudely, it is the proposition that we create “objects” in sense perception through the synthesizing activity of our own cognitive faculties. Rather than existing in some metaphysical sense as independent essences, the objects of experience are the result of the synthesis of individual, unconnected sense data according to a set of broad rules that Kant terms the “categories of the understanding [Verstand].” As such, objects

The Semiotics of Strolling

73

reflect the organizational activity of our own cognitive faculties as much as they do the sense data given to them. This picture of intrinsically disconnected, chaotic bits of matter being organized by a transcendent point of unity, the subject, is implicit in passages such as the following, where Heydenreich concludes his opening remarks on fine art: Der Gartenkünstler hat unter allen andern Künstlern das Eigene, dass er die vollständigen Materialien zu seinen Kompositionen in der Natur vorfindet, und ihm nichts übrig bleibt, als das geschäft, dieselben nach Ideen auf mancherlei Weise zu verknüpfen. Nichts desto weniger zeigt sich das gärtnerische Genie, wie alles wahre Genie zur Kunst, als produktives Vermögen, indem es Verbindungen und Ganze bildet, welche sich in der wirklichen Natur nicht finden.27 [The garden artist is unique among all the other artists in that he finds all the materials for his compositions in nature already; it remains for him only to combine them through various means according to ideas. Nevertheless, the genius for garden art, like all true artistic genius, shows itself to be a productive faculty in that it forms connections and wholes that are not found in nature itself.]

The operative words here are verknüpfen and Verbindungen, with Heydenreich maintaining that the task of the garden artist is nothing other than to gather nature’s “found” materials into new compositions and wholes. As Heydenreich develops his concept of the Genie later in the text, the implicit reliance on the bundle theory becomes problematic, for he will have to account for “scenes” and “compositions” that already exist in landschaftliche Natur that are not the result of the unifying activity of a transcendent subject. Some other explanatory principle will be needed to account for those seemingly purposive forms that do not fit the model of either blind mechanism or of unity imposed from the outside. Furthermore, many of the garden elements turn out to be unstable as objects, either by growth over time, by being viewed from different vantage points, or by virtue of the difficulty of cognizing them as “objects” when they more closely resemble texture, or milieu. The point is especially important to make in the context of Heydenreich’s opening remarks on fine art because it so closely parallels his understanding of the differences between the regellos and regelmäßig principles of garden art. Both operate according to the same understanding of the production of unity, the former exhibiting the disconnected, random mechanism of rohe Natur and the latter the imposition of form through an external power.

74

The German “Mittelweg”

Heydenreich’s Genie, starting from an identical metaphysical framework, will find itself forced to adjust these assumptions. Aesthetics and ethics. Like most other German aestheticians of the late eighteenth century, Heydenreich was committed to the view that art was of deep relevance to society through lending support to the ends and claims of morality. There were many attempts to demonstrate the purported connection between the two realms, and the Popularphilosophie tradition in Germany had been especially keen to shore up the notion of a direct link. Given Heydenreich’s commitment to a definition of fine art based on autonomy, there was, consequently, a built-in tension between the need to justify fine art on the basis of its support of morality and the simultaneous desire to understand its unique and peculiar place in human affairs. His moral theory, like most of his philosophy produced in the 1790s, can be described as a modified adaptation of Kant’s. The most important consequence of this relationship for the garden theory stems from another of Kant’s tri-partite divisions, found in the Kritik der praktischen Vernunft: namely, actions determined by the passions, those which employ mechanical rules to achieve merely practical ends, and those determined by freedom, i.e., the determination of the will according to a universal law of reason (Vernunft). This division closely parallels Kant’s division of the arts, and it overlays closely with Heydenreich’s understanding of the moral dimensions of the regular and irregular gardens. The irregular garden corresponds to the first division, the regular garden to the second, and Heydenreich’s proposed alternative to the third. As with other instances where he borrows from Kant, Heydenreich tends to lapse back into a posteriori argument rather quickly, so most of his comments concerning morality and Gartenkunst are of this variety.28 Yet there are echoes of the appeal to Kant’s definition of freedom in the development of the theory of the garden Genie, and some of the novelty of this doctrine will turn out to be indebted to this implicit overlay found in Heydenreich’s introduction concerning fine art. GARDEN SEMIOTICS Vision and legibility: the lure of semiotics. Before Heydenreich hit upon the basic features of his 1792/1793 garden theory, he had already written several substantial passages on gardens in his System der Ästhetik of 1790. These passages seem almost incidental in that work, filling out as they do the pieces of a larger scheme driven by other concerns, but they offer some important insights into the ways he was already thinking about gardens in relation to his larger philosophical project. The most important conclusion that emerges

The Semiotics of Strolling

75

from them is that gardens, because they more than any other art form most closely fulfill the requirements of the “natural sign,” sketch the limits of any aesthetics which is based primarily on a semiotic theory. Working as he was under the lasting effects of his immersion in Spinoza’s philosophy and his recent embrace of Kantianism but without the benefit of the Critique of Judgment, Heydenreich needed to push the limits of the theory in his possession. Although probably not intended as such, the garden turned out to be a good test case. What follows is an attempt to tease out just which of these issues reached their limit (and why) and to see how this led to their modification in Heydenreich’s mature garden theory. Several times during the 1790 System Heydenreich states that a product of fine art is the adequate expression (Ausdruck) or presentation (Darstellung) of a determinate state of feeling (Empfindung) within the artist into a physical medium. This expression is then re-experienced by, or re-constituted within, a viewer, listener or reader. It is thus primarily an act of communication, but of a particular sort. This is perhaps stated nowhere better than in the following passage, which occurs after a lengthy section in which Heydenreich tries to refute, one by one, the major aesthetic theories of his day, including those of Baumgarten, Meier, Mendelssohn, and Moritz.29 Die Zwecke und Bedürfnisse für den Geist beziehn sich entweder auf die Erkenntnißkräfte, oder auf das Empfindungsvermögen. Als erkennendes Wesen besitzt der Mensch den nothwendigen Trieb seine Kenntnisse zu erweitern, und unter seinen Nebenmenschen zu verbreiten, als empfindendes, den Trieb, seine Empfindungen darzustellen und mitzutheilen. Jener erzeugt die Werke der Wissenschaft, dieser die Werke der Künste. Jedes Werk der schönen Kunst ist also die Darstellung eines bestimmtes Zustandes der Empfindsamkeit.30 [The purposes and needs of the spirit have reference either to the powers of cognition or to the capacity for feeling. As a cognitive being, man necessarily desires to broaden his knowledge and to disseminate it among his fellows; as a feeling being, he desires to represent and share his sensations. The former gives rise to works of science; the latter, to works of art. Every work of fine art is therefore the presentation of a determinate state of sensibility.]

What Heydenreich believes he has accomplished in his central principle is to have avoided the metaphysical pitfalls of the so-called perfectionists (Vollkommenheitsmänner) as well as what he took to be an inadequate

76

The German “Mittelweg”

position developed by Moritz, which emphasized works of art as wholes complete within themselves. Given the range of possibilities that had been tried by others, he believed that he had identified a principle that moved beyond the usual formula of unity in variety, wholes and parts, etc. Whether or not one judges his effort successful on these grounds, the important point is that his engagement with Moritz’s supposedly radical autonomy31 pushed him toward the communicative role of art, that is, a direction that lent itself quite readily to the use of semiotics and the philosophy of language that were available at the time.32 Within the framework of a communications-based aesthetics, one of the primary criteria must be the legibility of its signs. The classical notion of imitation, the central doctrine of most eighteenth-century aesthetics, required that the sign connect to the world in a rather straightforward way, as in the ordinary usage of speech. Each sign would correspond quite literally to a recognizable object. Above all, legibility meant the absence of any figures of speech beyond ordinary usage, a class of rhetorical devices that required some level of “deceit” to bring about their expressive deviation from normal prose.33 Much of this thinking was rooted in a tradition dating from Cicero,34 where rhetorical ornament was understood to mark the shift from the usefulness of speech in its effects, either to communicate information or to move the listener, to an appreciation of its form.35 In the visual arts, this had meant a classical ideal in which the copy, the sign, resembled as closely as possible the original. By the eighteenth century, however, beauty for the first time came to be more highly valued than imitation, at least from a theoretical standpoint. The harmonious combination of the elements of an object among themselves was an accomplishment more valued than truthful depiction, and writers such as Locke were praising the pleasures of ornament and figure precisely for their power to deceive.36 The meaning of legibility was changing from an emphasis on the relation between the sign and the world to a focus on the internal structure of the sign itself. Heydenreich’s aesthetics displays evidence of this gradual shift, often seemingly at odds with itself as to which principle is in ascendancy. In the garden theory, this ambivalence is evident in the way he treats the relationships between the garden and the natural world, between the garden and the feelings of the viewer or the artist, and within the garden elements themselves as a beautiful arrangement. In each case, he employs a corresponding notion of legibility to describe the relationship: (1) the term landschaftliche, (2) the term Ausdruck, and (3) the concept of the natural sign. Landschaftliche Natur as aesthetic excess. The inevitable differences between model and copy, referent and sign, were especially vexing for

The Semiotics of Strolling

77

garden theorists working in this transitional moment. These differences, given a positive or negative valuation according the intellectual fashions of various eras, became in Heydenreich’s time the chief object of investigation for aesthetics. For garden theorists, the most important characterization of difference was contained in the term schöne Natur. In short, the term refers to using nature as the model for a work of art, but selecting for imitation only those aspects which are deemed beautiful. Its transitional character for these theorists consists in the peculiar way it combines elements of both imitation and expression. The long-standing ambiguity concerning schöne Natur has been described with great clarity by Todorov,37 and I will only summarize here those aspects of his argument that bear upon Heydenreich’s work. In the German context, Todorov refers to the work of Friedrich Justus Riedel,38 who identifies four degrees of difference that can take place in the process of imitation, of which Todorov mentions three: zero degree, to imitate perfectly; first degree, to imitate imperfectly (an adverbial formulation); and second degree, to imitate beautiful nature (an object complement formulation). The term schöne gestures toward the lack of precision in the doctrine by signifying an excess in judgment that cannot be conceptualized or otherwise accounted for. There is no inherent criterion for determining which of nature’s parts are “beautiful.” Heydenreich was aware of these difficulties and acknowledges as much in his discussion of schöne Natur in the System der Ästhetik, where he includes it as one of several inadequate formulas that have been put forward by others as the basic principle of aesthetics: Der Ausdruck schöne Natur ist so beschaffen, daß man ihn nach Belieben deuten, bald erweitern, bald einschränken kann; es ist fast unmöglich, ihm eine bestimmte eigene Sphäre anzuweisen. Wendet man ihn allein auf die physiche Natur an, wer will die Gränzen scharf genug ziehn, wo das Schöne darinn sich vom bloß Interessanten scheidet?39 [The expression “beautiful nature” is constituted in such a way that one can indicate, then broaden, then restrict its meaning as one pleases; it is almost impossible to assign it a determinate sphere of its own. Even when applied to physical nature alone, who is able to draw with exactitude the boundary where the beautiful differentiates itself from the merely interesting?]

But the difficulty Heydenreich had in moving beyond this formulation is evident in the title of his 1793 essay, “Philosophische Grundsätze über die

78

The German “Mittelweg”

Nachahmung der landschaftlichen Natur in Gärten.” In the new terminology, landschaftliche Natur has replaced schöne Natur, but the terms might as well be identical, for the adjective landschaftliche performs the same function as schöne: it denotes the range of ineffable (i.e., illegible) judgments that are made in determining which parts of nature are deemed worthy of imitation. The closest he comes to providing a definition is as follows: Ich habe mich durchgängig des Ausdrucks der landschaftlichen Natur bedient, weil die Natur der schönen sowohl bildenden als anbauenden Kunst eben damit Stoffe darbietet, dass sie Landschaften enthält, und sie sich damit allein den Vorstellungen schöner Kunst nähert.40 [I have used the expression “natural landscape” throughout because nature presents material for the beautiful as well as the formative and cultivating arts to the extent that it includes landscapes. It is only in this respect that it approaches the representations of beautiful art.]

Landschaftliche Natur, then, is that part of nature which most closely resembles those landscapes that conform to the norms of fine art. One assumes that he has in mind the conventions of both landscape painting and poetry,41 but he does not specify at this point. In any case, the definition remains circular and does not progress toward a more positive content for the term. Similarly, there was another, neo-Platonic conception of the imitation of nature being propounded at the same time. In essence, it was the argument that since nature was itself an imperfect copy of an ideal model, the artist should bypass the copy (nature) and imitate the original (the ideal model). This “ideal model,” although invisible, could be discerned by the synthesis in the mind of a composite of partial perfections collected from the observation of nature, but to which none of its individual specimens completely conforms. It is carried within the artist and used to create works of art; nowhere is it found in nature. In the German context, the name most associated with this doctrine was Winckelmann. Although Heydenreich appears not to have had much respect for Winckelmann’s work, he had no reservations about using the idea most closely associated with him, including it in both System and the 1793 essay. The 1790 text reads as follows: Der Gartenkünstler wird im Zustande seiner lebhaft gerührten Empfindsamkeit, durch ein entweder blos von außen empfangenes, oder

The Semiotics of Strolling

79

durch eigene Kraft gebildetes, Phantasiegemählde mannigfaltiger in einem Ganzen der wirklichen sichtbaren Natur vereinigten landschaftlichen Schönheiten zur Darstellung bestimmt.42 [Stirred either by a picture that is merely externally perceived or by one formed through the power of his own fantasy, the garden artist is moved to bring the agitated state of his sentiments into focus through a presentation that unifies the various beautiful landscapes of real, visible nature into a whole.]

In the 1793 essay he refers to the concept as an Urbild: Er kann sich aber auch die Natur zum Urbilde nehmen, wiefern sie landschaftlich ist, und sie so entweder unverändert nachbilden, wie sie sich in ihren Landschaften zeigt, oder den Charakter der Landschaft noch nach eigner Idee läutern, erhöhen und verädeln.43 [[The garden artist] can, however, also take nature as his ideal model, at least insofar as it is like a landscape, and either imitate it without alteration in the same way that nature appears as landscape—or expand, heighten, and ennoble the character of the landscape according to his own ideas.]

In both passages, Heydenreich states that the garden artist has access to two possible techniques for creating schöne Gartenkunst: either the direct reproduction of pieces of landschaftliche Natur or the representation of its ideal model. In distinguishing them as two equally valid techniques, he implicitly employs the principles of both landschaftliche Natur and the ideal model. However, he seems to disregard their shared problematic status with regard to the source of figural difference, a point he was more clearly aware of when criticizing aesthetic theories based on schöne Natur. The same analysis that Todorov has made of Diderot on this matter could equally apply to Heydenreich: Thus everything that cannot be explained by the imitation of perceived objects is attributed to imitation of an invisible model that is held in the mind of the artist. The expedient is effective, but to what extent is it satisfying? What has been done but to give a name (“ideal model”) to what was incomprehensible in the process of imitation—a name that, far from revealing anything, by its very existence blocks the way to

80

The German “Mittelweg” exploration of the problem, making it appear to have been resolved? The “ideal model” does not coincide perfectly with “beautiful nature”—the latter is situated at the same level as nature, the former is the prototype of nature—but they converge in their inability to designate in any positive way everything that, in the work of art, cannot be explained by the principle of imitation.44

Concept formation I: elements. Although these inherent ambiguities prevent Heydenreich from giving a precise definition of artistic deviation in the imitation of beautiful nature, his discussion of garden elements, especially in their role as signs, provides more clarity on this point. The selection process by which certain parts of nature, whether understood as single objects or groups of objects, are determined to be schön or landschaftlich is described by Heydenreich in several passages as one of simplification or purification (Reinheit). That is, elements would be selected on the basis of their ability to express, univocally, some quality, usually described as character (Charakter). Der Gartenkünstler concentrirt in seinem Werke das Schönste und Geistigste, was nur die landschafliche Natur enthält; er wird hierin die Natur in sofern übertreffen, dass er alles Mässige, Fremdartige und Widrige, was oft ihren reitzendesten Szenen beygemischt ist, von seinem Werke entfernt, und ihm vollkommene Reinheit ertheilt.45 [The garden artist distills in his work only the most beautiful and spiritual in natural landscape; in this respect, by removing everything mediocre, odd, and contrary (which are so often admixed into its most charming scenes), he exceeds nature and confers upon his work an absolute purity.] Nach dem Begriffe der Landschaft ergiebt sich von selbst, dass jede wahre Landschaft Charakter hat. Dieser Charakter besteht ganz in der Fähigkeit, unserm Geiste eine gewisse Stimmung mitzutheilen, ihm zu einem gewissen Spiele der Vorstellungen, zu gewissen Bestrebungen und Gefühlen die Richtung zu geben.46 [The concept of landscape itself suggests that every true landscape has character. This character consists entirely in its capacity to communicate a certain mood to our spirit, produce in it a certain play of representations, and guide it toward certain strivings and feelings.]

The Semiotics of Strolling

81

If we look at Heydenreich’s general theory of signs as presented in System, we can see this process at work. His basic understanding of the elements of works of art is that they function as signs (Zeichen) which “paint” the various components of an inner emotional state: “In order to depict [mahlen] a feeling or a passion, I must have a sign.”47 His contention was that in order for this to occur, the signs themselves must share the basic characteristics of the emotions. Consequently, his aesthetics reads as a sort of correspondence theory, not merely in the general manner of previous landscape theorists such as Sulzer and Hirschfeld, but in an analytic sense as well. He bases the correspondence on the principle of resemblance, which as we will see in the next section, indicates that he was thinking primarily of natural signs. First, he lists what he considers to be the four essential characteristics of emotions and feelings:48 (1) Time is the necessary form of all feeling, so feelings and emotions are defined by aspects of quicker and slower succession. (2) Feelings are stronger or weaker, having grades of intensity. This is due in part to the manner in which the individual moments are connected, in part to their duration (Zeitmaas). (3) Feelings are characterized both by their continuity (Beharrlichkeit) and development (Stetigkeit). Their continuity is apparent in their ability to remain stable for given periods of time; their changes are governed by a lawfulness that appears in discernible stages (scheinbaren Sprüngen). (4) Feelings can exhibit a wide range of variation (Mannigfaltigkeit) according to quality and speed without one losing the unity of their general character (allgemeine Charakter).

After enumerating these characteristics, Heydenreich makes a parallel, identical list of the qualities that signs must possess if they are to function properly in the expression and presentation of feelings. At the end of this second iteration, he describes the purpose of identifying signs that can be said to “resemble” the feelings they depict: Ein Zeichen, welches allen diesen Forderungen Genüge leistet, muß nothwendig Gefühle und Leidenschaften kopieren können, und seine Nachahmungen werden unfehlbar wirken, wenn sie durch den Sinn, für welchen sie bestimmt sind, in allen ihren Theilen, und nach allen

82

The German “Mittelweg” Graden ihrer Dauer unterscheidend gefaßt werden können, welches eine Grundforderung ist. Diese Wirkung wird aber bloß kalte Bewunderung der Wahrheit der Nachahmung seyn; wenn nicht unser Geist ursprünglich so eingerichtet ist, daß auf das besußte Vernehmen der Nachahmung durch den Sinn, unausbleiblich Versetzung in denselben Gefühl- oder Leidenschaft-Zustand folgt, welchen die Nachahmung darstellt.49 [If a sign is to fulfill these requirements, it must necessarily be able to copy feelings and passions. And its imitative effect will succeed unfailingly if these feelings can be grasped in all their different aspects and degrees of duration through the appropriate mode of sense. The latter is a fundamental requirement. This effect, however, would be merely a cold fascination with the accuracy of the imitation were it not for the fact that our spirit is disposed in such a way that in perceiving the imitation through the charm of the senses, it is invariably transported into the same state of feeling or passion represented by the imitation.]

In short, the internal structure of the signs and their dynamic connections with one another are said to copy those same structures and dynamics within the artist and to induce them in the viewer or listener. The correspondence is thus quite formal, having little to do with the referent of the sign, as would be the case, for example, in allegory.50 Furthermore, it is clear from his discussion that Heydenreich assumes that two things happen in the formation of a sign: (1) The phenomenon must be simplified or abstracted to be easily recognizable and repeatable, and (2) It is rendered stable through this process, both internally and in relationship to human feeling. These characteristics are mutually supporting and allow for the construction of complex unities in works of art. Heydenreich takes music to be the paradigmatic case for his theory. He believes that its signs—tones—offer the most direct, immediate transfer of inner feeling to exterior form according to the four criteria and also that it has the added advantage of combining both successive and simultaneous unities. Part of its exemplary status as opposed to, say, poetry is that it bypasses the problem of concepts to focus directly on feelings, foregrounding the formal characteristics of the sign against its referent.51 If music is taken to be the paradigmatic case, then how do gardens compare on these issues? We can begin to construct an answer by looking first at the broad categories of garden elements which Heydenreich enumerates in the 1793 essay. Here he states, “These scenes, forms, and shapes are indeed

The Semiotics of Strolling

83

the same materials that nature presents to the garden genius to be worked upon.”52 These “scenes, forms, and shapes” fall into six groups, but before examining these divisions it is important to note a few things about this list. It is striking, for example, that Heydenreich’s categories are limited to natural objects.53 This narrow focus is reminiscent of Whately and conspicuously excludes sculpture, buildings, urns, and inscriptions, all of which had figured prominently in the work of Hirschfeld. Second, his terminology makes an odd distinction between forms (Formen) and mere shapes (Gestalten), which begins to suggest an awareness of the inherent fuzziness of edges in garden elements. And third, by including scenes (Szenen) in this list, he is blending two levels of organization, individual “elements” and their grouping into larger compositional units, as if they were equivalent for analysis. The six categories by which Heydenreich groups these materials are distinguished by the manner in which they relate to human feeling.54 They include natural objects which please immediately on the basis of their form, those which arouse feelings of liveliness, those which please according to their unexpected regularity, those which arouse a pleasant train of thought, those which bring to mind ideas of theoretical reason (theoretischen Vernunft) and the mechanical sublime (i.e., recognition of the overwhelming power and magnitude of nature), and those which produce noble thoughts and feelings of the moral sublime. Of these six categories, two are relevant to the way in which semiotics informs Heydenreich’s approach to garden elements: natural objects that please immediately on the basis of their form, and those that display an unexpected regularity.55 These two classes form the basis by which he frames the difference between natural and artificial beauty, a distinction that is not present in System but which occupied him at great length after his encounter with the Critique of Judgment. The distinction, and its mediation in the field of schöne Gartenkunst, is defined by Heydenreich according to the presence or absence of concepts in the determination of form. The garden becomes for him a case study on the formation of concepts, where he begins to delineate a ground in garden practice that lies somewhere “between” percept and concept. If we think of the construction of signs along a spectrum from words to garden elements, and look at Heydenreich’s list of signs for the various arts,56 it becomes clear that words are not different in kind from other signs as the usually radical distinction between sense perception and concept would suggest. Rather, they are simply the most distant from the original, physical material where signs originate. Regardless of this degree of abstraction, they retain traces of their materiality (ink, paper, utterance, sound waves) in their production and persistence as well as in their status as dead metaphors (e.g.

84

The German “Mittelweg”

Begriff, Grund, Urteil, etc.). Tones in music are purified versions of everyday noises rendered consistent, simple, and stable; pigments are controlled instances of color; and the elements of architecture are generally found materials that have been given regular, repeatable shapes. The outcome of this reworking of material, especially in architecture, is to diminish the individual piece in favor of a larger effect. The single brick is lost in the uniform texture and color of the wall, an individual column is less noticeable as a member of the colonnade, etc. Lukács recognized this quality of the geometric garden, with its roots in architectural principles, whereby trees become allées, shrubs become hedges, and flowers become bedded carpets.57 The landscape garden, by contrast, plays with the notion of the individual, used as a sign (standing in for “nature”) but retaining its individual characteristics to such a degree that it almost destroys the status of the object as a sign. In part, this comes from the fact that the sign is alive and will cease to exist if the organic requirements for its life are not met. But it is even more interesting for the way it provokes the following questions: (1) How does a garden sign emerge from the chaotic background of the material world? and (2) How do we recognize it when it hardly seems to differ from this background? The landscape garden exploits this ambiguity by several means, but it occurs only when elements participate in compositions rather than when they are seen to function as signs in isolation. A single specimen of a species that carries cultural connotations can function as a sign, for example, but only if the viewer has both the botanical knowledge to recognize the species and enough literary knowledge to understand the reference. Formally, this approach requires a background of “neutral” species against which the specimen can be perceived through contrast. The clump, a favorite device of the era, functions as a first level ordering toward a sign. Similarly, an expanse of lawn, through its uniformity of color and texture, works analogously to a stone or brick wall in architecture. Like the clump, it combines members of the same species in close proximity to stand out as an “object” for perception. In each case, a process of abstraction begins to take place so that an ordinary natural object begins to function as a sign. One well-known example of this process from Heydenreich’s time is the Isle of Rousseau at Ermenonville, copied in many gardens throughout Germany including the famous example at Wörlitz. It is a circular island whose perimeter is echoed by a ring of poplars. A memorial urn stands in the center. Excluding the urn, the effect of the island as an object-like icon is achieved through a few simple natural elements. The island itself has a definite, regular boundary, which contrasts with its background, the water. The poplars contribute to the effect not only by contrasting their strongly vertical forms against

The Semiotics of Strolling

85

the other plant forms on the surrounding shoreline, but also by reinforcing the circular shape of the island, creating a formal double. In addition to these compositional aspects, the island also signifies in that as Rousseau’s memorial, it brings to mind his literature, a reference that is literally made to words. The copying of the island in gardens throughout the Continent enumerates another way in which some garden elements function as signs: the original design becomes so well known through travel and print that its copies are recognized as just that, copies.58 This reproducibility is another level of sign formation, the repeatability of the motif and its recognition by a (culturally) literate audience, which hardly differs from the function of words in natural language. Which in turn suggests the repetition of garden motifs or patterns that actually become words in natural language, such as allée, grove, meadow, vale, labyrinth, path, and terrace. Although each instance is formally different (unlike actual words) the pattern is recognizable enough that it has been assigned a term in ordinary usage. Heydenreich’s semiotics is bound very closely to his conception of fine art, yet as we have already noted it has an odd relationship to it in one respect, namely in the denial of the utilitarian origins of fine art. It suggests that in addition to the cultural reasons for this negative valuation, there is an addition, formal, reason rooted in his view of semiotics: the need to identify the

Figure 15. Isle of Rousseau at Ermenonville, France, engraving in Hirschfeld’s Theorie der Gartenkunst, II:59 Reproduced by permission from Kehn, Christian Cay Lorenz Hirschfeld, Plate 43.

86

The German “Mittelweg”

most basic units of the lexicon. Most contemporary philosophies of language had assumed a historical evolution of semiotic elements that proceeds from raw, unworked materials to artifacts to signs.59 Heydenreich, however, wishes to leap over the mediate stage and get directly to “nature” to find his own garden elements. The nature he has in mind, of course, is a cultural landscape, so there is already a deep ambiguity involved. But there is also a question as to whether this landscape is cultural in its “elements” or only in its configuration of those elements as agriculture, pastoralism, and forestry.60 The search for “pure” nature begins, then, with the most basic materials, and the semiotic framework ensures that the analysis of elements and compositions will be quite different from one another. The urge to define these fundamental materials as “nature” is exemplified in Heydenreich’s pursuit of the natural sign. Natural signs. There are two passages in System where Heydenreich is most clear about how gardens function within his semiotic theory. In each case he is forced to admit that gardens do not fit cleanly into the system, signaling that he has reached some sort of limit within the internal logic of his argument. Mit den bildenden Künsten ist nahe verwandt die schöne Gartenkunst, nur mit dem Unterschiede, daß hier die Schönheiten der landschaftlichen Natur durch sich selbst nachgeahmt werden. Ein schöner Kunstgarten setzt einen Plan voraus: dieser muß eine Phantasieanschauung einer entweder ingendwo wirklich gesehenen, oder nur gedichteten Vereinigung mannigfaltiger Schönheiten der landschaftlichen Natur zu einem Ganzen, seyn. Der bildende Künstler würde diese durch nachbildende Zeichen darstellen, der Gartenkünstler thut es durch wirkliche Theile der landschaftlichen Natur, die sich nach einem bestimmten Zwecke versetzen, anbauen und modificiren lassen.61

[Garden art is closely related to the formative arts, but with the difference that in this case the beauties of natural landscape are imitated through themselves. A garden conceived as a work of fine art presupposes a plan. This plan must be a mental image either of some place that has actually been seen or of a composition that has been fashioned together out of the various beauties of natural landscape. The formative artist would represent this image through imitative signs; the garden artist does this through actual portions of natural landscape that are rearranged, cultivated, and modified according to a particular purpose.]

The Semiotics of Strolling

87

Er [der Gartenkünstler] unterscheidet sich vom plastischen Künstler blos dadurch, daß er die landschaftliche Natur durch sie selbst kopiert, durch sie selbst verschönert, durch ihren eigenen Stoff seine gedichteten Plane realisert. Streng genommen dürfte man schwerlich sagen, der Gartenkünstler besitze ein Zeichen, um darzustellen, wie der Tonkünstler Tone, der Dichter Wörter, der Tänzer Bewegungen, der Mahler Farben.62

[The garden artist distinguishes himself from the plastic artist simply by the fact that he copies natural landscape through itself, embellishes it through itself, and realizes his poetic plans through nature’s own materials. Strictly speaking, one is hard-pressed to maintain that the garden artist possesses a sign for representing in the same sense that the composer has tones, the poet words, the dancer movements, and the painter colors.]

The problem Heydenreich identifies is that gardens, “strictly speaking,” do not really employ signs in the same way that the other arts in his system do. They do not, in fact, have a “sign” in the same sense. Although he directly discusses natural signs in only one passage,63 Heydenreich employs the concept to great effect when he encounters the garden. In eighteenth-century aesthetics, the term “natural sign” is relatively interchangeable with the term “motivated sign.” Its distinguishing feature is that it posits a “motivation,” or resemblance, between signifier and signified within the structure of the sign itself. As such, it marks a departure from the previous notions of imitation which had described resemblance as a relationship between the sign and the world it represents. What Heydenreich unwittingly identifies in the case of the garden considered semiotically, at least in its form as Landschaftsgarten or Naturgarten, is the danger of collapse of any difference between signifier and signified, sign and material world. Although there are many places one could develop this insight in relation to theories of the natural sign contemporary with Heydenreich,64 the most fruitful applications lie in the work of Lessing.65 Lessing had argued that the most complex case of the natural sign is in poetry, where arbitrary signs (words) are motivated through such devices as metaphor, sonority, rhythm, figure, trope, and meter. By bringing the signifier, though arbitrary, into some level of resemblance with what it signifies, poetry makes the sign expressive rather than merely denotative. Like the schöne in the imitation of schöne Natur, it marks something which exceeds

88

The German “Mittelweg”

the referential content of the sign in its use. If we consider this point in relation to gardens, the first difference we can notice is that the “signs” of garden-making are of a different type than words in natural language. They are not arbitrary; instead, they are natural, employing a direct resemblance to their object. As we saw in the preceding section on garden elements, one can imagine that a grouping of landscape elements could be copied or even codified to the point of becoming a recognizable motif (e.g., a Claudian vista), attaining a status somewhat like that of an arbitrary sign. But this is never fully realized since it not only resembles, but still is, what it designates (if the referent is broadly conceived as “nature,” as is the case with the gardens Heydenreich has in mind). Because a garden element can never be as truly arbitrary as a word, its motivation is more easily accomplished. In fact, the less removed a garden element is from its natural state, the more it retains of its “original” motivation. In this respect at least, the signifying capacity of garden elements poses a less complex case than the motivation of arbitrary signs in poetry. The challenge of a garden semiotics, then, arises not from how to motivate its signs, but from a problem proceeding in the opposite direction: how to enable its elements to approximate the signifying capacity of arbitrary signs. Some of Lessing’s more obscure, largely undeveloped remarks on the relationship between painting and poetry can be of some help in this regard.66 Lessing argues that language has a higher (poetry) and lower (prose) form, the difference being based on whether the raw materials of language (arbitrary signs) are rendered as “motivated” (poetry) or left arbitrary (prose). He suggests that painting, too, has a higher and lower form, but the use of signs is inverted. The lower form employs only natural signs, but the higher form finds ways to render them arbitrary. Given that the poetry/prose distinction found in language is more difficult to identify within painting (since it already implies fine art), it isn’t clear what he intends to be the prose equivalent for painting.67 Yet he is clear about how natural signs are meant to be altered in the higher form. These signs are made arbitrary when, through painterly devices, we become conscious of them as signs. One example he gives of this process is the painter’s use of changes in scale. Resemblance, the core of the natural sign’s motivated status, is retained, but one dimension of the resemblance—size—is altered. We recognize the remaining resemblance because of color and especially the proportionate relations among the parts, but the change in scale makes us conscious of the artifice.68 The higher form of painting, then, tries to render its natural signs arbitrary, making it the inverse of the higher form of language, poetry. In

The Semiotics of Strolling

89

both cases, however, the transformation is not entirely complete. Just as an arbitrary sign (word) does not cease to be a word when motivated, a patch of pigment (natural sign) does not cease to be a natural sign when it is used in an arbitrary manner. Lessing does at one point, though, define the limiting case for this argument, at least for language. He states that the highest poetic genre would be the one that not only uses motivated language, but also makes the arbitrary signs entirely natural. The genre that most closely fulfills this condition for him is dramatic poetry, for through the device of staging “words cease to be arbitrary signs and become natural signs of arbitrary things.”69 In short, words are used to designate words. If, by extension, the highest genre of plastic art is that which makes its natural signs entirely arbitrary, then that genre must be the Naturgarten, for here landscape and garden elements cease to be natural signs and become arbitrary signs of natural things. In short, nature is used to designate nature. Thus, in dramatic poetry we have the complete inversion of the semiotics of Heydenreich’s schöne Gartenkunst, where “nature is imitated through itself ” and the sign threatens to disappear entirely. The nature of this inversion is critical in understanding the limits of semiotics as a basis for a garden theory, and it offers some reasons why Heydenreich largely abandoned this line of argument in his 1793 theory.70 The difficulties Heydenreich faces in this regard seem to be two-fold: (1) there is some confusion regarding the referent of the garden’s signs, i.e., exactly what does it mean for nature to refer to nature, and (2) the sign threatens to disappear altogether if the distinction between these two “natures” cannot be maintained. With regard to the first issue, Heydenreich complicates the point by having in mind two classes of referents when he thinks of garden signification. These are either human feeling or an idealized conception of an actual landscape. The first suggests some form of direct expression, with the garden artist arranging elements almost as if they were an extension of bodily gestures.71 As it does not bear directly upon the issue at hand, this category is more fruitfully explored when we return to the principle of the Genie. The second category, an idealized conception of actual landscapes, is ambiguous in that it denotes relationships that are both internal and external to the sign. The idealized conception, or Urbild, within the artist’s imagination is an internal relation; an actual landscape or parts of it, if imitated, an external one. If the nature being represented is the internal picture, then the difference between signifier and signified is relatively easy to grasp conceptually, at least after one is made aware that the landscape has been constructed. If it is an actual landscape, however, and especially if it is not some other place but the embellishment (Verschönerung) of the site

90

The German “Mittelweg”

itself, then the difference between “natures” is more difficult to comprehend. Lukács speaks quite directly to this problem when he considers the garden theory of Lord Kames, one of Heydenreich’s British predecessors and a chief source for Hirschfeld: Hier ist nur wichtig, festzustellen, daß er [Lord Kames] die Nachahmung der Natur, die Natur selbst und das Verschönern derselben in einem Atem nebeneinander als eine einheitliche Aufgabe stellt, ohne auch nur an die Möglichkeit zu denken, daß diese Bestimmungen einander widersprechen könnten.72 [It is important to observe that in one breath Lord Kames conflates the imitation of nature, the embellishment of nature, and nature itself, as if together they comprised a single task. He does so without considering the possibility that these prescriptions might contradict one another.]

In Heydenreich, too, there is a failure to distinguish consistently between the imitation of nature, the embellishment of nature, and nature itself. In Heydenreich’s semiotics, this conflation leads to some confusion surrounding the principles of imitation and expression. If the referent is an external site, then he is employing the logic of imitation; if it is the embellishment of the site itself, then he is thinking in terms of making the site more expressive. In either case, the resemblance of the garden to unaltered landscape results in the possible failure to recognize that it is behaving semiotically at all. If we think back to the inverse case of the Naturgarten, dramatic poetry, we can discern a clue as to how the disappearance of the garden sign might be avoided. Dramatic poetry, by virtue of being constructed of words, does not face the possible loss of its signifying capacity, so at first glance it might not appear to be of much use in this regard. However, the helpful clue lies not the nature of the signs themselves but in the device of staging. Its use in dramatic poetry to achieve a naturalizing effect begins to show how the Naturgarten, properly staged, can achieve the opposite effect. That is, the staging of the garden can de-motivate its natural signs into arbitrary ones even while they remain nature. If successful, then some distinction between the nature that refers and the nature to which it refers can be maintained. The problem that remains, however, is that semiology fundamentally involves the presentation of an absence. For the representation of a distant site, as for example in the “copying” of the Roman Campagna in English gardens,73 this presents less of a problem. But for the embellishment of the site itself, or even for the general imitation of landschaftliche Natur, the stubborn presence

The Semiotics of Strolling

91

of the referent presents great difficulties to maintaining the semiotic illusion. Lukács describes this dilemma of presence and absence in terms of negation and affirmation: Wichtig bleibt nur die Tatsache, daß der ästhetische Gesichtspunkt bloß auf einen relativ geringen Teil der Gärten überhaupt anwendbar ist. . . . Um diese richtig zu begreifen, muß noch eine gemeinsame Eigenschaft von Garten und Architektur festgehalten werden: aus dem in beiden gleicherweise obwaltenden Wirklichkeitscharakter folgt, daß sie gleicherweise unfähig sind, etwas Negatives auszudrücken. Soweit ein Garten Empfindungen auslöst, müssen diese einen positiven, einen bejahenden Gehalt haben. Für Wirklichkeit kann die für jede rein mimetische Kunst Feststellung von Aristoteles, daß in ihr etwas lustbringend wirken könne, was im Leben abstoßend wäre, nicht gelten. Bejahung oder Verneinung des ausgelösten Empfindungsgehalts ist direkt und restlos Bejahung oder Verneinung der Sache selbst, der in Frage kommenden Wirklichkeit, so wie sie ist.74 [Importantly, the fact remains that the aesthetic perspective is germane only to a relatively restricted aspect of most gardens. . . . In order to grasp this correctly, a property common to both gardens and architecture must be strictly borne in mind: as this shared prevailing character is a concrete materiality, it follows that they are likewise incapable of expressing anything negative. Insofar as a garden arouses feelings, these must have a positive, affirmative content. For experience does not confirm Aristotle’s claim that every pure mimetic art is capable of eliciting pleasure out of what in actual life would repulse or disgust. The affirmation or negation of the content of the aroused feeling is directly and completely the affirmation or negation of the thing itself, the concrete actuality in question, just as it is.]

The Naturgarten, with no semiotic device for communicating negation at its disposal, is limited in its expressive ability. As pure affirmation and presence, “nature representing nature,” it marks the limits of the logic of the natural sign. Whether or not Heydenreich recognized these limits explicitly, he nevertheless was troubled enough by the natural sign argument that he abandoned much of its language in the 1793 garden theory. Significantly, though, the main features of that theory—the framing of scenes and their arrangement in succession—involve the literal staging of nature (Inszenierung der Natur),75 exactly what was demanded by the logic of the 1790 theory.

92

The German “Mittelweg”

Heydenreich’s “succession of scenes” principle, then, should be read as a continuation of his project of legibility. It marks the next stage in his efforts to make the natural signs of the garden take on the discursive characteristics of words. THE MOVING STROLLER, 179293 Concept formation II: composition. The individual scene constitutes for Heydenreich the first-order level of composition in garden art. It is conceived in purely visual terms and shares its main ordering principles with landscape painting. As we have already noted, Heydenreich is not always careful in his analysis, for he lists scenes alongside forms and shapes as the basic elements of garden design even though, as compositions of those forms and shapes, they are of a different order. Yet he is clear in the requirement that these scenic units possess a unified character that is free from extraneous elements: Der Gartenkünstler concentrirt in seinem Werke das Schönste und Geistigste, was nur die landschaftliche Natur enthält; er wird hierin die Natur in sofern übertreffen, dass er alles Müssige, Fremdartige and Widrige, was oft ihren reitzendesten Szenen beygemischt ist, von seinem Werke entfernt, und ihm vollkommene Reinheit ertheilt.76 [The garden artist distills in his work only the most beautiful and spiritual in natural landscape; in this respect, by removing everything mediocre, odd, and contrary (which are so often admixed into its most charming scenes), he exceeds nature and confers upon his work an absolute purity.]

The exact nature of this unified character is left rather vague from the standpoint of composition.77 For as described in the above passage, it is defined in negative rather than in positive terms, i.e., as the absence of contradictory elements. A more positive content will eventually emerge when Heydenreich discusses the moral dimensions of the viewer’s emotional response. However, in relation to composition as such, the important point for him is that the unified scene defines the next level of building block above the individual element. Within the domain of the individual scene, Heydenreich’s theory differs little from a theory of landscape painting. The elements, though different in each case, are arranged within a real or implied frame and are scanned by the eye in a single glance. The similarity ends, though, when Heydenreich

The Semiotics of Strolling

93

elaborates what he considers to be the fundamental difference between gardening and painting, the connection of scenes in a series. The passage where he introduces the concept in full is worth quoting at length: Die Empfindsamkeit des landschaftbildenden Künstlers für das Schöne und Interessante der Natur ist auf einzelne Ansichten, Aussichten und Uebersichten eingeschränkt; bey dem gärtnerischen Genie ist eben dieselbe ausgedehnt auf Succession der Erscheinungen beym Umherwandeln und Bewegen. Der Landschaftsbildner legt in seiner Phantasie einzelne Aspeckte nieder, das Gärtnergenie Reihen folgender Erscheinungen für den Sinn des sich umherbewegenden Betrachters. Das Dichtungsvermögen des landschaftbildenden Künstlers geht ebenfalls auf einseitige Ansicht aus bestimmten, unveränderlichen Gesichtspunkten; das Dichtungsvermögen des Gärtnergenies auf allseitige Ansicht unter allen möglichen Gesichtspunkten, die der Herumwandler in einem gewissen Bezirke fassen kann. Das landschaftbildende Genie dichtet schöne Aspeckten für einen bleibenden Gesichtspunkt der Betrachtung; das gärtnerische Genie dichtet Aspeckten für eine abwechselnde Mannigfaltigkeit von Gesichtspunkten des wandelnden Betrachters. Die Phantasie des Gärtnergenies ist demnach von jener des landschaftbildenden Genies gar sehr verschieden. Die Phantasie des Gärtnergenies schliesst die des landschafbildenden Genies in sich; aber sie enthält zugleich ein eigenthümliches Vermögen, das dieser mangelt, den ästhetischen Sinn, möchte ich sage, für auf einander folgende Erscheinungen der landschaftlichen Natur beym Umherwandeln des Betrachters. In ihr vereinigt sich das, was schön ist für den fixirten Anblick, mit dem, was in der vorübergehenden Abwechselung in sanften sich in einander verlierenden Verknüpfungen, oder auch gewagten Ueberraschungen gefällt, zu einem reitzenden Ganzen.78 [The landscape painter’s sensitivity for the beautiful and interesting in nature is limited to individual views, prospects, and vistas; that of the genius for designing gardens extends to the succession of impressions experienced while walking and moving about. The landscape painter stores individual aspects of nature in his imagination; the garden genius takes in the series of successive impressions experienced by a moving observer. Likewise, the poetic faculty of the landscape painter is suited only for one-sided scenes viewed from a fixed standpoint; that of the garden genius, on the other hand, for panoramic scenes viewed from every possible standpoint attained while moving about within a certain

94

The German “Mittelweg” ambit. The genius for landscape painting composes beautiful views meant to be observed from a fixed standpoint; the garden genius composes views intended for the moving observer’s ever-changing variety of standpoints. The imaginative capacity of the garden genius is thus entirely different from that of the genius for landscape painting. The imagination of the garden genius fully encompasses that of landscape painting. At the same time, however, it contains a capacity specific to itself that is absent in the latter: the aesthetic sense, might I say, for successive impressions of natural landscape observed while walking and moving about. It unifies the beauties of fixed viewpoints with those of pleasing transitions—whether of gently flowing connections or startling surprises—into a charming whole.]

These principles, although not fully articulated until the 1792/1793 essay, were already intimated in two of his earlier books, System der Ästhetik (1790) and Natur und Gott nach Spinoza (1789). In System, for example, Heydenreich posits a similar relationship between painting and garden art. Die Gartenkunst verhält sich zur landschaft-bildenden Kunst ungefähr wie sich im allgemeinen plastische Kunst zur zeichnenden Kunst verhält. Der landschaftbildende Künstler stellt landschaftliche Natur dar; der Gartenkünstler auch, jener stellt nur die Erscheinung einer bestimmten Ansicht für den Gesichtssinn auf ebener Fläche dar, dieser formt ein Ganzes landschaftlicher Naturschönheiten ganz so, wie dieselben nach den einzelnen Theilen, in der Natur wirklich sind, und, in einer gewissen Verbindung, wenigstens seyn könnten;79 [Garden art stands in relation to landscape painting approximately as does sculpture to drawing. Both the landscape painter and the garden artist represent natural landscapes. The former, however, represents merely the visual appearance of a particular view on a flat surface; the latter forms the beauties of natural landscape into a composed whole, just as the individual parts really are in nature, or, at least in a certain combination, could be.]

In System the “succession of scenes” principle is not yet developed; instead, Heydenreich argues that the essential difference between the two arts is one of spatial dimensions. The 1792/1793 theory also posits a dimensional difference, but the status of this difference is more ambiguous. At times in those texts Heydenreich seems to be considering garden form primarily as a config-

The Semiotics of Strolling

95

uration in three spatial dimensions; at others, more as a temporal sequence of images that remain largely two-dimensional. The stroller, depicted as a point moving through space, emphasizes the three-dimensional character of the garden. Yet the language of “succession,” along with the emphasis on feeling, foregrounds the inner form of sensibility, time. Additionally, the language of “scenery” proposes a distance between the viewer and the scene, conceptually reducing the garden space to a flat canvas.80 Some of this ambiguity is probably a result of Heydenreich’s reliance on a division of the arts, adapted from Lessing, into those that rely on simultaneous unities and those that rely on successive ones. In System, Heydenreich places Gartenkunst among those arts based on the simultaneous apprehension of signs distributed next to one another in space,81 a position consistent with his later emphasis on vision.82 But since in System he conceives of Gartenkunst purely in terms of simultaneous unity, he does not yet incorporate time as its other form of apprehension. Despite this shortcoming in his early garden theory, Heydenreich had already begun to conceptualize another art form as combining both simultaneous and successive unities, namely music. A quick comparison will show that the same framework which informs his music theory can account for basic features which emerge in the “succession of scenes” garden theory. In music, Beharrlichkeit (scales, melodies, etc.) denotes the fixed structural aspect of the compositional elements.83 One could argue that the individual growth characteristics of plants, the range of their colors, the uniform bending of grasses and reeds in the wind meet this condition. But these are simply the individual “notes.” The scene, if considered as the basic unit, is probably more like a theme or melody, repeated with variation, sometimes in a different key (species) but with similar rhythms (spacing and morphology). Hence, Heydenreich’s ambiguous inclusion of scenes in his list of basic “materials” is more understandable if considered in this context. Stetigkeit has more to do with the controlled transition from theme to theme, or from key to key.84 It is analogous to the “succession” part of Heydenreich’s garden theory and governs the studied transition from scene to scene. Considered together, there is in music a coordination of both forms of unity through melody and harmony: “one can in this respect divide the manifold of a musical composition into 1) the successive and 2) the simultaneous.”85 Heydenreich credits the peculiar characteristics of hearing for making this coordination possible, for unlike vision it is understood to be capable, when coupled with memory, of comprehending a rapid succession of elements without confusion. The introduction of memory proves to be a crucial step in Heydenreich’s argument, for it re-appears as a central

96

The German “Mittelweg”

component of the 1793 garden theory as the faculty of Phantasie, which combines the scenes and their associated feelings into an overall unity. At this early stage, however, he does not see its application to vision in the same way. Consequently, even though the essential tools for combining successive and simultaneous compositions were at his disposal in the music theory, his 1790 garden theory remains based on the immediate apprehension of individual, simultaneous unities. The notion of multiple, connected scenes does appear, however, in the earlier text Natur und Gott nach Spinoza, but in a form and for a purpose unrelated to gardens. Despite the different context, the principle is developed in ways that bear upon Heydenreich’s later thinking about gardens and is worth our consideration here. The two examples of “multiple scenes” in Natur und Gott occur within a dialogue on Spinoza’s doctrine of the unity of substance. As illustrations they are meant to show that our way of dividing up experience into objects is contingent, i.e., that what we perceive to be discrete objects or compartments of space are in fact modifications of a single underlying substance.86 Heydenreich introduces the first example as follows: Wenn das Bild einer großen Landschaft mit einer feinen Decke überzogen wäre, in welcher hie und da kleine Oeffnungen dich einzelne Partien sehen ließen; so muß freylich dies Bild so beschaffen, so gestellt sey, daß du durch jene Oeffnungen einzelne Theile sehen kannst; denn sonst würdest du sie nicht sehen. Du wirst dann, so lange du nicht weißt, daß diese Stücke nur Theile eines großen Ganzen sind, welches jene Decke vor deinen Augen verbirgt, die Stücke für ganze Mahlereyen halten, für Ausführungen individueller Zwecke. Allein, sobald du bemerkst, daß es nur Fragmente eines Werkes sind, dessen ganzen Anblick die Decke dir verbirgt, so wirst du sie auch für nichts mehr als das halten.—Nimmermehr aber wirst du auf die Idee gerathen können, daß, weil du wegen der Oeffnungen der Decke nur gewisse Partien sa[h]est, auch im ganzen Gemählde diese Partien besondre von den Uebrigen unabhängige Bilder sind.87 [[This would be the case] if a large landscape painting were covered with a fine cloth in which small openings had been made here and there that allowed you to see individual parts. Of course, this picture must be so composed, and so positioned, that you can view individual parts through each opening; otherwise, you would not see [the effect]. So long as you did not know that these pieces were merely parts of a larger whole concealed from your eyes by the cloth, you would take the pieces

The Semiotics of Strolling

97

for entire paintings, for designs carried out according to individual purposes. Indeed, as soon as you notice that they are merely fragments of a work the complete view of which is concealed by the cloth, you will then take them for nothing more than that. No longer could you be led astray by the notion that, because the openings permit only partial views, the parts are separate pictures independent of the rest of the painting.]

The second example, describing a drive through an actual landscape, is meant to show that just as with space, our conceptions of time and movement are equally dependent on the conditions of our cognitive faculties: Oder wenn du in einem Wagen durch eine Gegend schnell fährst, und um dich Berge und Bäume und alles hinschwindet, so kannst du daraus wohl schließen, daß die Berge und die Bäume dieses Phänomen möglich machen mußten; denn sonst würde es nicht erfolgt seyn; allein keinesweges kannst du daraus folgern, daß in den Bergen und Bäumen wirkliche Bewegung vor sich gieng.88 [Or if you travel swiftly by carriage through the countryside and the mountains, trees, and everything else appear to rush past, you can easily conclude that the mountains and trees must be responsible for this phenomenon. For otherwise how would it have happened? In no way, however, can you deduce on that account that the mountains and trees are really moving.]

In his search for illustrations of Spinoza’s principle, it is telling that Heydenreich selects two landscape images. This is especially true in the first example, for the argument would not have worked had the painting been, for example, a portrait. If one places Heydenreich’s sheet over a portrait, it will not produce the same effect because the painting consists of a strongly defined object against a neutral background. The randomly placed openings will define only fragments that do not read as purposeful wholes. A landscape, on the other hand, does not depict a strongly defined object but rather a texture in continuous variation.89 It may include objects as part of this texture, but their boundaries will be less defined. The appropriateness of the analogy, then, relies upon the peculiar characteristics of landscape which permit the arbitrarily defined sections of the canvas to be perceived as purposefully composed scenes. Heydenreich’s ultimate point in this example is that the individual scenes, although perceived as separate wholes, are in reality expressions of a

98

The German “Mittelweg”

single underlying unity. The openings in the sheet, having no intrinsic relationship to the painting on the canvas, correspond to our forms of cognition, which impose an order based on rules that are independent of what lies beneath. That this order consists of discrete objects and compartments of space (Fächer)90 in our experience does not lead to the conclusion that Substance itself is divided in the same way.91 The unity of each individual scene, then, is the result of the necessity of framing which is inherent in our perspectival vision, both real and metaphorical. But it also participates in a larger unity that we cannot see, but which we can perceive over time as we experience a succession of these scenes.92 Unless the sheet is taken away to reveal the whole at once (which is presumed impossible for the analogy) we will probably never be able to form an exhaustively determinate picture from the pieces available to us. We can, however, develop a more definite idea of the texture or character of the painting as we accumulate more scenes in our memory and compare them with one another. This composite picture in the mind, unavailable to a single direct perception, is almost identical to what Heydenreich will later term the Hauptstimmung in his 1793 garden theory. So it is clear that Heydenreich was concerned with the problem of multiple views and their referral to an overall unity even at this early stage in his thinking. The difference is that in 1789 this is done in the service of an ontological argument, aimed at establishing the unity of space and substance, while in 1793 the unity is ultimately a subjective one, but played out in an actual landscape. The second analogy, the drive through the countryside, could have also been described by Heydenreich as a series of views, yet his argument in this instance is more concerned with the simple flow of time. Instead of consisting of a succession of discrete scenes, the experience is described as a continual flow of movement passing before the eyes of the traveler. The problem of how to make the transition from scene to scene does not arise until Heydenreich applies these principles to garden making, and even here his thoughts are often hesitant and seemingly still in development. Part of the lack of specificity in his remarks has to do with the subject itself, for while objects and static scenes more readily lend themselves to analysis, it is no easy task to theorize interstitial spaces in the same way. There is a moment in the 1793 essay, however, where he briefly addresses the topic. The remark, absent in the 1792 version, suggests that the transitions may be handled in a variety of manners, from gradual to strongly contrasting: In ihr [die Phantasie des Gärtnergenies] vereinigt sich das, was schön ist für den fixirten Anblick, mit dem, was in der vorübergehenden

The Semiotics of Strolling

99

Abwechselung in sanften sich in einander verlierenden Verknüpfungen, oder auch gewagten Ueberraschungen gefällt, zu einem reitzenden Ganzen.93 [The imagination of the garden genius unifies the beauties of fixed viewpoints with those of pleasing transitions—whether of gently flowing connections or startling surprises—into a charming whole.]

What is most noticeable in this short addendum is its consonance with one of the fundamental premises of garden practice in Germany at that time, the placement of benches and other devices along paths to mark intentional views.94 Unlike the carriage ride in the Spinoza example, the typical garden experience of Heydenreich’s era was not one of continuous variation, no matter how “sanft” the transitions. Instead, it was a punctuated rhythm of stopping and starting, of pausing and turning, much like the “scheinbare Sprüngen” in his description of Stetigkeit. This is evident not only in the physical structure of the gardens themselves, but also from the manner in which they are described, scene by scene, in most of the contemporary garden literature.95 What Heydenreich recognizes is the need to supply the missing choreography96 of the spaces between the scenes, an account of which is otherwise left void in the garden literature he knows. He does not, however, directly tackle this problem himself, but merely gestures toward it. What little he says is not a positive statement of content regarding the character of these transitional spaces, but rather a mere invocation of difference, a definition of the in-between as a relation between two knowns. Heydenreich’s succession principle remains, then, at least within the confines of his own exposition, essentially a bundle theory whereby the scenes, as the principal “objects” and starting points, must be woven together a posteriori.97 The possibility for a different reading emerges, however, when we look at one of Heydenreich’s nineteenth-century interpreters, the garden designer and theorist Gustav Meyer.98 Rather than seeing the principle of unification as a problem of binding together elements after they are individually composed, he proposes that we look to fundamental natural processes as the source of unity, including the composition of the transitional moments of the “interstitial spaces” (Zwischenräume). Würde der Gartenkünstler nur wie der Maler arbeiten, und seine Gemälde nur für einen einzigen unverrückten Standpunkt einrichten, ohne zu berücksichtigen, dass die Gegenstände in der successiven Betrachtung sich in der Phantasie des Umherwandelnden auch zu einem

100

The German “Mittelweg” wohlgefälligen Totalbilde vereinigen sollen, indem die einzelnen für bestimmte Standpunkte gebildeten Gemälde nur einzelne Glanzpunkte in dem aus ein und demselben Gusse hervorgegangenen Ganzen bilden, so würde er die Wirkung vieler einzelner Gemälde schwächen oder zerstören, und nicht den Eindruck ästhetischer Harmonie erzeugen, weil die natürliche gesetzmässige Entwickelung und Folge der Zwischenglieder vernachlässigt worden ist. . . . Würde eine ähnliche noch so kühne Composition von der Gartenkunst gewagt, und nicht auf natürliche gestzmässige Entwickelung des Einen aus dem Anderen gesehen, sondern vielmehr nur darauf geachtet, dass es einzelne kühne Hauptansichten der Art gebe, ohne das der Zwischenraum auch demgemäss natürlich sich entwickele, und das Ganze nicht wie aus einem Guss, aus ein und derselben Bildungsursache hervorgegangen, in der Phantasie des Umherwandelnden sich darstelle: so würde die Totalwirkung, auf die es doch zumeist ankommt, sicherlich eine verfehlte sein.99 [If the garden artist were to work merely as the painter does, and compose his pictures to be viewed only from a single, immovable standpoint without considering that the objects observed successively by a stroller should form a pleasing, complete image in his imagination, whereby single pictures created for particular standpoints comprise the merely individual droplets of emergent wholes issuing from one and the same font, then he would weaken or destroy the effect of many individual pictures. He would fail to evince an impression of aesthetic harmony because the natural, lawful development and succession of the mediating elements are neglected. . . . Were one to venture a similarly bold garden design without considering the natural, lawful development of one [view] into the other, but moreover regarded the singular arresting vista as the only kind of view, without respecting the natural, regular development of interstitial space nor seeing that the whole composition in the stroller’s imagination issues like a font from one and the same formative cause: then the overall effect—on which almost everything depends—would certainly be wanting.]

The formal consistency between the transitional moments and the primary scenes is based on the notion that they all flow from a single source in its lawful self-development, a position strongly reminiscent of Heydenreich’s Spinozist account of the unity of scenes. For Meyer, the most important of these Hauptursachen, or Bildungsursachen, is not a metaphysical substance, but the prosaic sculpting work of the water cycle on landforms:

The Semiotics of Strolling

101

Es muss demnach das Ganze, wenn es als ein ästhetisches Ganzes oder als “eine Natur im Kleinen” und als ein vollendetes Kunstwerk erscheinen soll, sich im Grossen und Einzelnen gesetzmässig oder wahr, d.i. naturgetreu entwickeln, welches nur geschehen kann, wenn wir uns für die allgemeine Formgebung oder Gruppirung eine natürliche Ursache, das Wasser denken, und in der Anordnung des Ganzen zum Ausdruck bringen.100 [Therefore, if the whole is to appear as a complete work of art, either as an aesthetic composition or as “a microcosm of nature,” it must develop on all scales in a manner that is lawful or truthful, i.e., faithful to nature. This can happen quite simply when we think about the universal formative, sculpting power of a natural cause, water, and express this principle in the design of the whole.]

Meyer’s interpretation of the unifying principle of successive scenes is important not only because it suggests a more substantive way of reading Heydenreich’s transition sequences, but also because it is related to Heydenreich’s thoughts on natural signs. The connective element lies in the history of natural sign theories within the German philosophical tradition, where natural causation was often classified as a subset of natural signs. Typical of this tradition is the Anlage zur Architektonic of Johann Heinrich Lambert (1771): Wir wollen aber, um die Beschaffenheit natürlicher Zeichen genauer zu untersuchen, vorläufig anmerken, daß das Wort Zeichen etwas Vieldeutiges habe. Im weitläuftigsten Verstande kann man jedes Mittelglied einer Schlußrede als en Zeichen ansehen, daß die beyden äußersten Glieder derselben einander zukommen oder nicht zukommen. Wir gebrauchen auch jedes Zeichen auf diese Art, weil wir schließen, daß, wo das Zeichen ist, auch die dadurch bedeutete oder angezeigte Sache sey.101 [In order to examine the character of natural signs more closely, however, we should begin with the preliminary observation that the meaning of the word “signs” is somewhat ambiguous. In its broadest sense, one can view each mediating proposition of a syllogism as a sign that links, or does not link, the outer two statements. Our mode of deduction is such that we need signs of this type in order to reach the intended or indicated conclusion.]

Man kann nämlich jede Wirkung als ein Zeichen der Ursache ansehen, (§. 584. 650.). Und da hingegen jede überwiegende Kraft, und so auch

102

The German “Mittelweg” jede nicht verhinderte Ursache ihre Wirkung äußert und hervorbringt, so kann man auch unter dieser vorausgesetzten Bedingung, die Ursache als ein Zeichen der erfolgenden Wirkung ansehen.102 [Indeed, one can view every effect as a sign of its cause, (§. 584. 650.). On the other hand, because every overwhelming power and unhindered cause manifests and brings forth its effect, one can also through this presuppositional condition view the cause as a sign of the resultant effect.]

Under this broader definition of natural signs, any effect is a natural sign of its cause, such as the eighteenth-century textbook example of smoke as the sign of fire. In the same way, the undulations of landform and the patterns of vegetation they support are natural effects, or signs, of the formative activity of water flowing over the earth’s surface. They serve as topographic expressions of a natural cause, enjoying a direct resemblance with the phenomenon they signify, i.e., bearing the physical imprint of the coursing of the water. Meyer’s formative cause (Bildungsursache) is thus related to Heydenreich’s natural sign argument in that they are both based on resemblance. However, the relationship remains oblique in that they stem from two distinct branches of the natural sign discourse, one concerned primarily with the effects of natural causes and the other with arbitrary signs motivated to function as natural signs. In short, Heydenreich’s exposition begins with an expressive human agent working with natural materials according to discursive aims; Meyer’s interpretation begins with an expressive nature working upon itself according to natural laws. Each finds itself within the broad discourse of natural signs when it takes up the matter of garden composition, but the starting points, coupled with the type of natural sign employed, result in two varying accounts of how a succession of scenes can be unified. If Meyer’s version is an advance over Heydenreich’s, it is that he more consistently exploits the notion of nature as expressive agent. By deriving the unity of scenes from a single formative principle, he seems to bypass the a posteriori problems posed by the bundle model of composition. Heydenreich, however, provides a more nuanced account of the role of the human agent, retaining more of the complexity of what actually occurs in the process of garden composition. In the end, he, like Meyer, will be seen to employ a form of natural expression, but the notion will be significantly complicated by his insistence that it be coordinated with the peculiar form of human agency found in the Genie. The Hauptstimmung. We have already noted that as early as 1789, Heydenreich was concerned with the problem of how our perspectival forms of

The Semiotics of Strolling

103

cognition, whether considered straightforwardly as vision or metaphorically as knowledge, can be used to “view” a whole that is inaccessible to a direct perception. The faculty by which a composite is constructed from these viewpoints and then presented to the mind in a single intuition is termed by Heydenreich Phantasie. His fascination with Phantasie dates from the earliest part of his career, being the subject of a lengthy essay “Fragmente über den Zusammenhang der Empfindung und Phantasie,” written in 1787 but not published until 1794.103 In this work he offers the following definition: Phantasie nenne ich bloss das Vermögen, gehabte Eindrücke und Ideen hervorzuziehn. Das Bewusstseyn, sie vormals schon gehabt zu haben, ist in diesem nicht mit begriffen, sondern erfordert einen besondern Actus der Seele, die Erinnerung. Phantasie und Erinnerung setzen das Gedächtniss voraus, das Vermögen, sinnliche Eindrücke und Ideen aufzubewahren, welches grösstentheils nur mechanisch zu wirken scheint.104 [What I call fantasy is simply the faculty of bringing forth stored impressions and ideas. The consciousness of having had them before is not integral to this faculty, but rather requires a special act of the soul, recollection. Fantasy and recollection presuppose memory, the faculty of preserving sensible impressions and ideas, which for the most part appears to work merely mechanically.]

Phantasie is the capacity to work with a store of sensible impressions and ideas to produce new combinations in the present, with much of the reshuffling occurring in a spontaneous, or “mechanical” way. The product of this activity is a composite picture in the mind, a sort of “world in small” pieced together from previous impressions.105 Heydenreich’s use of the term in the 1793 essay is almost identical, although its application to garden art leads him to elaborate and expand the notion in some important ways. Here he refers to the composite picture generated by the Phantasie as a Totalbild, which like the individual scenes upon which it is based must please immediately in its form: Es ergiebt sich also, als das erste Problem für den Gartenkünstler: in einem bestimmten Bezirke allenthalben schöne und wohlgefällige Ansichten so zu vereinigen, dass sie sich in der Phantasie des umherwandelnden Betrachters zu einem schönen und wohlgefälligen Totalbilde zusammenreihen.106

104

The German “Mittelweg” [The primary problem for the garden artist, therefore, is as follows: to unify all the beautiful and pleasant views dispersed throughout a given area in such a way that their successive arrangement in the fantasy of a wandering observer forms a complete picture that is also beautiful and pleasant.]

This “complete picture” is described rather tantalizingly as hovering before the mind’s eye,107 suggesting that it is a somewhat indeterminate, even mirage-like, image that continues to shift and turn as it is contemplated. In its self-contained movement, it mimics the just completed experience of strolling through the garden and in this sense can be understood not only as a spatially composite picture but also as a temporal recapitulation. It is not unlike the moment after the last note of a symphony when one feels awash with an overriding sense of the whole, but finds oneself continuing to hum the main themes. This sense of inner movement turns out to be even more important for Heydenreich than the Totalbild itself, for it opens the way to feeling.108 Already in the early “Phantasie und Empfindung” essay he had made the elucidation of this connection the principal aim of his argument. In one of his clearer passages, he states that the Phantasie collects and re-orders passing feelings alongside the parallel work it performs on sensible impressions. Sinnlichkeit und Phantasie . . . wirken allezeit Hand in Hand. Die Momente der Wirklichkeit schwinden unaufhaltsam hin, die Phantasie nimmt sie sorgsam auf, befasst sie in einer gewissen Ordnung, und macht es dadurch möglich, dass wir durch das successive Rückblicken auf die einzelnen verschwundenen Theile, das Bild, die Vorstellung des Ganzen haben können. Nicht nur bey den Vorstellungen ist dieses der Fall, sondern auch bey den Gefühlen. Jedes Bestandtheil eines Gefühles lässt irgend etwas in unserm Bewusstseyn zurück, und die Phantasie bildet aus diesen Gefühls selbst. Die Organen der sinnlichen Erkenntniss, und die des sinnlichen Gefühls stehen also in dem nächsten Verhältnisse gegen die Phantasie der Sinnlichkeit, können keinen bewussten Eindruck auf uns machen, den nicht die Phantasie wenigstens auf einen Augenblick aufnähme.109 [Sensibility and fantasy . . . always work hand in hand. The moments of reality rush by unceasingly. Fantasy carefully gathers them, places them in a certain order, and thus makes it possible for us to have a [complete] picture, a representation of the whole, by looking back

The Semiotics of Strolling

105

successively at the individual parts that have disappeared. This is not only the case for representations, but also for feelings. Each component of a feeling leaves traces in our consciousness, and fantasy uses these in its formative work. The organs of sense perception (and those of sensible feeling stand therefore in the closest relation to sensibility’s fantasy) cannot make a conscious impression on us that fantasy cannot take up in an instant.]

In the 1793 garden essay, this same principle of connection, or coordination, re-appears as a “double unity” between the visual Totalbild and the unified feeling that accompanies it: Es liegt also in der allgemeinen Idee einer Landschaft die Bedingung einer doppelten Einheit, nämlich, die Einheit der Form von allen in einem gewissen Bezirke Anschaulichen, und der Einheit in denen durch das mannigfaltige Anschauliche bewirkten Gefühle.110 [The condition of a double unity, therefore, lies within the general idea of a landscape: namely, the formal unity of everything viewed within a particular ambit, and the unity of those feelings elicited by the various views.]

Each scene, in addition to being comprehended by the forms of sensibility must also produce a unity of feeling, i.e., a specific mood that is determined by the play of thoughts, yearnings, and emotions it produces (eine gewisse Stimmung zum Gedankenspiel, zu Bestrebungen und Gefühlen).111 This mood, or atmosphere, is what Heydenreich a few pages later calls the Hauptstimmung.112 The double meaning of Stimmung as not only the metaphorical “mood” produced by the garden, but also the more literal “tuning” of the mind’s faculties is probably not accidental. The recurring analogies to music in System that we have already enumerated suggest that Heydenreich continues to think in these terms even as he moves past the positions found in that work. As in music, the unity of a garden composition would then be gauged as much by the coherence of the emotional experience it produces as by its perceived form, a move that gives equal weight to the subjective and objective modes of analysis. While it is clear that Heydenreich had conceived of a close connection between Phantasie and feeling quite early in his philosophical career, the textual evidence does not indicate that he was at that time thinking systematically about a Hauptstimmung. The passage above is the closest he comes

106

The German “Mittelweg”

in that essay to describing this concept, where he states that a composite whole of feeling is constructed alongside the Totalbild (das Bild, die Vorstellung des Ganzen). In the rest of the essay, he limits the discussion to particular instances of feeling in their relation to Phantasie. It is quite possible that Heydenreich could have developed the notion of the Hauptstimmung purely from the demands of his succession theory. However, it is more likely that he adapted the idea from Archibald Alison, whose The Nature and Principles of Taste (1790) he translated in 1792.113 Heydenreich’s Hauptstimmung, if it is indeed derived from Alison, can be understood as a creative synthesis of two principles found in that work. The first is the requirement that individual scenes be unified in character, producing a train of thoughts and feelings that are singular in their quality: The mere assemblage of picturesque incidents, the most unimproved Taste will condemn. Some general principle is universally demanded, some decided expression, to which the meaning of the several parts may be referred, and which by affording us, as it were, the key of the scene, may lead us to feel from the whole of the composition, that full and undisturbed emotion which we are prepared to indulge.114

This principle, as we have already noted, is found almost verbatim in Heydenreich’s dictum that a scene’s character be “pure.” In Alison, similarly, “some decided expression” serves as the “key” to its singular quality. The “assemblage of picturesque incidents,” although suggestive of the notion of successive scenes, seems, however, to refer only to the elements of an individual scene. It is not clear from these remarks that Alison also considered the possibility that the “incidents” might also be construed as occurring sequentially, as an itinerary along a path. The second principle concerns the nature of the viewer’s emotional response to a work of art, especially in how it differs from ordinary consciousness. Here, Alison tries to identify those characteristics of our mental associations that are peculiar to our experience of beauty and the sublime. In our ordinary train of thought, there seldom appears any general principle of connection among the ideas which compose them. Each idea, indeed, is related by an established law of our nature, to that which immediately preceded and that which immediately follows it, but in the whole series there is no predominant relation or bond of connection. . . . In those trains [of thought], on the contrary, which are suggested by objects of Sublimity or Beauty, however slight

The Semiotics of Strolling

107

this connection between individual thoughts may be, I believe it will be found, that there is always some general principle of connection which pervades the whole, and gives them some certain and definite character.115

This definition is more or less identical to Heydenreich’s description of the Hauptstimmung. In both cases, the defining aspect of the experience is that the work of art concentrates what is normally a mechanical association of thoughts and feelings, striking out in all directions, into the domain of a restricted ambit. The viewer’s thoughts are led along a circumscribed path, with the elements of the work serving as the signposts providing direction. Heydenreich’s creative synthesis of Alison’s two principles is to make this path an actual one. Instead of limiting the Hauptstimmung to an individual scene, where the emotions move but the body remains stationary, the train of thought is literally spread out across the topography. Thoughts are directed, no longer only by the associations within a single view, but by the experience of an intended sequence of such views. In traversing the terrain, the mind now moves precisely in tandem with the body; indeed, it is given its cues through the staging of that movement.116 Consequently, Heydenreich’s Hauptstimmung, although experienced like Alison’s “decided expression” as a final moment, is ultimately more complex. No longer a stationary conception, it is the inducement of a train of thought by a physical, choreographed experience. There is another aspect of Alison’s garden theory that should be mentioned briefly with respect to Heydenreich’s work: his ranking of painting above gardening as a fine art. In his treatise on taste, Alison puts forth a hierarchy of the arts based on the degree of control that artists have over their materials. Raw nature forms the base line, with gardening quite low because it uses much of this material unaltered. Landscape painting falls somewhere in the middle, while poetry stands at the apex because of its direct access to concepts as well as its ability to express feelings based on all the senses, not just vision.117 Although gardening is an important first step away from original nature,118 Alison sees landscape painting as superior because the gardener is constrained by the conditions which nature affords in any given place: Above all, the occupations of men, so important in determining, or in heightening the characters of Nature, and which are seldom compatible with the scenes of gardening, fall easily within the reach of his [the painter’s] imitation, and afford him the means of producing both greater

108

The German “Mittelweg” strength and greater unity of expression, than is to be found either in the rude, or in the embellished state of real scenery.119

Heydenreich’s reversal of Alison’s hierarchy of painting and gardening is based on his recognition that the garden’s spatiality offers unique resources to the project of discursivity. While Alison emphasizes the degree of control over the material, with the implicit assumption that those materials most distant from their original conditions have the most discursive potential, Heydenreich counters with a natural sign argument that reveals the rich signifying possibilities of “nature imitated through itself.” Rather than being less discursive than painting, gardening can be at least equally so. Further, Heydenreich not only elevates spatial complexity as a new evaluative principle alongside legibility, but he also fuses this spatial argument with his semiotics, i.e., the moving stroller principle deploys the semiotic materials across a topography. What Heydenreich does not explicitly recognize in this context, however, is that the spatialization of his garden semiotics presents an additional challenge to its legibility. For although it adequately meets Alison’s discursive requirements within the terms of that theory, problems arise when motion, sequence, and multiple perspectives are introduced into the creation of the Hauptstimmung. Signs that are legible within the context of one scene become more fluid when they participate in the construction of several different scenes. A more subtle notion of their stability is required. The (in)stability of signs. One of the primary challenges to semiotic stability in a garden is the participation of so many garden elements in multiple configurations, construed either as complex “objects” (e.g. groves and allées) or as scenes. This participation is most often the result of the sequential experience of the stroller moving along a path, but it also can occur within the purview of a single prospect. In the first instance, a tree that serves as a foreground framing device in one view emerges as a middle ground specimen object when one looks back upon it after rounding a bend. Similarly, a grove that reads as a single object when first glimpsed from a distance becomes an interior, cathedral-like experience once the path leads through it. No longer a solid object, it resolves into a field of columns with a leafy canopy. This problem is less acute if all the primary views are directed outward, as would be the case with a single path along a ridge casting views to either side. However, most of the gardens of Heydenreich’s era were characterized by complex, often crossing, interior views that were attained either by walking along a complex network of intersecting paths or by making the circuit of a belt walk. In the second instance, certain elements can read as parts of several wholes simultaneously. The canals at Wörlitz, for example, are boundary,

The Semiotics of Strolling

109

path, and viewing corridor all at the same time: they divide the major areas of the garden into discernible sections with identifying names (Schochs Garten, the Neue Anlagen, etc.), they serve as a secondary path network instead of a barrier if one travels by gondola, and they are consciously used to frame many of the signature scenes in the garden (e.g. the view of the Venus Temple from the Wolfbrücke). The net result in either scenario is that an element contributes to the formation of more than one whole (Ganze), rendering its status as “object,” along with any one-to-one correspondence with its referent, ambiguous. Heydenreich does not give this set of problems much attention, but his pre-occupation with the notions of Beharrlichkeit and Stetigkeit certainly belie some degree of anxiety with regard to the stability of signs. In addition, he seems to have had some concern regarding the control of the stroller’s movements, both in ensuring that the intended scenes are viewed from the proper vantage points and that they are experienced in their intended sequence. Der Gartenkünstler hat sich also bey der Anlegung seines Planes dahin zu bestreben, alle Theile seines Gartens so zu ordnen, das er nicht bloss möglichst viele wohlgefällige mahlerische Aspekten gebe, sondern dass alle Ansichten, die der umherwandelnde Betrachter, in der Aufeinanderfolge seines Ganges, nehmen kann, sich in seiner Phantasie von selbst und nothwendig an einander reihen, zu dem Bilde eines in sich vollendeten Ganzen, dessen Form, so wie sie der Phantasie vorschwebt, an sich und ohne weitere Beziehung wohlgefällt.120 [The garden artist must then strive in the layout of his plan to arrange all the garden’s parts in such a way that he does not merely provide as many pleasing picturesque views as possible, but ensures that all the views that a strolling observer may perceive successively will arrange themselves sequentially within his fantasy into an image that is complete in itself. Its form, hovering before the mind’s eye, must please in itself without reference to anything else.]

Further, Heydenreich is clear in his requirement that the garden cannot be “understood” in its final Hauptstimmung until the entire sequence of views has been experienced. Im schönen Garten will ich die wohlgefälligen Formen und Szenen der Natur nicht bloss stehend, sondern wandelnd geniessen; ich verlange nicht bloss einzelne gegenwärtige schöne Anblicke für meinen Sinn,

110

The German “Mittelweg” sondern meine Phantasie, welche, während ich wandle, unablässig belebt ist, verlangt, dass Erscheinung nach Erscheinung sich harmonisch in ihr vereinige, und am Ende sich Alles zusammenfüge in einem Bilde, welches als Ganzes für sich wohlgefalle. Dann erst, wenn dieses Bild in meine Phantasie niedergelegt ist, bin ich fähig, den Garten zu verstehen, und ganz zu geniessen.121 [In a beautiful garden I want to enjoy pleasing natural forms and scenes not simply when standing still, but while strolling about. I long for beautiful sights that are not merely individually present before my eyes, but within my fantasy, which is continually enlivened thereby while I stroll. I long for a series of appearances, one succeeding the other, that harmoniously unite in my mind and ultimately coalesce into a picture that pleases as a whole unto itself. Only then, when this picture is imprinted in my fantasy, can I understand and fully enjoy the garden.]

It is not clear from these passages by which means Heydenreich envisions that the scenes can be made “to follow a necessary sequence” (nothwendig an einander reihen). This component of his theory remains an ideal that is not elaborated further. The examples of the complex path networks cited above certainly render the attainability of this ideal questionable, for their intersections provide the stroller with too many options to be construed as a necessary sequence, except within limited sections of the garden. Heydenreich’s prescription is reinforced in at least in one respect, however, by contemporary social rules which often forbade visitors from venturing onto the grass.122 Although the eye could roam over the entire garden, the rest of the body could not,123 making a degree of sequential control possible. Nevertheless, the succession of scenes, by offering numerous strolling possibilities and re-using elements in multiple configurations, presents Heydenreich with a set of difficulties he does not adequately answer. The issues stemming from the moving stroller principle present Heydenreich with the most serious obstacles to the stability of his garden semiotics. There are others, too, connected with the basic physical characteristics of Heydenreich’s garden elements that need to be examined briefly as well. Because of the open and undulating outlines of vegetation and topography, coupled with the variation in their appearance produced by changes in light and shadow, many “forms” in the garden are not strongly determinate for visual perception. It is typical for the eye to group several elements together at one moment, then dissolve them in the next as some are re-constituted with others to form new scenic units. The patterning of light and shadow,

The Semiotics of Strolling

111

along with the continuous variation in landscape texture, ensure that the cognitive faculties will be placed in perpetual play.124 Heydenreich recognized this basic problem with many natural forms as early as his Natur und Gott nach Spinoza. When illustrating the argument that our perception of objects as bounded wholes is due to the conditions of our cognitive faculties, he chooses the example of a plant: So nennen wir, zum Beyspiel, eine Pflanze ein Individuum, ein Ganzes, und doch ist sie im Grunde nichts mehr, als ein Theil im strengsten Sinne des Wortes, nur daß ihr Zusammenhang mit dem Uebrigen durch Theile geschicht, die unsre Sinne nicht vernehmen können. Die Theile der Materie, welche ich, in Beziehung auf meinen Gesichtskreis Pflanze nenne, sind nur ein Bruchstück eines mir zum kleinsten Theil erkennbaren Ganzen. Hier beginnen nicht etwa neue Reihen, neue Zusammensetzungen, die das Daseyn und die Art dieses Dinges zum endlichen Zwecke haben; die Umrisse der Pflanze sind Zeichnungen meines endlichen Sinnes; könne ich anders sehen, anders fühlen, so verwschwände die Pflanze;125 [So, for example, we call a plant an individual, a whole, and yet it is essentially nothing more than a part in the strictest sense of the word. It is just that our senses cannot perceive the intervening elements that connect it with everything else. The patch of material in my field of vision that I refer to as a “plant” is merely a fragment of a whole that I can perceive in only the smallest part. It is not as if this point marks the beginning of a new sequence or a new composition with a separate modality and existence entailing final purposes: the outlines of the plant are simply sketches drawn by my finite senses. If I could see and feel differently, then the plant would disappear.]

The argument would be no more or less effective if the example were a solid cube, but as was the case with the painting covered by the sheet, his choice of illustrations is telling. The inherent fuzziness of the plant’s edges, and our resulting inability to determine whether the spaces between its branches lie “inside” or “outside” its circumference, make the point more tangible. The plant is an “object” for us, but upon closer inspection it does not display the determinate boundaries we expect an object to possess. Kant makes a similar point about certain phenomena in nature that are often termed beautiful even though they do not strictly conform to his definition of beauty, which requires that a form display purposiveness without a

112

The German “Mittelweg”

purpose. His two examples of these unstable shapes (veränderliche Gestalten) are a fire in a hearth (Kaminfeuer) and a rippling brook (rieselnder Bach).126 As we have already seen in an earlier section, Heydenreich makes the same distinction between forms (Form) and mere shapes (Gestalten) in his 1793 essay.127 His terminology here is identical to Kant’s, and it is also in these paragraphs that he directly refers to the “comprehension of form” (Auffassung der Form) described in the Critique of Judgment. The examples Heydenreich gives of Gestalten that lack a definite outline include light and shadows in confused mixtures, colors both alone and in confused mixtures, and irregular crossing lines.128 Like Kant’s rippling brook, Heydenreich’s patterns of light, shadow, and line mimic the inner movement of the Hauptstimmung. By their play of movement (Spiel der Bewegung) they awaken through resemblance and association the consciousness of our own vital energy, or sense of life (das Bewusstseyn der Lebenskraft).129 But perhaps the problem of stability is a concern for Heydenreich’s garden semiotics only insofar as it tends toward meaning, i.e., toward specific concepts that result from the elements’ resolution into objects by determinant judgments of the understanding. The type of instability resulting either from the succession of scenes or from the character of landscape forms does not necessarily contradict the conditions of an aesthetic experience, unless one specifically has in mind Kant’s account of beautiful forms. Further, it is consistent with Heydenreich’s aesthetics to the degree that he emphasizes the principle of expression over imitation, for expression encompasses a broader range of relationships than the clear one-to-one correspondences required by imitation. Heydenreich’s discussion of the Genie marks the point at which this shift of emphasis occurs, for it is where he begins to recognize not only the semiotic potential of nature as material for the Gartenkünstler, but also the expressive power of nature as an agent in its own right. The coordination of these two forms of agency—one consciously guided by concepts and purposes, the other by the unfolding of natural laws—is the task Heydenreich sets for himself when he applies the notion of the Genie to the garden.

Chapter Four

The Legibility of Agency: Karl Heinrich Heydenreich (II)

The adoption of the term Genie is an attempt by Heydenreich to refine the theory of expression he had articulated in System. In that work he had described artistic production as the presentation or expression of a feeling within the artist, but reserved most of his detailed exposition for an account of aesthetic reception on the part of the viewer. This emphasis finds its counterpart in the extensive discussion of the Hauptstimmung in the 1793 garden theory, which like its predecessor remains primarily a reception theory. There is, however, in this work and in later essays an increasingly rigorous attempt to flesh out at least some of the details of the artist’s creative process, although as we have seen earlier, this does not entail the elucidation of compositional principles in any meaningful way. Instead, Heydenreich’s approach to the problem of artistic production is more broadly conceived, with the Genie being essentially one moment within a general theory of agency. Heydenreich’s account would probably remain philosophically inconsequential were it not for his discussion of a particular version of this principle, the garden Genie, that uniquely describes a zone where human agency meets, and even seem to fuse with, what might be termed “natural agency.” By identifying an intermediate condition of aesthetic production where the distinctions between agent and object must be reconceptualized, the garden Genie provides a surprisingly effective and unified means for expanding our previous analyses of the doctrines of fine art, expression, and natural signs in Heydenreich. In this respect, the garden theory serves to illuminate many of the systemic aspects of his aesthetics that would otherwise remain obscure. This result is certainly of significance for understanding Heydenreich’s overall project, yet more important for our purposes is the manner in which the explanatory power of the Genie works in reverse. For reasons that we shall now explore, Heydenreich’s Genie demonstrates not only why the garden

113

114

The German “Mittelweg”

theory must include a theory of agency, but also why it must ultimately be construed as a Mittelweg strategy. MECHANISM AND DISCURSIVITY The central problematic of Heydenreich’s Genie is the status of concepts within the form of agency peculiar to artistic creation. While the Genie draws upon several interrelated frames of reference, each with its own vocabulary and sets of problems, it is the ultimately the role of concepts in works of genius that provides the unifying thread in what would otherwise be separate discussions of genius’s relationship to freedom, mechanism, natural law, purpose, intent, etc. Heydenreich does not provide us with a formal definition of “concept” in his writings. We can, however, turn to the primary source for his doctrine of Genie—Kant—for a more substantive account of concepts, especially in their relation to the fine arts and to agency. In Kant’s epistemology, a concept is essentially a rule for the synthesis of the manifold of sensible intuitions into a unified representation.1 Those concepts that exist a priori and ground the possibility of experience by securing the unity of a manifold in general are termed “categories.” They are finite in number and are transcendental. Those that refer to particular objects of experience, acquired by consciousness only a posteriori, are called “empirical concepts.” In their epistemological role, concepts make possible the cognition of objects, and therefore knowledge, when the understanding (Verstand) subsumes intuitions under them in a determinant judgment. As Kant famously summarizes this principle: “Concepts without intuitions are empty; intuitions without concepts are blind.”2 Concepts also have an essential role in practical philosophy in that they guide rational actions toward particular ends. In this employment, concepts can serve either in pragmatic tasks, as in the creation of an artifact to define goals and devise steps to reach them, or in moral actions to determine the will according to concepts of reason (Vernunft). For Kant, only the second of these uses concerns practical philosophy in the strict sense, but the formal use of concepts is similar in both cases: a concept is placed before the mind as an end or purpose (Zweck) and actions are consciously directed toward it. This type of action, directed by concepts, is contrasted in Kant’s philosophy with another form of activity that is not directed according to concepts, namely mechanism. He explains the distinction as follows: Art is distinguished from nature as doing (facere) is distinguished from acting or working generally (agere), and as the product or result of the

Karl Heinrich Heydenreich (II)

115

former is distinguished as work (opus) from the working (effectus) of the latter. By right we ought only to describe as art, production through freedom, i.e. through a will that places reason at the basis of its actions. For although we like to call the product of bees (regularly built cells of wax) a work of art, this is only by way of analogy; as soon as we feel that this work of theirs is based on no proper rational deliberation, we say that it is a product of nature (of instinct), and as art only ascribe it to their Creator.3

Kant’s epistemology assumes that mechanism is the only explanation of causality in nature that is suitable to our form of understanding. In this, he is following the analytic-synthetic method that characterized the natural science of his day. Rather than dispute this assumption on the basis of changes in scientific understanding over the last two hundred years, it will be more fruitful to our investigation to notice two important consequences that this assumption has for Kant’s, and by extension Heydenreich’s, aesthetics. The first is that it commits us to the view that human understanding is a discursive understanding, a notion that has a precise meaning for Kant and which we will examine momentarily in its relation to aesthetic judgments. The second is that it presents us with a peculiar set of problems when we try to explain the genesis of organisms, for they seem to defy mechanistic explanation altogether and require us to resort to the concept of purpose. As organisms are a central category in Kant’s conception of natural beauty, their peculiar “purposive” forms must be satisfactorily accounted for if natural beauty is to serve, as it does in Kant’s aesthetics, as the basis for judgments of beauty in works of art. We will begin with the second of these two problems. Kant introduces the term “natural purpose” (Naturzweck) early in the second half of the Critique of Judgment, the “Critique of the Teleological Judgment,” after a general discussion of purposiveness in nature. He moves quickly to reach this concept because it illustrates the central antinomy of judgment, whose solution will be the aim of the second half of the critique. Kant begins his “deduction” of the notion of a natural purpose by first reminding us why we view certain objects of experience as possible only through purposes: In order to see that a thing is only possible as a purpose, that is to be forced to seek the causality of its origin, not in the mechanism of nature,

116

The German “Mittelweg” but in a cause whose faculty of action is determined through concepts, it is requisite that its form be not possible according to mere natural laws, i.e. laws which can be cognized by us through the understanding alone when applied to objects of sense, but that even the empirical knowledge of it as regards its cause and effect presupposes concepts of reason. This contingency of its form in all empirical natural laws in reference to reason affords a ground for regarding its causality as possible only through reason. For reason, which must cognize the necessity of every form of a natural product in order to comprehend even the conditions of its genesis, cannot assume such [natural] necessity in that particular given form. The causality of its origin is then referred to the faculty of acting in accordance with purposes (a will), and the object which can only thus be represented as possible is represented as a purpose.4

Kant then invokes the well-known story, taken from Vitruvius, where travelers find a hexagon inscribed in the sand on a beach.5 Because they cannot conceive that the natural processes of wind and waves could have produced such a regular form, they conclude that there must be other humans in the vicinity. The hexagon could not have had any cause other than that of a concept of reason. The occurrence of pure geometrical figures in nature is taken by Kant to be paradigmatic of the activity of human reason on physical material. In his system, geometry is the science whereby reason studies the properties of the manifold of space a priori. Reason constructs these shapes as pure intuitions of the imagination and investigates their properties by reflecting on these pure constructions. Because they issue from a free act of reason, encounters with such forms in nature, although not inconceivable, are thus considered rare although it is often the case that the motions of those bodies may follow the shapes of parabolas, ellipses, and other definable curves in their trajectories. For the most part, we do not expect the actual forms of material bodies to exhibit perfectly straight edges, planed surfaces, smooth conical outlines, etc. except in the most elemental products of mineral crystallization. To the extent that composite material bodies occasionally appear to be spherical, cubical, or otherwise regular, they only approximate these ideal forms but never perfectly instantiate them. Kant considers, then, the attribution of geometrical forms in objects of experience to the activity of reason to be an unproblematic assertion. The clarity we enjoy in judging geometrical forms is absent, however, when we consider the case of “natural purposes,” the term Kant gives to those products of nature that our cognition “must” judge as having been formed according

Karl Heinrich Heydenreich (II)

117

to purposes. Although in choosing the term “natural purpose” he is careful to keep the argument at a general level and thus “deduce” his definition from higher principles, it is clear that Kant has in mind a particular problem encountered in biological explanation. Hence, after proposing the following preliminary definition, he moves immediately to illustrate the notion by presenting it in its most familiar form, the living organism. But in order to regard a thing cognized as a natural product as a purpose also—consequently as a natural purpose, if this is not a contradiction—something more is required. I would say provisionally: a thing exists as a natural purpose if it is [although in a double sense] both cause and effect of itself. For herein lies a causality the like of which cannot be combined with the mere concept of a nature without attributing to it a purpose; it can certainly be thought without contradiction, but cannot be comprehended. We shall elucidate the determination of this idea of a natural purpose by an example before we analyze it completely. In the first place, a tree. . . . 6

Kant goes on to explain that what characterizes the natural purpose as “both cause and effect of itself ” is a peculiar relationship of a whole to its parts. Whereas a system of colliding bodies can be explained (and predicted) as the sum effect of the interactions of its parts according to the laws of mechanics without any intervening force, a natural purpose or organism cannot, according to Kant, be explained in the same way. Not only do the parts of the organism come together to create a whole that exceeds the sum of their mere interaction, but the whole also conditions the parts, i.e. they could not exist in isolation from the whole without ceasing to be what they are.7 Because we must seek an explanation for a unity that remains contingent with regard to mechanistic explanation, we are forced, Kant believes, to judge this unity by analogy with the only other case we know where a similar relationship with contingency obtains: the products of purposive human activity. Yet even though this principle is regulative for us rather than constitutive, that is, even though it is only a maxim which reason prescribes for its own use rather than a law which explains real causality, we are still compelled to employ it heuristically in our judgments of natural products because it springs from the conditions of reason itself. Reason therefore prescribes it as necessary for our use in these instances. Kant is led to this position in part because of his commitment to the notion of mechanism, which was synonymous in his day with any rigorous scientific explanation of causality.8 Mechanism, the “physical” side of

118

The German “Mittelweg”

the analytic-synthetic method of science, asserts that we must seek for explanations of causality by breaking down a phenomenon into its constituent parts, examining the properties of these parts, and then reconstructing the whole via the parts purely on the basis of these fundamental properties. The designed experiment is paradigmatic of any demonstration that purports to prove the adequacy of the explanatory model, for it supplies the requisite parts under controlled conditions in order to produce the predicted result. The “ideal” side of this method is the assertion that we possess a discursive understanding. In other words, it is the notion that in order to explain a phenomenon, our understanding must first analyze it through concepts into its constituent parts, or primary determinations, then synthesize these determinations in order to reproduce the whole in thought. The movement from analysis to synthesis parallels the physical process of experimentation and is, in fact, what we mean by scientific “explanation.” At several points in his argument, Kant tries to elucidate the specific qualities of a discursive understanding by contrasting it with a hypothetical understanding, termed an “intuitive understanding,”9 that is like ours in every way except one. In this thought experiment, an intuitive understanding would differ from a discursive understanding only in that it cognizes a phenomenon by intuiting the whole which conditions it, not by subsuming it under concepts.10 That is, instead of proceeding “downward” by reducing the phenomenon to its constituent parts and then re-assembling it, an intuitive understanding would proceed “upward” by finding the relevant whole that encompasses the phenomenon and conditions it as a part of itself. Thus, while an organism would appear to a discursive understanding as a contingent arrangement of parts in need of some intervening force to assemble them into that particular configuration, it would not appear to an intuitive understanding as contingent at all, but rather as a necessary result of some larger whole, or set of forces. Because it does not operate according to concepts, as our understanding must, an intuitive understanding would be able to grasp the phenomenon directly in its particularity along with all the causal relations that give rise to it. Our understanding, in contrast, because it judges according to concepts and, therefore, the analytic-synthetic method, is incapable of explaining the larger whole as a real cause. The whole remains for us an ideal cause because we can only construct it synthetically in thought and not in intuition. For Kant, then, our compulsion to judge that the form of an organism is contingent and results from a purpose, i.e., from a representation in some understanding, is not due to an arbitrary adoption of mechanism as the primary explanatory principle of nature, but ultimately stems from conditions that are specific to our discursive understanding.

Karl Heinrich Heydenreich (II)

119

This brief excursus on mechanism and its roots in discursive understanding, although occurring in the context of teleological judgment, puts us in a better position to understand the distinction that Kant draws between free and dependent beauty in aesthetic judgments, i.e. the distinction between natural beauty and artistic beauty. Without first seeing the consequences of discursivity within the larger context of judgments in general, it is difficult to interpret the role that Kant, and later Heydenreich, gives to concepts in instances of dependent, or artistic, beauty. Consequently, it has been essential at this point to address certain features of discursivity, for the exact construction of the difference between natural and artistic beauty effected by concepts becomes crucial when we consider Heydenreich’s garden Genie. NATURAL AND ARTISTIC BEAUTY The distinction between artistic and natural beauty in Kant is, in effect, an elaboration of his discussion of doing (facere) versus working in general (agere), but applied only to objects judged to be beautiful. Artistic beauty is judged to be the result of a rational cause acting according to a concept of what an object ought to be; natural beauty is judged as if nature, too, were working according to a concept, but since we must judge its activity as mechanism, we ascribe this purposiveness merely to our own faculty of judging, not to nature itself. Thus, natural objects that are beautiful are judged as if they were works of art, constructed by nature for our enjoyment. Objects of art, on the other hand, are judged to be beautiful to the degree that they approximate the effect that natural beauty has on our cognitive faculties. Our recognition that they are constructed according to concepts may be necessary in order for us to distinguish them from nature, but this is a secondary consideration. This aspect of our judgment does not contribute to our conclusion that the object is beautiful. In his 1794 essay on the philosophy of fine art, Heydenreich places Kant’s distinction at the very center of his discussion. He seems quite satisfied with Kant’s analysis of natural beauty and believes that within the confines of natural products Kant’s conclusions are sound. He does not believe this to be the case, however, when these principles of natural beauty are applied to works of art in the way that Kant does. His strategy in the essay, then, is to enumerate what he sees as difficulties with Kant’s notion of dependent beauty in the hope that by removing what he takes to be several instances of equivocation on Kant’s part, he can construct a more satisfying account of the creation of fine art. Heydenreich takes particular exception, for example, to Kant’s use of the word “rule” (Regel), which he believes allows Kant to

120

The German “Mittelweg”

create the illusion that his theory has achieved more than it really has. He formulates the problem as follows: Denn, einmal sagen: dass zum—Wohlgefallen an Werken schöner Kunst das Bewusstseyn: dass es Kunst sei, und Beurtheilung der Zweckmässigkeit gehöre, dann aber wieder: dass auf ein Urtheil über die Schönheit eines Werkes der schönen Kunst, Begriffe von ihrem Zwecke und ihrer Möglichkeit gar keinen Einfluss haben dürfen, diess heisst doch wohl nichts anders, als sich selbst widersprechen.—Kant hat indessen selbst wenigstens den Anschein einer Vereinigung seiner so geradezu entgegangesetzten Behauptungen über schöne Kunst zu bewirken gesucht, indem er (S. 179 [sic]) Genie durch die angebohrne Gemüthsanlage erklärt, durch welche die Natur der Kunst die Regel giebt. Allein ich muss gestehen, dass die ganze Stelle, wo er diesen Gedanken verfolgt, mir eine der sonderbarsten im ganzen Buche ist “Eine jede Kunst, heisst es: setzt Regeln voraus, durch deren Grundlegung allererst ein Produkt, wenn es künstlich heissen soll, als möglich vorgestellt wird.”11

[On the one hand [Kant] says that our pleasure in a work of fine art depends upon our being conscious that it is art and on judging it according to [the principle of ] purposiveness. On the other hand, he maintains that a judgment concerning the beauty of a work of fine art cannot be influenced by concepts of its purpose and possibility. This is obviously self-contradictory. Kant has only appeared to resolve these two blatantly conflicting claims when he defines genius (p. 179) [i.e., KU, §46, 181] as the innate mental disposition through which nature gives the rule to art. Indeed, I must confess that I find the entire passage where he explores these thoughts to be among the most peculiar in the entire book: “For every art presupposes rules by means of which in the first instance a product, if it is to be called artistic, is represented as possible.”]

He goes on to say that in the first case, where nature gives the rule to art through genius, the word “rule” seems to refer to a capacity for producing forms that must be judged as purposive but are without a definite purpose (Richtung der zur Hervorbringung des Kunstwerks nöthigen Vermögen zur Gesetzmäsigkeit ohne alle Vorstellung von dieser Gesetzmäsigkeit). In the second case, “rule” means those practical procedures necessary for physically constructing a work of art (Regeln . . . durch deren Grundlegung allererst ein Produkt, wenn es künstlich heissen soll, als möglich vorgestellt wird). The

Karl Heinrich Heydenreich (II)

121

fundamental tension, essential to Heydenreich’s interpretation of the Genie, is that we are enjoined by Kant to judge works of art as being human products in virtue of their contingency, i.e., by recognizing that they could only have been produced through the application of rules in some understanding; however, we can judge them as beautiful (and, therefore, as works of art and not just as human products in general) only if they appear to be nature, i.e., free of constraining rules in their production. In other words, they must elicit a judgment identical to that of natural purposes we term beautiful. Heydenreich interprets this dual sense of the word “rule” as a failure by Kant to explain artistic beauty in terms of natural beauty. Whether Heydenreich has in fact revealed an equivocation in Kant that is detrimental to his aesthetics as a whole is a question too large to be pursued here. What is more essential to our purposes is the fact that Heydenreich uses this observation about rules as a premise to launch his own theory of genius, taking as his point of departure the problematic status of rules, or concepts, not only in the experience of beauty but more importantly in its production. It is in the Genie that Heydenreich, drawing upon Kant, believes these seemingly endless pairs of binary terms finally meet and in a unique—and rare—fashion resolve themselves. Natural beauty and artistic beauty, free judgments and dependent judgments, facere and agere, concept and intuition, mechanism and freedom: all of these dualisms find expression in the doctrine of the Genie at some level. Heydenreich could have organized his theory of Genie on the basis of any one or several of these pairs, yet he chooses to begin with an equivocation in Kant on a dual sense of the word “rule.” But what kind of rules are at issue here? As Heydenreich notes, there are times when Kant seems to suggest that our recognition of human agency depends on seeing evidence of practical rules related to the craft of making that is specific to each of the various arts. They are the pragmatic means by which the “purpose” in the mind of the artist is achieved. Yet at the same time this determinant judgment of an object’s artifactual quality must be overshadowed by a more dominant impression that the form of the object is in harmony simply with the faculty of rule-making in general. Elsewhere termed the free play of the imagination and the understanding,12 it is one of the essential moments of the aesthetic judgment, where the imagination “holds up” the contents of sensible intuition to the understanding for its reflective, rather than determinant, judgment. An object is judged beautiful if the sensible intuitions resonate with the understanding’s faculty of rulemaking (concept formation) in general without resolving into any particular concept, or rule of unity. It is the unique role of the Genie, then, to guide the employment of practical rules in the production of works of art in such a way

122

The German “Mittelweg”

that it seems analogous to the way nature, judged regulatively as an agent, subordinates mechanism to teleological principles in the production of natural purposes. These “hidden rules” of nature, which make certain products of mechanism appear teleological for a discursive judgment, are the same rules that the Genie employs, even unconsciously, in creating works of art. ABSICHT: THE LEGIBILITY OF INTENT Even though Heydenreich acknowledges that these rules of nature remain enigmatic (räthselhaft) and opaque even for the Genie as they work through him, the particular case of the garden Genie offers some additional resources for elucidating their appearance in the form of human agency. To begin with, a garden, especially in the form of the Naturgarten, seems uniquely suited to fulfill the dual Kantian dictum that “nature be judged as art” and that “art appear as if it were nature.”13 As such, it should provide an unusually clear locus for the interaction of the two formative principles represented in these maxims: a human agency working according to rules and concepts, some of which are actually “hidden rules” of nature working through it; and a proto-agency of nature working mechanistically without the aid of concepts, yet producing natural purposes that must be judged as if they had been. The formative activities of nature and the Genie are both pictured as an internal fusion of conscious and unconscious forces, the only difference being a question of which of the two forces is predominant in each. Further, the investigation of the garden goes beyond Kant’s discussion of individual natural purposes to ask what sorts of rules or concepts might be involved in their arrangement, that is, whether nature can also be judged to exhibit an equivalent purposiveness in its distribution of natural purposes across topographies. If Heydenreich’s garden theory did nothing more than expound on either of these matters, it would still have to be judged as a significant addendum to Kant’s aesthetics. It should soon become clear, however, that it does more, for it contains a richness that not only augments, but synthesizes both questions in a single solution. When viewed from the side of artistic production, Heydenreich’s natural sign argument and succession of scenes theory now take on a new significance. Used in tandem in a re-appraisal of Kant’s Genie, they suggest a reconstruction of his theory of agency that prefigures the emergence of Identity philosophy in post-Kantian thought. The exclusive use of natural signs in the Naturgarten presents several difficulties for the Genie’s project of legibility. We have already noted how the specific conditions of garden making can render its natural signs unstable, or even threaten to make them disappear altogether. Kant had already recognized

Karl Heinrich Heydenreich (II)

123

this problem as a general one faced by the Genie in his imperative to make works of art appear as if they were products of nature: “For the former [beautiful art] is either such an imitation of the latter [beautiful nature] that it reaches the point of deception and then produces the same effect as natural beauty (for which it is taken), or it is an art obviously directed designedly to our [empirical] satisfaction.”14 If this is a difficulty for the arts in general, then it is a particularly nettlesome one for garden making. The introduction of pure geometrical forms, or even the use of the more subtle techniques of discursivity discussed in the previous section on garden semiotics, would seem to be an obvious strategy available to the Genie if his only purpose were to render the garden elements legible as human products. The “traces on the Rhodian shore” would be emblematic of this approach. Yet there are hints already in Kant that this technique on its own is considered unsatisfactory for designing gardens as fine art, not because the garden elements cease to be “nature” on this account, but because of a more elusive factor: a perceived loss of the feeling of freedom. Kant supplies three landscape and garden examples15 to make his meaning more clear, each of which occurs within separate but related arguments concerning our propensity for attributing purposes to regular forms we encounter in experience. The distinctions he makes among these examples are not unimportant, but we will not take them up in detail until the penultimate chapter. At this point, it is enough to note that he viewed the occurrence of simple regularities as rather tedious for the imagination, reminiscent of an artist’s rote application of arbitrary rules learned in the academy.16 Rather than supporting the imagination in its continuous free play, these simple figures lead the mind to attribute determinant, actual purposes to their forms, even though the figures themselves, as constructions of concepts of pure reason, do not owe their existence or properties to any such possible empirical use.17 Although Kant’s precise meaning is difficult to discern here, the most plausible interpretation of this argument is that he thinks the internal purpose of a geometrical form (its perfection according to a concept) too readily suggests to our mind the idea of an external purpose (utility as means to some other end). In doing so, it impedes the free play of the imagination it its aesthetic judgment of purposiveness without a purpose.18 With his indebtedness to Kant’s aesthetics more clearly in view, it is easier now to see why Heydenreich rejected both formal and utilitarian gardens in his 1793 essay. Both of these variations on the use of geometry violate the Genie’s aim of prioritizing the free play between the imagination and the understanding because they invariably elicit judgments of determinant purposes. One mode suggests perfection, the other an external purpose,

124

The German “Mittelweg”

and neither can be the basis for an aesthetic judgment. While it is true that by introducing concepts into our perception these strategies enable us to recognize that the scene before us is a garden and not simply nature, this introduction is done is such a way that the garden cannot qualify as a case of dependent beauty. The concepts, even though they are pure rather than empirical, intrude into our perception to such a degree that the resulting impulse to cognize the object supersedes any possibility of suspending our determinant judgments in an aesthetic free play. This feeling of constraint imposed by geometrical forms in the garden, although a subtle one, is still strong enough to disqualify their use for schöne Gartenkunst in Heydenreich’s theory.19 With these considerations in mind, Heydenreich’s insistence on the imitation of landschaftliche Natur would seem to be the only consistent basis from which to pursue a garden theory within a Kantian framework.20 But as we noted earlier, the adjective landschaftlich implies an “extra” judgment that must be supplied by the artist or the perceiving subject, and at that time the specific nature of this supplement was left undetermined. Having now developed a more substantial account of Heydenreich’s Kantian criteria for recognizing the effects of agency, we are in a better position to say more about this “extra” supplied by the Genie.21 Heydenreich’s argument, in outline, would seem to be the following. The natural signs in a landscape are not seen to involve human agency when they occur in isolation. Even when re-arranged to produce a more pure character, the elements of a single scene can conceivably be explained as the products of an expressive nature rather than of an expressive human semiotics: individual organisms as natural purposes and pleasing views as natural beauty. We may suspect that human agency is at work here, but we cannot maintain this with certainty. But when experienced in sequence such that the form of their succession suggests purposive activity to the reflective judgment, the natural signs of individual scenes are treated as if they were arbitrary. Now subject to a concept of their arrangement, the scenes are judged as human artifacts even though they are wrought entirely of natural signs. This “staging” of natural signs in the Naturgarten, deduced as a formal strategy from the inverse of Lessing’s semiotics, is thus accomplished without need of a physical framing device. In fact, the “arbitrariness” of the natural signs is not, strictly speaking, a function of a singular instance of visual bracketing at all. Rather than being located somewhere in a particular scene or even in its circumscribing apparatus, human freedom finds its trace more subtly in the form of succession. In short, the introduction of the moving stroller as the essential feature of the garden Genie effects a critical displacement of the terms of legibility in Heydenreich’s theory of agency.

Karl Heinrich Heydenreich (II)

125

By asserting that the unity of the succession of scenes could not have been produced by natural mechanism, Heydenreich is clearly relying upon a Kantian notion of the limits of our discursive understanding. The unity of character exhibited by the forms of succession correspond in their contingency to the formal properties of both architectonic constructions and natural purposes. We must in this view assume a rational concept as the cause of their unity. But as we noted earlier when considering Meyer’s interpretation of Heydenreich’s “interstitial” spaces, the exact nature of the concept governing the succession is left undetermined. It is not clear whether the Genie’s guiding principle more closely resembles that of an architectonic system, a natural purpose, or something unlike either. There are, however, clues in some of Heydenreich’s other writings that indicate his views on the general problem of unity, most of which point to Kantian origins. Two of the concepts he borrows will be of particular use to us here: (1) architectonics as the archetypal system of unity and (2) aesthetic ideas. We will consider them in turn. The notion of architectonics in Kantian philosophy is essentially two-fold in its application. One the one hand it is a particular conception of the unity of reason as possessing a universal structure; on the other, it is considered the only proper method of any philosophy that attempts an exposition of reason so understood. As method, architectonics begins with the idea of a whole, given by reason a priori as a schema, and then determines from this whole both the scope of the system and the location of all its constituent parts.22 By articulating the boundaries of knowledge in this way, we are assured that any new knowledge or experience will not remain an isolated, unassimilable incident. Thus, architectonics “regards all our knowledge as belonging to a possible system, and therefore allows only such principles as do not at any rate make it impossible for any knowledge that we may attain to combine into a system with other knowledge.”23 It is evident that Heydenreich both grasped and appreciated this aspect of Kant’s philosophy, referring to it at one point as an “edifice” (Gebäude)24 and praising the meticulous manner in which Kant carries out the divisions of his system.25 And when in the Preface to his own System der Ästhetik Heydenreich draws a sharp distinction between mere “rhapsodists” (Rapsoden) and more rigorous “philosophical critics” (philosophische Kritiker),26 he could have easily had in mind the following introductory statement from Kant’s “The Architectonic of Pure Reason”: “In accordance with reason’s legislative prescriptions, our diverse modes of knowledge must not be permitted to be a mere rhapsody, but must form a system.”27

126

The German “Mittelweg”

As “the art of constructing systems,”28 architectonics is clearly teleological in its conception. Rooted in the conditions of a discursive understanding, it must begin with a visualization (schema) of a rational idea in order to be assured of the necessary connection of the parts. Once in place visually, the outlined structure is then articulated through internal divisions, not external additions, in order to preserve the integrity of its shape.29 Architectonics, therefore, is necessarily both transcendental and hierarchical. It is transcendental in that it is a product of pure reason, which must stand “outside” the system in order to visualize it as a schema; it is hierarchical in that it proceeds from a general, but complete, outline toward an ever more finely articulated structure based on successive arborescent distinctions. That Kant saw architectonics as the archetypal form of system is underscored by his insistence in the Critique of Judgment that it also be used as the model for understanding both individual natural purposes and the system of nature as a whole. With regard to our cognition of natural purposes, he identifies the architectonic understanding with the teleological principle of judgment itself.30 A few paragraphs later, he extends this argument to include the system of nature as a whole, saying that the judgment has “no other principle of the possibility of the object, which it inevitably judges teleologically, than that of subordinating the mechanism of nature to the architectonic of an intelligent Author of the world.”31 For Kant, then, a judgment of the presence of reason in the world, whether human or divine, is equivalent to a judgment that its materials have been organized architectonically. Heydenreich’s allegiance to this position is evident in his first major publication after his complete conversion to Kantianism, his Betrachtungen über die Philosophie der natürlichen Religion (1790). In a passage dealing with the subjective, but necessary, grounds for our teleological judgments, he echoes Kant’s architectonic model of the Author of the world: Dann kann er sich nicht mehr damit begnügen, die Welt als einen unermesslichen Schauplatz anzusehen, der ihm immer neuen unerschöpflichen Stoff für Erforschung und Erklärung darbiethet, er muss über ihren Plan, ihren Grund und Zweck eben so gewiss, streng und fest entscheiden, als das Endurtheil über seine eigne Bestimmung nur nach jener allgemeinen Entscheidung sicher und befriedigend abgefast werden kann. Er darf also nicht mehr mit Naturforschung im Einzelnen zufrieden seyn, nicht sich darauf einschränken, immer länger und länger Ketten von Beobachtungen zusammenzuknüpfen, sondern er muss einen Gesichtspunct feststellen, aus welchem

Karl Heinrich Heydenreich (II)

127

das Ganze . . . unter welchen also auch er in seinem bestimmten Verhältnisse für Vergangenheit, Gegenwart und Zukunft gefasst und begriffen werden kann.32 [He cannot then be satisfied with viewing the world as a vast scene that forever presents him with inexhaustible stores of new material to be researched and explained. Equally, he must reach a certain, rigorous, and unshakable decision as to its plan, foundation, and purpose, for the ultimate verdict regarding his own condition can only be secured with sureness and satisfaction through this general conclusion. He may no longer be satisfied with research into nature’s individual phenomena nor limit himself to linking together ever longer and longer chains of observations. Rather, he must hold fast to a viewpoint from which he can apprehend the whole . . . by which he can grasp his determinate relationships to past, present, and future.]

Like Kant, he insists that we must judge the order of the world as having resulted from the Plan, Grund, and Zweck of a transcendent intelligence. It is only in attaining this viewpoint of the whole that we are spared the epistemological fate of the mere accumulation of individual, unconnected observations. But if Heydenreich takes architectonics to be the organizing principle of his succession of scenes, he must deal with several problems that arise when it is applied to the unique conditions of garden design. First, he must account for the peculiar nature of the Totalbild in the Genie. If a garden can only be experienced sequentially, even by the Genie, then we are left to wonder what sort of picture in the mind’s eye lends itself to being unfolded in a series of perspectival views that would possess an inner connection legible to a stroller. In order for the thread to be recognized as a product of human freedom, it would have to display characteristics that suggest a rational principle as its source. Assuming for a moment that the nature of this source is architectonic, the most natural way to conceptualize such a system is to say that the geometry of a formal garden has been displaced into the Naturgarten’s forms of succession. Geometry, as the construction of form in the sense manifold according to a concept of reason, would function analogously in this respect to architectonic procedure. But since it has already been determined for other reasons that geometrical organization, at least in its typical form, cannot be the basis for schöne Gartenkunst, it must be abstracted into the forms of temporal succession if it is to be retained in the Naturgarten as an architectonic analog.

128

The German “Mittelweg”

It is quite possible that something like this strategy is what Heydenreich had in mind when he maintained that his theory would overcome the deficiencies of both the regular and irregular manners of garden design. In this interpretation, geometry, in an unspecified transmuted form, would organize the otherwise unconnected scenes of the typical irregular garden into a system. There are conditions specific to a Naturgarten, however, that make this an unsatisfactory solution. To begin with, an architectonic system is necessarily hierarchical. In a general sense, this does not pose an insoluble problem for Heydenreich in that the term does not exhaustively specify the manner in which the parts must be subordinated to the whole. It maintains only that the relationships be visualized in a vertical manner. What is specifically problematic, however, is that an architectonic hierarchy is necessarily constructed as an arboresence.33 That is, levels of structure depend completely upon those directly above them and condition those below them. They “communicate” only vertically, without the possibility of horizontal commerce across regions, even neighboring ones. By structuring the relationships in this way, individual elements are limited to a single function, prohibiting the possibility that they might interact in multiple ways with other elements, even at similar levels in the hierarchy. Given our previous analysis of the instability of signs in the garden, it is immediately apparent why this proposal presents an unsatisfactory account of Heydenreich’s connective principle. It is essential to the structure of a Naturgarten that its elements participate in multiple configurations, both simultaneously and sequentially. Their place within the whole cannot be reduced to a single function, for they must necessarily be viewed from multiple standpoints by a stroller. The putative rational principle guiding the structure of the garden cannot, therefore, admit of the arborescent Zergliederung envisioned in architectonics. There is an additional problem in trying to conceptualize a Naturgarten as an architectonic system that stems from its use of vegetation and topography as materials. While Kant maintains that both individual organisms and the system of nature taken as a whole must be judged as if they were subject to an architectonic understanding, the Naturgarten poses a dilemma he seems incapable of answering. It is not clear that he provides any resources in such a case for distinguishing the “architectonic” work of this divine understanding from the additional “architectonic” work of the garden artist. How does the connective system elaborated by the garden artist differ from the connective system already in place in a nature that must be viewed as “designed”?34 We are again presented with the problem of the

Karl Heinrich Heydenreich (II)

129

“extra” contributed by the Genie. As long as we remain within the strictures of transcendent agency, ideal causation, and teleological judgments—all consequences of the Kantian doctrine of discursive understanding—there seems to be no way to answer this question satisfactorily. The semiotic limits articulated in Heydenreich’s Naturgarten now hit Kant’s architectonic walls and foundations with full force. We encounter a situation where the interminable “as if ” arguments of the third Critique don’t seem to work anymore. Heydenreich’s failure to elaborate on the Totalbild of the garden Genie is probably due, at least in part, to his immersion in Kantianism. When thought through this system alone, the legibility of agency in a Naturgarten is almost impossible to conceive. The Naturgarten highlights the difficulty of reducing organisms and natural systems to architectonics, even as a regulative principle, for it cannot conceptualize the differing contributions made by natural mechanism, human agency, and a presumed divine intelligence.35 One is left to wonder in this context what sort of garden theory Heydenreich might have constructed had he retained his earlier Spinozist views. Spinoza’s account of freedom, thoroughly immanent and anti-teleological, would have seemed a more flexible framework through which to conceptualize the form of agency found in the garden Genie. Because, unlike Kant, it does not draw a distinction between the working of nature (agere) and intentional human activity (facere) on the basis of transcendence, it is more capable of accommodating notions of agency that lie somewhere between mechanism and intent, unconscious and conscious action. The difference between Spinoza and Kant on this point is nicely summarized by Heydenreich in terms of intent (Absicht). Through the character of Xenophanes, he defends Spinoza’s view that we do not need to resort to analogies with human purposes in order to explain organized products in nature: Nichts hat von jeher mehr irr geführt, als die Benennung einer blinden Nothwendigkeit, weil man sich allezeit völlige Gesetzlosigkeit, Unstetigkeit und Unzuverläßigkeit dabey dachte, keine gewisse Aussicht, keine Hofnung, keinen Trost darauf gründen zu können glaubte. Allein dieses Vorurtheil beruht blos auf der schon gerügten falschen Hypothese, daß kein Wesen regelmäßig wirken, und Einheit in seinen Wirkungen erzielen könne, ohne vorher, wie wir, die ganze Reihe seiner künftigen Wirkungen gedacht zu haben, da doch denken, und nach gedachten Absichten handeln offenbar ein Zeichen von Abhängigkeit und Mangelhaftigkeit ist. Denn jedes Denken setzt einen Gegenstand voraus,

130

The German “Mittelweg” welchen der Gedanke abschattet, jeder gedachte Endzweck ein fehlendes Gut, nach welchem man hinstrebt.36 [Nothing has caused more confusion over time than the term “blind necessity” because it always brings to mind complete lawlessness, instability, and unreliability, which one believes offer no grounds for a sure outlook, hope, or consolation. However, this prejudice rests on the already discredited false hypothesis that no substance acts in a regular manner or produces unity in its effects unless we have first projected the entire series of its future effects. To act according to conscious intent is clearly a sign of dependence and inadequacy. For every thinking act presupposes an object that the thought trails after like a shadow; every conscious final purpose presupposes an absent good toward which one strives.]

The Spinozist may agree with Kant, at least in a qualified sense,37 that we can explain human purposes in terms of Absicht, the visualization in thought of some end. But we are not required to do so for what Kant calls natural purposes.38 Because it consistently applies the principle of immanent causality, Spinozism does not characterize the organized forms of nature as contingent. The necessary unfolding of substance is enough to guarantee their coherence without need of a transcendent agent. Thus, whereas the Kantian discursive understanding must denigrate natural mechanism as “blind” because it does not work teleologically as we do, in Spinozism nature does not need vision.39 It constructs a unified system through its own proto-agency of necessary unfolding. It is in this notion of a proto-agency of nature that Spinozism would have helped Heydenreich further develop his notion of the garden Genie. Having been unable to successfully appropriate the only model of unity available in Kant—architectonics—he could have made use of a more Spinozist conception of nature to help explain the type of unity created by the Genie. What such a theory might have looked like is a matter of speculation, but there are indications in Heydenreich that suggest the direction he might have taken. The most important of these occurs in a passage where he begins to develop his own theory of Genie in relation to Kant’s. Allein das Kunstgenie hat bei jedem schönen Werke einen Zweck, oder, wenn wir es, so wie es ist, ganz als Kind der Natur betrachten, die Natur bildet in demselben eine Verbindung von Vorstellungen, welche zu Hervorbringung einer bestimmten Wirkung (des Vergnügens am Schönen)

Karl Heinrich Heydenreich (II)

131

so zusammentreffen, dass man sich ein solches Werk nicht anders als möglich denken kann, wenn nicht durch eine Idee, welche den Grund seines Daseyns in bestimmter Form enthalte. Das Genie selbst muss sein Produkt aus diesem Gesichtspunkte ansehen, und anerkennen, dass die Natur durch seine Kräfte einen Zweck ausführe.40 [The genius for art, however, always works according to a purpose. Put another way, if we consider genius as a child of nature, as it really is, nature combines representations within the genius to produce a particular effect (pleasure in the beautiful) that harmonizes so completely that it is not possible to think of such a work without recourse to an idea that contains the ground of its existence in determinant form. The genius himself must view his product from this standpoint and recognize that nature carries out a purpose through his powers.]

The idea that nature works directly through the Genie, considered as a “child of nature,” comes directly from Kant: “Genius is the talent (or natural gift) which gives the rule to art. Since talent, as the innate productive faculty of the artist, belongs itself to nature, we may express the matter thus: Genius is the innate mental disposition (ingenium) through which nature gives the rule to art.”41 Heydenreich seizes upon what is certainly a remarkable definition within Kant’s philosophy, the notion that nature, in spite of its “blind mechanism,” acts as an agent through the Genie to reconfigure itself. In what must surely be seen as a re-statement of the formula “nature imitated through itself,” the Genie is posited as a unique confluence, or coordination, of the working of both nature and art. Heydenreich continues the passage with a definition of the kind of Zweck that nature forms in the Genie (die Natur bildet in demselben): Dieser Zweck ist nichts anders . . . denn ein Vergnügen, unabhängig von allem Interesse der Moralität und Wahrheit sowohl, als der Sinnlichkeit, durch die blosse Form eines Ganzen verknüpfter Vorstellungen bestimmt, wie fern bei Auffassung derselben ins Bewusstseyn, sich ein unabsichtliches und doch gesetzmäsiges Wirken des Verstandes, mit dem freiesten und doch kongruenten Spiele der Phantasie vereinigt.42 [This purpose is none other . . . than a pleasure, independent of all the interests of morality and truth as well as sensibility, that is determined through the mere form of representations combined into a

132

The German “Mittelweg” whole insofar as it is apprehended within consciousness as uniting an unintentional, and yet lawful, activity of the understanding with the freest, yet most congruent, play of the fantasy.]

The characterization of the resultant activity in the understanding as “unabsichtlich und doch gesetzmäsig” is practically a definition of Spinoza’s nature.43 Used as the basis for bringing together human agency and natural agency in a Naturgarten, Spinoza’s philosophy would have been a more amenable framework for explaining the possibility of such a coordination. The garden Genie would in this case be the unique talent of making conscious, or visible, within the human agent the unconscious (unabsichtlich) strivings of nature. The extra supplied by the Genie in the design process would consist in metaphorically bestowing vision on nature so that it may see its own “ends,”44 guiding its lawful unfolding but now in a legible manner. And because the Genie’s contribution does not involve the formation of natural purposes but only their arrangement, this supplied vision is necessarily a perspectival one situated within a topography. In its topographical immanence, it repeats in formal terms the immanent causality which runs through the whole of Spinoza’s nature. Such a proposal is possible within Spinozism because the rejection of a transcendental notion of agency allows for an unbroken transition from unconscious to conscious causality, whether it is conceived as a union of these forces or a parallelism.45 Within Kantianism, however, the Genie, especially in its garden form, must remain a puzzling and obscure doctrine. If there is any way out of this impasse for Heydenreich within a Kantian framework, it is most likely in the notion of an aesthetic idea. The “expression of aesthetical ideas”46 is central to Kant’s understanding of both natural and artistic beauty, although to speak in this way about natural beauty he must again attribute agency, if only analogously, to nature. Heydenreich’s early doctrine of the expression of a Zustand within the artist, as elaborated in his System, can be interpreted as a less epistemologically developed form of this idea. It is not surprising, then, that we find in his 1794 essay on allegory an enthusiastic endorsement of Kant’s aesthetic idea as sympathetic with his own understanding of expression. In a footnote, Heydenreich quotes Kant directly: Man sehe Kants feine Bemerkungen über die ästhetische Idee, Krit. der Urtheilskr. A. A. 192–195. Die ästhetische Idee, sagt er hier unter andern: ist eine einem gegebenen Begriffe beygesellte Vorstellung der Einbildungskraft, welche mit einer solchen Mannigfaltigkeit der Theilvorstellungen in dem freyen Gebrauche derselben verbunden ist, dass für

Karl Heinrich Heydenreich (II)

133

sie kein Ausdruck, der einen bestimmten Begriff bezeichnet, gefunden werden kann, die also viel unnennbares zu einem Begriffe hinzudenken lässt, davon das Gefühl die Erkenntnisvermögen belebt: und mit der Sprache, als blossem Buchstaben, Geist verbindet.47 [One finds Kant’s subtle remarks on aesthetic ideas in the Critique of Judgment, loc. cit. 192–195 [i.e., §49, 197]. “The aesthetics idea,” he says here among other things, “is a representation of the imagination associated with a given concept, which is bound up with such a multiplicity of partial representations in its free employment that for it no expression marking a definite concept can be found; and such a representation, therefore, adds to a concept much ineffable thought, the feeling of which quickens the cognitive faculties, and with language, which is the mere letter, binds up spirit also.”]

An aesthetic idea, then, is a representation in the imagination which occasions much thought but which cannot be encompassed by a single concept. It is a construction of what Kant terms the “productive imagination” and what Heydenreich terms the “poetic capacity” (Dichtungsvermögen),48 a “faculty of seizing the quickly passing play of imagination and of unifying it in a concept (which is even on that account original and discloses a new rule).”49 In this activity, the Dichtungsvermögen works with the materials that nature supplies, yet exceeds nature by selecting from the various fleeting representations in the imagination to impose a novel unity according to its own rule.50 These “partial representations,” or Theilvorstellungen, are bound up within a single aesthetic idea, yet the centripetal direction of the associated thoughts they occasion make it such that no concept is adequate to the representation as a whole. When considered in this context, Heydenreich’s Hauptstimmung. or Totalbild, takes on a different aspect. No longer understood only as an a posteriori construction in the Phantasie of the stroller, it can also now be analyzed as an essential component of the Genie’s agency. In this respect it is a creative synthesis effected by the Genie’s productive imagination that guides the articulation of a purposeful structure in what would otherwise be seen as the product of nature alone. It is, for both Heydenreich and Kant, the ideal causation which makes the garden recognizable as a work of art. But it is a very specific form of guiding idea, quite unlike the empirical concepts employed by the understanding in a determinant cognition. In fact, “an aesthetical idea cannot become a cognition because it is an intuition (of the imagination) for which an adequate concept can never be found.” It thus

134

The German “Mittelweg”

occupies a middle ground between concepts and the atomistic perceptions, or intuitions, that have yet to be organized into objects of experience. As such, an aesthetic idea is a special kind of intuition, one that has been given a degree of organization by the productive imagination, but which is either too rich in content or too complex in form to be resolved into a determinant judgment. Kant says that this distinguishing quality of an aesthetic idea is what renders it “inexponible”: “Since, now, to reduce a representation of the imagination to concepts is the same thing as to expound it, the aesthetical idea may be called an inexponible representation of the imagination (in its free play).” An aesthetic idea resists discursivity even as it extends it an invitation. At least two conclusions can be drawn from this brief discussion. The first is that Heydenreich’s Totalbild, if it is understood to be a species of aesthetic idea, must attain its legibility in the same way. It may suggest specific ideas to the understanding by stimulating the cognitive activities toward concept formation, but this activity, like the unending play of the forms themselves, cannot be brought to a conclusion. The garden’s legibility thus suggests the presence of a discursive understanding, but is not itself discursive, i.e., it is not exponible through concepts. In strict Kantian language, this is to say that we judge the phenomenon aesthetically, according to a rule, but not according to concepts.51 Intuitions without concepts may be “blind,” but it also turns out that in the Genie something other than a concept, a special kind of rule governing the Totalbild, supplies an alternative form of vision that makes the intuition legible. As a result, Heydenreich’s early garden semiotics of imitation, based on a representational correspondence like that of concept and referent, gives way in the Genie to a non-conceptual rule of synthesis. Because the Genie creates a rule rather than a concept, expression effectively supplants imitation as the principle of legibility in the garden.52 The second conclusion is that Heydenreich’s emphasis on the Theilvorstellung component of Kant’s definition makes the topographical dispersion of a garden Totalbild into multiple perspectives more comprehensible. We have already noted the general difficulties produced by the bundle model of unity, especially in contrast with monistic systems such as Spinoza’s. This model always requires the intervention of a transcendent agent and views unity as contingent. However, the notion of an original synthesis in the productive imagination of the Genie offers a more promising schema for Heydenreich. As a single vision that is antecedent to the individual perspectives in the garden, it already contains within itself the unity that is to be reconstructed in the Hauptstimmung of the stroller. In this sense, an aesthetic idea makes a vir-

Karl Heinrich Heydenreich (II)

135

tue out of what otherwise seems a deficiency associated with the semiotic instability of garden elements. Here it grounds the garden Genie’s unique faculty of arranging multiple perspectives by first establishing the relationships of the Theilvorstellungen to each other within the Totalbild.53 Heydenreich’s theory of agency in the garden Genie becomes, then, an exercise in mediation at every turn. Between natural mechanism and purposeful design, the Genie denotes a zone of activity where neither blind causality nor visualized concepts offer satisfactory explanations for the legibility of intent. Nature itself comes to have a proto-agency that must be coordinated with the conscious understanding of the human agent. And the beauty thus realized in a Naturgarten turns out to be neither purely natural beauty nor artistic beauty. So whether it is in the displacement of geometry onto the forms of succession as a mediation between the regular and irregular styles, or in the articulation of a Totalbild as a middle form of representation between concepts and simple intuitions, Heydenreich is forced again and again to construct an alternative to binary structure. It is for this reason, even in the absence of any textual mention of the word itself, that Heydenreich’s garden Genie must be understood as a multi-layered Mittelweg strategy. GARDENS AND ETHICS Heydenreich’s pre-occupation with agency in his garden theory does not end with the consideration of its mere presence, or legibility. Beyond the Genie’s general capacity to create, there is also a strong desire to see this activity as part of a more encompassing vision of moral duty. This concern with elucidating the Genie’s capacity for both creative and moral ends is evident even in the expository form of the garden essay, which along with the 1794 “Über die Möglichkeit einer Philosophie der schönen Künste . . .” makes this dual aim explicit. Both include a section describing what the Genie can do (Naturkunde des Genies) followed by another devoted to a doctrine of what it should do (Teleologie des Genies).54 The latter division purports to demonstrate the means by which the Genie is able to satisfy the highest demands of practical reason (Vernunft) by “harmonizing” the type of freedom exemplified in its products as Naturkunde with the moral dimensions of freedom found in ethics. In “Über die Möglichkeit” Heydenreich characterizes this relationship as one of subordination, saying that practical reason, because it occupies the highest place within the faculties, is able to ground the moral dimensions of works of art through a shared notion of purposes:

136

The German “Mittelweg” Allein obwohl die Grundsätze und Regeln der philosophischen Theorie der schönen Künste, ihrem Inhalte nach, keine andre Quelle haben, als die Betrachtung der Natur des Genies, so wie es sich in seinen Werken äussert, so hängt dennoch ihre gebiethende Kraft von der moralischen Vernunft ab, als welche allein alles Interesse an eine Zweckmässigkeit, die ihrer selbst wegen gefalle, begründet.55 [Although the principles and rules of the philosophical theory of fine art have, insofar as their content, no other source than the observation of the nature of genius as expressed in its works, its legislative power depends on moral reason, which alone grounds all interest in a purposiveness that pleases in itself.]

Any ethical content in a work of art is thus seen as dependent on the previous moral worth given to purposiveness by its use in moral reason. That the use of purposes in moral reason differs significantly from their use in artistic creation does not enter as an important distinction for Heydenreich. For him, the homology of their form, qua purposes, is enough to secure the type of connection he desires to demonstrate.56 However, given the complexity of the theory of agency found in his garden Genie, especially in the way that it conceptualizes purposes, the garden becomes an important test case for Heydenreich with respect to how this link is articulated. When thought through the problem of the garden, it will turn out that Heydenreich must reconstruct his moral theory if he wishes to keep up with the advances that are implicit in his garden theory. The narrowly conceived notion of a transcendent agent working according to purposes, which had already displayed a limited capacity to explain the garden Genie’s creative activity, will again prove inadequate as a ground for the possibility of a garden ethics. Heydenreich’s ultimate failure to recognize the challenge that garden theory presents to his ethics, much less to solve it through a further development of the Mittelweg strategy, is as much a matter of personal tragedy, however, as it is of philosophical negligence. Events in his life that came to a head three years after the publication of the 1793 garden essay would expose compromises in his own sense of ethics and ruin both his personal and professional reputations in the process. The retreat from Leipzig that resulted from this crisis effectively ended his years of intellectual creativity. As a result, any potential within the garden theory to frame a new vision of moral agency was never fully realized within Heydenreich’s corpus. The moral ideal of bürgerlich virtue, with the Naturgarten as one of its most potent settings and symbols, would remain as elusive for him in personal life as it did in theory.

Chapter Five

The Historical Narrative of Mediation: Friedrich Schiller

During the development his most important treatise on aesthetics, Über die Ästhetische Erziehung des Menschen in einer Reihe von Briefen (referred to hereafter as Aesthetic Letters), Schiller was given the opportunity by Johann Friedrich Cotta to write a short review of a forthcoming edition of the Taschenkalender auf das Jahr 1795 für Natur- und Gartenfreunde. First published in October 1794 in the Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung as “Über den Gartenkalender auf das Jahr 1795,” Schiller’s essay represents the most extensive and systematic statement of his views on garden art. The central doctrine put forth in this essay is a prescription for a Mittelweg which would mediate between the two dominant modes of eighteenth-century garden design, the French and the English, and allow the garden to rise for the first time to the status of a fine art. Deceptively simple at first glance, this doctrine is in fact a highly complex distillation of a series of binary conceptual structures that were used both in previous work by Schiller and in the simultaneously written Aesthetic Letters. Rather than being a simple argument over style, a closer examination of the Mittelweg reveals that the French/English debate which had characterized German garden theory since the publication of Hirschfeld’s five-volume Theorie der Gartenkunst (1779–85) took on greater dimensions in Schiller’s hands. Through the locus of the garden, Schiller was able to use the Mittelweg thesis to address the more general question of how it is possible to conceive of the structuring of concepts and the structuring of the environment as analogous operations. THE MITTELWEG AS CONCEPTUAL STRUCTURE The Gartenkalender essay is divided into two main sections. The first is a discussion of the foundational principles of gardening as a fine art; the second is an application of these principles in a critical analysis of the English garden at 137

138

The German “Mittelweg”

Hohenheim, images of which appeared in Cotta’s Taschenkalender along with a descriptive essay by the Stuttgart banker and gardening dilettante Gottlob Heinrich Rapp. Schiller opens the first section with the observation that gardening at present (1794) lacks a set of solid principles that would establish its place within the system of the arts. To show why this is the case, he provides a short discussion of the limitations inherent in the two predominant styles of gardening, the French and the English, and a criticism of the excesses to which both styles are prone. He explains that the French, or Baukunst, approach has a tendency to over-emphasize regularity and an adherence to rules. The natural forms of plants are subordinated to the mathematical forms of geometry, preventing them from realizing their own potential development as individual forms. They must give up the higher organic nature, exchanging their “beautiful autonomous life” (schöne selbständiges Leben) for a “soulless symmetry” (geistlosen Ebenmaß).1 The English, or Poetik, style, on the other hand, has a tendency to extend freedom to the point of willfulness and caprice, often flaunting a “disorderly license” (regellos Lizenz). Rather than being enslaved to laws as in the case of the French, the excesses exhibited in this style exemplify a lawlessness typical of the “weak character of the age” (weichlichen Charakter der Zeit).2 And in keeping with the avoidance of any rule, the English style emphasizes the individual delights of “variety” (Mannigfaltigkeit) to the detriment of “harmony” (Übereinstimmung), i.e. the parts never submit to the unifying effects of the whole. Both extremes, the French and the English, have prevented garden art from becoming a fine art, but fortunately this is a shortcoming which is not inherent in the nature of the garden as such. The failure to achieve true beauty has come about because the principles upon which garden composition has until now been based, Baukunst and Poetik, are rooted in other arts, not in the essential principles of the garden itself.3 This situation did not develop without cause, Schiller continues, because there are legitimate reasons why these two imperfect forms of garden art were based on the principles of Baukunst and Poetik. In the case of Baukunst, it is apparent that gardens and architecture share many elements that spring from physical needs and rational purposes. It is thus quite reasonable that garden makers would look to architecture for formal precedents when trying to solve functional problems that are common to all the building arts. Another similarity is that because of their functional properties, both gardens and architecture employ concepts of the Understanding (Verstand),4 giving them a similar status as impure art forms. The exercise of the Understanding requires that a certain amount of freedom be sacrificed in order to produce the unity required by that cognitive faculty’s ordering principles. The result

The Historical Narrative of Mediation

139

is that functional and physical needs elevate regularity (Regelmäßigkeit) to the highest principle of composition. Schiller, in describing the principles of Baukunst in this manner, proposes that a necessary connection between Understanding, purpose, and order (Verstand, Zweck, und Ordnung) accounts for the regular forms characteristic of this style of gardening. While this association is in some sense obvious, his eventual introduction of the concept of organic form into the argument will make it apparent that unity and order can take forms other than the pure geometries of simple mathematics. So even in this initial opposition, Schiller has built into his dualism the potential for the subsumption of this group of concepts into a higher principle. Lastly, he notes that both architecture and garden art imitate nature through nature itself, or at least use natural materials to create new objects in nature.5 While Schiller makes little of the distinction between imitation and creation in this context, the difference should not be ignored since there is, as in the Verstand-Zweck-Ordnung constellation, a certain amount of instability built into this formulation. Emphasis on the creation of new objects causes one to remain within the principles of Baukunst while the idea of imitation leads one toward the principles of poetry and painting, at least as they were understood at the time. The similarity that Schiller wishes to stress remains, however, that as a consequence of using natural materials in its compositions, garden art is brought into a close union with the principles of architecture. Whereas the principles of the Baukunst style are a response to physical needs, Schiller continues, the legitimate basis of the other pole of garden art is the poetic expression and evocation of feeling. These feelings are rooted in the observation of “landscape scenes” (landschaftliche Szenen), where we take our enjoyment to be caused by the representations induced by the “products of free nature” (Werke der freien Natur).6 As opposed to Baukunst principles, where the presence of human agency is readily apparent, these landscape scenes are valued because they are experienced as “natural.” And rather than being associated with the Understanding and its principles of unifying regularity, the highest principle of the poetic feeling is freedom. Another way that Schiller tries to get at the basic distinction between the French and English styles is by introducing the terms Garten and Gartenlandschaft. For him, Garten connotes an enclosed space which is visibly modified by Kunst. It is clearly an art form, but one which uses plants and other natural objects for its materials rather than marble, pigment, or canvas. Gartenlandschaft, on the other hand, describes a way of looking at open landscapes through the categories of painting. As a garden art form, it attempts to remove all traces of Kunst and give the illusion that one is seeing untouched nature.7 The advantage gained by introducing this pair of terms along with

140

The German “Mittelweg”

the Baukunst/Poetik pair is that Schiller can now recast the French/English opposition in terms of Kunst and Natur as well.8 He has already made the opposition complex in that both of these terms are themselves synthetic: the Kunst of the French style is really Natur which appears as Kunst, while the Natur of the English style is really Kunst which appears to be Natur. Thus, with these terms he now has additional resources at his disposal for the eventual elaboration of a Mittelweg that is more robust than the blending of the simple binary pair Baukunst/Poetik. In each case, Schiller uses a form of binary synthesis where the higher term retains the name of one of the lower terms but includes more content than its namesake in the lower pair: Kunst'

Kunst

Natur'

Natur

French

Kunst

Natur

English

In making these distinctions between the two predominant styles, Schiller was drawing on a well-known tradition of garden literature in Germany, France, and England and did not add anything that was essentially new to the boundaries of the division.9 What was unique, at least in the context of Germany, was that Schiller made a conciliatory move toward the French style that was lacking in his predecessors and in his own earlier writings. By legitimizing the basic needs which had led gardeners in the French tradition to employ architectonic principles, Schiller made it possible to propose a more or less balanced synthesis that would produce a higher form of garden art. The emphasis here is on balance because Schiller’s call for a Mittelweg was not the first time that some form of mediation had been proposed in German garden theory. Hirschfeld had earlier called for a Mittelweg for the German garden, but his solution had a patriotic, not a formal, basis for “synthesis.” The formal aspects of his solution were limited by his strong preference for the English style over the French, and though the foundation of the Mittelweg problem lay in the formal tension between regularity and freedom, his suggestions for a uniquely German garden involved little more than the use of native plants and the celebration of national heroes.10 In contrast, the Gartenkalender was the first time that the two poles were given roughly equal value. By conceiving of the terms in this way, Schiller made it possible to

The Historical Narrative of Mediation

141

propose a synthesis that made full use of the formal properties and formative principles of each side to a roughly equal degree. The formal implications of Schiller’s Mittelweg description are not immediately apparent, however. His synthesis is conceived not in terms of the formal properties of a design, but within terms that are associated with the cognitive faculties: Es wird sich alsdann wahrscheinlicherweise ein ganz guter Mittelweg zwischen der Steifigkeit des französischen Gartengeschmacks und der gesetzlosen Freiheit des sogenannten englischen finden; es wird sich zeigen, daß sich diese Kunst zwar nicht zu so hohen Sphären versteigen dürfe, als uns diejenigen überreden wollen, die bei ihren Entwürfen nichts als die Mittel zur Ausführung vergessen, und daß es zwar abgeschmackt und widersinnig ist, in eine Gartenmauer die Welt einschließen zu wollen, aber sehr ausführbar und vernünftig, einen Garten, der allen Foderungen des guten Landwirts entspricht, sowohl für das Auge, als für das Herz und den Verstand zu einem charakteristischen Ganzen zu machen.11 [It will likely then find for itself, more or less, a middle path between the stiffness of French garden taste and the lawless freedom of the socalled English taste. Indeed, it will show that this art may not presume to the lofty spheres recommended by those who, wishing to persuade us through their designs, forget nothing but the means to bring these plans to fruition, and that it is indeed tasteless and senseless to wish to enclose the entire world within a garden wall—but very feasible and reasonable to make a garden that, while conforming to the demands of sound agriculture, is also fashioned into a characteristic whole meant as much for the Eye as for the Heart and the Understanding.]

The Mittelweg, then, is a garden which pleases the Eye as well as the Heart and the Understanding. The associations that correspond to the terms Eye, Heart, and Understanding in this model include not only distinctions in garden types and philosophical schools, but, most importantly, the basic drives of human nature that are described in the Aesthetic Letters. The Eye of the preceding quotation corresponds to the Mittelweg garden, Schiller’s own philosophy,12 and the play-drive; the Heart corresponds to the English garden, British empiricism, and the sense-drive; the Understanding corresponds to the French garden, rationalism, and the form-drive. While all these associations inform Schiller’s definition, the key to understanding

142

The German “Mittelweg”

the formal implications of the Mittelweg lies in the way he conceives of the aesthetic as the mediation between the sense-drive and the form-drive. For in this structure, Schiller describes how an analogy is drawn between the functioning of the drives and the physical structure of the aesthetic object. Before expanding on this analogical structure, a brief cautionary note is in order. The Mittelweg is, at least at first glance, a theoretical synthesis which has to do with establishing a third term between a series of dichotomies which are seen to line up with two garden styles, but which themselves are not congruent or equivalent distinctions. In other words, each binary pair potentially contributes something slightly different to our understanding of the two poles of gardening. While a reasonable assumption would be that the third term is some sort of a Golden Mean lying halfway between two points on a continuum, this is not necessarily the case for Schiller. Further, he does not indicate in the passage cited above exactly what the physical manifestation of the synthesis would look like, and it is also not exactly clear how the details of the conceptual synthesis are supposed to work either. In light of this apparent lack of specificity, it is tempting to conjure up images of gardens which place geometric elements side by side with park-like settings, or which combine these forms into more complex overlays such that the boundaries between the contrasting elements are not clear. But while the solution Schiller has in mind is not far removed from these images, it is not to be gained simply by blending together stock images of French and English gardens. His procedure is much more precise than such a simple admixture, and an adequate account of it requires looking at several interrelated ideas in the Aesthetic Letters for guidance: the emergence of aesthetics from the structure of subjectivity itself, the role of the aesthetic object within this structure, and the ensuing series of relations which continue to connect subject and object through analogous modes of determination. Two major sets of questions arise in conjunction with this analysis. (1) What kind of a synthesis is described in Schiller’s Mittelweg if it is not a halfway point or a simple mixture of the formal properties? Does this structure occur in other parts of Schiller’s aesthetic philosophy, and may we use it as a point for comparison? (2) Does the theoretical synthesis have a physical or geometrical analog? If there is anything in Schiller’s philosophy that would indicate how a translation might be made between conceptual structure and physical structure, and can we discover whether his proposed synthesis of two garden styles can be done in a way that is similar to the resolution of two concepts into a third term? To make any progress toward answering these questions, we will first have to consider the more general notion of triadic structure in Schiller’s philosophy.

The Historical Narrative of Mediation

143

LOGICAL VS. HISTORICAL STRUCTURE The basic triad which underlies Schiller’s aesthetics is (1) sense, (2) form, and (3) play, each term corresponding to a drive, or faculty, within the human being. As described in detail in the Aesthetic Letters, the sense drive refers to feeling and physical sensation, to those determinations which make us particular individuals occupying a certain time and space. The form drive concerns abstract thinking and the understanding, that changeless aspect of our make-up which gives us a persistent identity because it is not affected by time. The play drive, or the aesthetic, is the cooperation (not the mixing) of the first two terms, and is what ultimately identifies us as human. While qualitatively distinct as a third faculty, it exists only when the other two are working at full force and in harmony with one another. The aesthetic is the capacity to judge intuitions according to their holistic properties, not just according to the separate capacities of the other two faculties. While there is much that could be said to expand these ideas, for the purposes of building a context for the Mittelweg synthesis it is enough to concentrate on two of the principles that are at work here. The first is the observation that Schiller intended that this triadic structure describe three distinct and independent faculties, not three points along a continuum. The second is that in addition to its logical properties, the triadic structure implies a temporal development which finds its expression both in the history of civilization and in the growth, or Bildung, of the individual. With regard to the first point, Schiller states that beauty is the mediation between matter and form, but there is an infinite gap between the two13 and they operate in two distinct spheres.14 Therefore, beauty is not a middle term, but simply a cognitive state that allows each drive to operate simultaneously at full capacity. Schiller uses the metaphor that a scale with equal weights is as much in balance as a scale that is empty. In this picture, the aesthetic mode arises in the subject when its determinations provided by the sense drive are balanced by determinations (equally strong) coming from the form drive.15 Schiller maintains that a depth of experience is achieved because the aesthetic state maximizes the apprehension of the world through feeling while simultaneously maximizing the determining faculty through freedom.16 Or, as he alternatively states the matter elsewhere, freedom arises because the determinations “cancel” each other when they exhibit equal strength.17 As well as being systematically precise, the triadic structure is also strict with regard to the order in which the three drives emerge, both in history and within the individual.18 The sense-drive emerges first, the aesthetic second (but only for an instant) and the form-drive third. Schiller argues at

144

The German “Mittelweg”

length that the leap from sense to the aesthetic is much more difficult than the transition from the aesthetic to form. The further complication is that once the aesthetic state emerges, the balance is immediately lost and the excesses of the form-drive become dominant. Only after some time is the civilization or individual capable of restoring the balance, and this only by being trained through the contemplation of aesthetic objects. So while there is a logical sequence from sense to form to the mediation of the aesthetic, the historical sequence deviates slightly with the inclusion of a brief aesthetic moment (Greece) between sense (pre-history) and form (modern civilization).19 Schiller’s account has a great deal to do with other universal histories produced in the eighteenth century, and the placement of the highest form of integration in a future aesthetic state rather than in an Arcadian past can be seen as an echo of Rousseau, especially in his positive account of precivilization nature and the possibilities of a nature-brokered redemption in the future. For Schiller, as for Rousseau, however, a return to pre-civilization conditions would not have been an advance over the present situation, but merely a relapse into the lower state of the senses. When Schiller applies this triadic structure in the Gartenkalender essay, it remains, as in the Aesthetic Letters, both systematic and historical in its conception. This dual aspect of his approach is seen perhaps most clearly in the second half of the essay, where he attempts to use the Hohenheim garden as a concrete example of the new Mittelweg approach. Although we will return to this portion of Schiller’s essay later, it is worth quoting one section of his text at this point in order to flesh out some of the historical dimensions of his thinking. Here, he is describing the approach to Hohenheim from Stuttgart and the sequence by which one finally arrives at the portion of the gardens known as the English Village: Um den ganzen Genuß davon zu haben, muß man durch das neu erbaute fürstliche Schloß zu ihr geführt worden sein. Der Weg von Stuttgart nach Hohenheim ist gewissermaßen eine versinnlichte Geschichte der Gartenkunst, die dem aufmerksamen Betrachter interessante Bemerkungen darbietet. In den Fruchtfeldern, Weinbergen und wirtschaftlichen Gärten, an denen sich die Landstraße hinzieht, zeigt sich demselben der erste physische Anfang der Gartenkunst, entblößt von aller ästhetischen Verzierung. Nun aber empfängt ihn die französische Gartenkunst mit stolzer Gravität, unter den langen und schroffen Pappelwänden, welche die freie Landschaft mit Hohenheim in Verbindung setzen und durch ihre kunstmäßige Gestalt schon Erwartung erregen. Dieser feierliche Eindruck steigt bis zu einer fast peinlichen

The Historical Narrative of Mediation

145

Spannung, wenn man die Gemächer des herzoglichen Schlosses durchwandert, das an Pracht und Eleganz wenig seinesgleichen hat und auf eine gewiß seltne Art Geschmack mit Verschwendung vereinigt. Durch den Glanz, der hier von allen Seiten das Auge drückt, und durch die kunstreiche Architektur der Zimmer und des Ameublement wird das Bedürfnis nach—Simplizität bis zu dem höchsten Grade getrieben und der ländlichen Natur, die den Reisenden auf einmal in dem sogenannten englischen Dorfe empfängt, der feierlichste Triumph bereitet.20 [In order to enjoy the experience fully, one must be guided through the approach to the recently constructed princely palace. The road from Stuttgart to Hohenheim is, so to speak, a tangible history of garden art that presents the astute viewer with interesting observations. The earliest physical origins of garden art, stripped of all aesthetic ornamentation, are visible in the orchards, vineyards, and vegetable gardens that line the highway. Soon, however, one begins to perceive the stately severity of French garden art in the long, vertical wall of poplars that connects the open landscape with Hohenheim and whose artful form heightens the sense of anticipation. This ceremonious effect reaches an almost unbearable level of intensity as one passes through the ducal palace’s chambers, which are virtually unmatched in splendor and elegance and combine taste with extravagance in a decidedly rare fashion. The brilliance that surrounds the eye, the ornate architecture of the rooms and their furnishings, arouses the utmost need for—simplicity, and through the most celebratory triumph readies the traveler for the rural nature first encountered in the so-called English Village.]

If we overlay Schiller’s rather telescoped version of garden history with his equally schematic account of the historical emergence of the sense, form, and aesthetic states in human civilization, then agriculture corresponds to sense; the geometric gardens of early modern France to form; and the Mittelweg garden (understood perhaps as the English garden in its highest form, but this is not clear) to the aesthetic. The historical overlay of garden history works well enough for Schiller until he reaches the third stage. With regard to the kind of nature that should appear at this moment, Schiller held that the truly natural (third stage of man) is something beyond unnaturalness (rigid culture) and mere nature (pre-history). One would expect that he had this third stage21 in mind when he conceived the Mittelweg and that he wanted this garden of the “eye” to correspond to the historical stage of the aesthetic. The difficulty

146

The German “Mittelweg”

is that Schiller’s earlier approval of the English garden led him to desire that it partially fulfill this role, but only in its purest form where it was free of the excesses which he was wont to criticize. Historically the English garden does occur in the right order, but it does not completely fulfill for Schiller the requirements of the aesthetic stage. (Otherwise, there would have been no need for him to posit a Mittelweg garden style.) Yet it comes close, and therein lies the difficulty of placing it within Schiller’s system. We are left with the two slightly different possibilities for interpreting the Mittelweg in its historical emergence: (1) a purified form of the existing English style or (2) an as yet unrealized synthesis which takes more from the English style than it does from the French. So although he did not place it at the culmination of garden history and he criticized its excesses as thoroughly as he did the excesses of the French garden, the English garden was still for Schiller a higher synthesis of art/nature or man/nature than the French garden. Part of the complication in the meaning of these terms comes from the changing political associations that accompanied the words “French” and “English.”22 By Schiller’s time, there was a well-established tradition in German garden literature which pitted the “rigid” garden style of the French absolutist monarchy at Versailles against a more politically enlightened English nobility of the country estate, with the German princes somewhere in the middle searching for their own distinct political and cultural identity. While this caricature was easy for German writers to draw before 1789, it was more difficult to maintain during the 1790s when “French,” and even “English,” no longer meant quite the same thing. This ambiguity is evident in the feelings Schiller expressed toward the French Revolution. While his initial response to the Revolution was positive, his description of the unruly mobs of the ensuing Terror recalls the language he used to describe the “lawless” excesses of the English garden. Rather than progressing upward toward the unifying ideal of “organic life,” society in the 1790s was falling back into the “elements,”23 again reminiscent of his criticism of the English garden for its promotion of variety (Mannigfaltigkeit) at the expense of harmony (Übereinstimmung). These parallels give some indication that the Aesthetic Mittelweg Garden, like the Aesthetic Political State, was not yet a reality, nor was it so easy to say any longer what was French and what was English. The arbitrary (willkürlich) freedom characteristic of the worst extremes of the English garden style and of the new French political situation was not yet the aesthetic freedom, i.e. reason-guided inner necessity, that he envisioned in the Aesthetic Letters. Despite these ambiguities, the English label remained largely positive for Schiller. Additional evidence that the Mittelweg synthesis draws more

The Historical Narrative of Mediation

147

from the English style than from the French is that in his criticism of the two forms of excess, Schiller refers to the one simply as the French but to the other as the “so-called” English taste: “a middle path between the stiffness of French garden taste and the lawless freedom of the so-called English taste” (emphasis mine).24 While he had no problem criticizing French taste as French, Schiller was unwilling to call the excesses of the so-called English garden truly English. For him, the particular instantiations of the “English” garden found in the German territories fell short of the true ideal of English taste, so he was not willing to dismiss the possibility that a purer version of the English garden could be realized in his homeland. His Mittelweg solution offers such a possibility. Additional indications that the Mittelweg does not draw equally from its two subsidiary terms can be found in comments made by Schiller on the relative merits of sensationalist and rationalist aesthetic systems. Schiller maintained that although both fall short of the play-drive synthesis he proposes, sensationalism comes closer to the truth of aesthetic experience than does rationalism. There are other passages in the Aesthetic Letters where Schiller voices the similar criticism that rationalism’s emphasis on form comes at the expense of the fullness of sense and materiality.25 If we take sensationalism in this instance to be British empiricism and rationalism to be French (or French-derived) rationalism, then a hierarchy similar to the one for garden taste emerges. As with the garden, Schiller prefers that aesthetic philosophy pursue a German Mittelweg, but allows that the English version is more adequate than the French. While in his view French and English do not stand on level ground, the ultimate import of this difference is not entirely clear in his philosophy. His account of beauty, made possible by Kant’s critical philosophy, was intended to provide the antidote to both empiricism and rationalism regardless of their merits relative to one another.26 Given its complex associations with nature, art, poetry, architecture, universal histories, political systems, and philosophical schools, the Mittelweg eludes a simple definition. Ultimately, it is perhaps best to see it as a multilayered version of Schiller’s “sublation” (Aufhebung)27 operation which links together a series of imbedded binary syntheses but is not reducible to any one of them. For this general approach Schiller is indebted to the structure of Kant’s philosophical method and his defense of the triadic arrangement in the Kritik der Urteilskraft.28 Schiller’s use of sense and form as the fundamental polarity of the Aesthetic Letters is his unique contribution to this tradition. The Mittelweg of the Gartenkalender stands in an important relationship to the Aesthetic Letters because it allowed Schiller to recast the sense/form duality in the slightly different terms nature/art. The nature/art duality, because

148

The German “Mittelweg”

it corresponds closely but not exhaustively with sense/form, added a set of permutations that would not have been possible without thinking these aesthetic principles through the conceptual and material structures of the garden. To illustrate further the way that the nature/art duality of Schiller’s garden theory shares in the conceptual apparatus of his larger aesthetic philosophy, a few diagrams will prove helpful. The first simply notes that within the general garden culture of the 1790s, the essence of the garden as such can be represented as a synthetic union of nature and art:

While this was considered sufficient to define the garden in general, the emphasis on either nature or art produced the two basic styles of the English and the French. One could transform the above diagram into the following:

By adding the previously discussed terms Gartenlandschaft and Garten, we can now get a better idea of the various intersections of nature and art at work in the construction of Schiller’s Mittelweg:

The Historical Narrative of Mediation

149

In this scheme the Mittelweg emerges as an integration of the Nature’ of the English taste and the Art’ of the French taste, both of which are themselves particular integrations of lower forms of nature and art. The English side emphasizes the role of nature, though it is conceived through categories given by art; the French side emphasizes art, though it is an art whose materials consist primarily of modified natural objects and living organisms. At all levels of the Mittelweg’s constitutive structure, Schiller makes use of a binary synthesis in that each term is always itself a combination of two other terms. Most often, one of the two terms will rise to the top of the triad by contributing more to the resulting concept. For example, the Nature’ of the English taste is a combination of a lower form of nature with art. It retains the name Nature, but it includes more in its concept than what is found in the lower form. This strategy is characteristic of the entire structure of his aesthetics. So although Schiller does not specify in the Gartenkalender essay all the details necessary to construct the Mittelweg synthesis, this preliminary analysis suggests that it can be filled out satisfactorily with details supplied by the conceptual operations employed in the Aesthetic Letters. THE MITTELWEG AS PHYSICAL STRUCTURE Having outlined the essential logical and historical structure of the Mittelweg, the question now arises as to how this idea might look in physical form. In the Gartenkalender review Schiller makes an attempt to answer this question through his positive critique of the English garden at Hohenheim. His effort is uneven at best, with both Schiller’s contemporaries29 and recent scholars30 commenting on the shortcomings of his attempt. Rather than immediately pursuing the question of physical form through a reading of this portion of the essay, it will be helpful first to seek some clues to Schiller’s approach in other aspects of his aesthetics. To accomplish this task, we will have to pursue a path which outlines the possibility of a connection between concept and physical form. In Schiller’s system this is best accomplished by delineating the thread which connects the following components of his aesthetic philosophy: the derivation of beauty from the nature of subjectivity itself, the role of the aesthetic object in the construction of a particular kind of subject, the attributes which permit the aesthetic object to perform this role, and the garden considered as a species of aesthetic object in this sense. We can begin with Schiller’s observation that in the state of mere sense perception, there is no distinction between the self and objects. There is no organized universe, merely a succession of sense impressions that do not have any necessary connection with one another. Because of the lack of necessity

150

The German “Mittelweg”

within, there is also none without and, therefore, (for the subject) no universe. In this physical state, the human is self-seeking but without a self; lawless, yet without freedom; a slave, yet to no rule.31 The mental leap occurs in the first brief appearance of the aesthetic, when the impressions are subsumed under the forms of thought32 and are set over against the perceiving subject as object: “Only when, at the aesthetic stage, he puts it [the world] outside himself, or contemplates it, does his personality differentiate itself from it, and a world becomes manifest to him because he has ceased to be One with it.”33 The aim of the subject is to construct itself as an atemporal, persistent unity which organizes the manifold of its sense impressions into a universe, something akin to Kant’s unity of apperception.34 Beauty emerges from this structure as the means by which the two drives, sense and form, are to work harmoniously in the development of a higher form of consciousness, one which allows a timeless unity to subsume the greatest amount of physical determination. As the principle is stated in Schiller’s well-known formula: “Let there be humanity” becomes equivalent to saying, “Let there be beauty.”35 Because it issues from the harmony of these two components, beauty is a pure rational concept (not an empirical one) that is linked to a “pure concept of human nature,” an ideal man.36 This archetype, or ideal man, is a potential that all humans carry within themselves by virtue of their essential nature; it is the unity toward which we strive.37 The model for this ideal man is the Absolute Subject itself: “In the Absolute Subject [God] alone do all its determining attributes persist with the personality, since all of them proceed from the personality.”38 Thus the divine nature combines an absolute manifestation of potential with an absolute unity of the manifestation. The second of these qualities, the absolute unity of manifestation, is Schiller’s definition of necessity in the physical realm. The need to contemplate this particular form of necessity in the physical realm leads to the idea of an aesthetic object, whose primary function is to aid in the development of a unified subject that (1) persists over time and (2) experiences itself as being whole. It accomplishes this task by wresting permanence from change in the phenomenal world and presenting it before the subject as a sensible intuition. As the first condition of becoming an individuated person is to set a world against oneself, certain objects (those with aesthetic properties) are formed which allow us to experience ourselves as whole persons through the integration of feeling and thinking. Through their association with the divine quality of absolute unity of manifestation, these objects become for us symbols of the Infinite.39 The continual construction of a persisting “I” thus gives the rationale for creating objects which

The Historical Narrative of Mediation

151

also possess this unifying quality, taken by the subject as the physical reflection and embodiment of its own self-conception. The advantage for Schiller is that by grounding his theory in this primordial division of subject and object, his concept of beauty contains the inchoate possibility of articulating a connection between conceptual structure and physical structure. Having established the role of the aesthetic object in the construction of subjectivity and having seen in this activity at least the possibility of analogous conceptual and physical structures, we can now look more closely at the characteristics the aesthetic object must have in order to fulfill its purposes. The starting point is to recall that the persistence of the identity of the subject within its phenomenal determination is the normative ground of aesthetic unity. “Once its [self-consciousness’s] immutable unity is established, there is also established a law of unity for everything which is there for man, and for everything which is to come about through him, i.e. for all his knowing and for all his doing.”40 Given this demand for wholeness and the unified composition of elements, at least one quality that the object must possess is a hierarchy among parts in the service of a whole, or of a single idea. A second demand is that the object should have the appearance of self-determination and self-standingness (Selbständigkeit). Already in the Kallias letters of 1793, Schiller had set forth a condition of beauty which required that aesthetic objects should appear to posit their own determinations, being guided by laws of inner necessity rather than by outside constraints. Organic form was taken by Schiller to be the model of this principle, and consequently the Kallias letters often use examples of landscape and plant forms to illustrate this compositional principle. This demand also accounts for his general preference in the Gartenkalender for the English style of gardening, which allows plants to develop their individual forms without shearing.41 The other quality which Schiller maintains that the aesthetic object must possess in order to fulfill its role is that of Schein, or semblance. For him, Schein is the guarantee that the subject has emerged from the world of sense into the world of the aesthetic: “The reality of things is the work of things themselves; the semblance of things is the work of man.”42 As a semblance of reality, the aesthetic object is by definition removed from the vicissitudes of change and the control of outside laws, creating through physical means an analog of the self-determination and Selbständigkeit of the subject. As a form of play, it does not encroach upon the realm of determinate judgments, or truth claims. Were it to do so, it would become logical semblance rather than aesthetic semblance and would be guilty of deception.43 This is not to say that Schein does not use real objects to create its effects, for indeed it must in order to attain a determinate existence. The point is that in using

152

The German “Mittelweg”

reality in this way, Schein does not itself pretend to be reality. In light of this requirement, it is now much easier to see why Schiller was concerned in the Gartenkalender essay to point out that the landscape garden (and architecture, to extent that it is imitative) is unique among the fine arts in that it represents nature through nature itself. By selecting portions of natural scenery and recombining them into a new, artificially constructed whole, a second order of reality is, in a sense, created alongside the rest of the environment. It has the peculiar character of being both perceptually separate from and physically continuous with the surrounding environment. One could almost say that it operates in this respect like a stage set.44 The concern over the potential encroachment of Schein into the realm of truth brings up the more fundamental issue of the relationship of the aesthetic object to concepts in general. This relationship was treated extensively by Kant in the Kritik der Urteilskraft, where he insists that the reflective aesthetic judgment does not refer the intuition of the object to a determinate concept, but instead delights in the indeterminate play of the faculties in its search for adequate concepts.45 Similarly, Kant argues that any reference to the outside concepts of purpose or utility removes the experience from consideration as a purely aesthetic one. Schiller retains these basic Kantian features in his account of aesthetic judgment, but his grounding of beauty in the primordial division of subject and object opens a path which allows for a more complex understanding of the relationship between concept and object. In this initial division, the subject achieves a determinate existence by negating itself from the rest of the world, drawing a boundary around a unified content that it refers to as “I.” In this way, determination (understood by Schiller as a negation or exclusion) is seen to be the only operation which is capable of making something real.46 The primordial determination or exclusion not only has the effect of making the “I” physically real, but it also gives birth to thought, which refers the negation to something positive, i.e. the reality against which it is posited.47 The genesis of thought, as a determination through negation, is thus connected with the original division of the subject from the object at the moment when aesthetic cognition emerges from the state of mere sense perception. The aesthetic is, in Schiller’s view, both the simultaneous birth of thinking subject and physical world and the continuing link between them. THE GARDENS AT HOHENHEIM Having sketched out some of the basic principles that underlie Schiller’s account of aesthetic objects in general, his analysis of the Hohenheim garden

The Historical Narrative of Mediation

153

can be seen in a clearer perspective. The garden itself was constructed from about 1776 to 1793. It lies just outside Stuttgart and was part of the grounds surrounding a newly renovated palace that served as the residence of Karl Eugen and his mistress Franziska. The English park (approximately 21 ha.) was eventually filled with close to sixty small buildings, or follies, each set among its own flower gardens, lawns and tree groupings, and connected by a series of paths. These buildings were of various styles (including a few exotic specimens typical of late eighteenth-century parks), but the vast majority were either based on models in classical antiquity or made to look like rural farm buildings. The inspiration for the “village” probably came from Franziska’s visit to Marie Antoinette’s hameau at Versailles, for it served a similar function for the court at Hohenheim. The grounds were not open to the public until after Karl Eugen’s death in 1793, and thus were until that time a place for solitary retreat for members of the court. The only exceptions to this practice were the occasional festivals staged by Franziska in which members of the working classes were compelled to dress up in costume and serve as the “inhabitants” of the village. Conceived as the living staffage of a landscape painting, these individuals peopled the village as bakers, farmers, blacksmiths, millers, and assorted other roles, for the amusement of Karl Eugen, Franziska, and their guests. Although Schiller does not mention these festivals in his review, he had been well acquainted with both the court members and the garden since about 1780 and doubtless knew of these festival days.48 The English Village, lying on the edge of the formal court gardens and occasionally serving in this way as a form of theater, certainly would have evoked for Schiller notions associated with his principle of Schein, i.e. a piece of embellished, playful reality standing alongside the more somber realities of court life. What is quite disturbing, of course, are the social dimensions of the way this effect is achieved. Schiller, however, seems not to have given this much notice. What has puzzled most commentators, however, is that where Schiller saw a unified composition at Hohenheim, other contemporary observers saw a confusing jumble of unrelated buildings and scenes crowded too close to one another. Schiller himself acknowledges the existence of these criticisms: Es wird ihn wahrscheinlich nicht weniger als den Rezensentan überraschen, in einer Komposition, die man so sehr geneigt war für das Werk der Willkür zu halten, eine Idee herrschen zu sehen, die, es sei nun dem Urheber oder dem Beschreiber des Gartens, nicht wenig Ehre macht. Die mehresten Reisenden, denen die Gunst widerfahren ist, die Anlage zu Hohenheim zu besichtigen, haben darin, nicht ohne große

154

The German “Mittelweg”

Figure 16. English Village at Hohenheim, plan by Victor Heideloff, 1795 Reproduced by permission from Fellmeth, “Die Gärten von Hohenheim,” 7. Befremdung, römische Grabmäler, Tempel, verfallene Mauren u. dgl. mit Schweizerhütten, und lachende Blumenbeete mit schwarzen Gefängnismauren abwechseln gesehen. Sie haben die Einbildungskraft nicht begreifen können, die sich erlauben durfte, so disparate Dinge in ein Ganzes zu verknüpfen.49 [It will probably surprise no less than the critic, who is so prone to take this composition for a work of caprice, to see a governing idea that brings no little renown to the creator of the garden or to one who describes it. Most tourists, who feel it is their duty to visit the grounds at Hohenheim, cannot without great shock and displeasure view the Roman tombs, temples, crumbling walls, and the like in alternation with Swiss huts, or see cheerful flower beds juxtaposed against dark prison walls. They do not have, or do not permit

The Historical Narrative of Mediation

155

Figure 17. Temple ruins in the English Village at Hohenheim, view by Victor Heideloff, 1800 Reproduced by permission from Fellmeth, “Die Gärten von Hohenheim,” 11.

themselves, the imaginative capacity to grasp that such disparate things can be combined into a whole.]

In the face of this apparent confusion of visual images, what Schiller proposes is that we view the unity of the Hohenheim garden according to the form of an idea rather than a sensual perception, a proposal which is in apparent tension with his aesthetic theory as outlined above. For it seems that by locating the unity of the aesthetic judgment in a concept rather than in a perceptual experience, he is departing from his own insistence on the balanced employment of the form and sense drives. His account of the unifying idea is as follows: Die Vorstellung, daß wir eine ländliche Kolonie vor uns haben, die sich unter den Ruinen einer römischen Stadt niederließ, hebt auf

156

The German “Mittelweg” einmal diesen Widerspruch und bringt eine geistvolle Einheit in diese barocke Komposition. Ländliche Simplizität und versunkene städtische Herrlichkeit, die zwei äußersten Zustände der Gesellschaft, grenzen auf eine rührende Art aneinander, und das ernste Gefühl der Vergänglichkeit verliert sich wunderbar schön in dem Gefühl des siegenden Lebens. Diese glückliche Mischung gießt durch die ganze Landscahft einen tiefen elegischen Ton aus, der den empfindenden Betrachter zwischen Ruhe und Bewegung, Nachdenken und Genuß schwankend erhält und noch lange nachhallet, wenn schon alles verschwunden ist.50 [The representation that we have before us, of a rural colony that has established itself among the ruins of a Roman city, immediately annuls this contradiction and brings an ingenious unity to this baroque composition. Rural simplicity and fallen urban magnificence, the two most extreme conditions of society, adjoin one another in a stirring way, and the somber feeling of transitoriness marvelously mingles with that of victorious life. This happy blending produces a profound elegiac tone that flows through the entire landscape and suspends the sensitive observer between stillness and movement, contemplation and pleasure, remaining long after everything has faded from view.]

A charitable reading of Schiller’s position here might also point out that his account of the approach road to Hohenheim exhibits the same notion of narrative unity. Instead of the unity associated with the perception of simultaneous representations, such as in paintings or individual garden scenes, he seems more concerned with the type of unity that can be met only after experiencing a succession of these images. In this view, it would seem quite natural that Schiller would privilege a narrative form of unity as being more complex. Moreover, it is obvious from the end of the quotation that he is as much concerned about a balanced synthesis of the feelings aroused by the idea as he is by the unity of the idea itself. So while the rest of his account of the Mittelweg would lead us to expect, even demand, that greater attention be given to the perceptual unity of the individual scenes (Where is Selbständigkeit, for example?), he is perhaps saved from contradiction by taking refuge in the higher complexity of a succession of images, one which requires a unifying idea to be experienced. This suggests that for Schiller, the physical configuration of the Mittelweg garden is secondary to its function of arousing a unified matrix of feelings

The Historical Narrative of Mediation

157

and ideas in the observer. Rather than searching for the form of this garden through a reworking of existing compositional strategies, it turns out that Schiller’s Mittelweg is best approached as a discipline of cognitive arrangements, that is, as a dynamic conception of philosophical system building that mimics a stroll through a garden.

Chapter Six

The Background of Discourse

The methodological outlines of German garden theory in the 1790s bear the unmistakable imprint of Kant’s philosophy. Given the tremendous impact of his thought within German universities during that decade, it is understandable that professional philosophers theorizing the garden in that context would have shaped their work according to the critical philosophy’s structural demands. In a conscious repetition of the formality and pervasive dichotomy of Kant’s conception of reason, these theorists emphasized the visual, compositional properties of gardens and reduced all formal variation to two broad categories, the regular and the irregular. The primary theoretical problem under such assumptions became the deduction of a new garden type through the synthesis, or transcendence, of the resulting binary oppositions. We have explored the ways in which two of the principal Mittelweg theorists framed this central problem and how each constructed a theory of mediation in response. Further, we have seen that each of these theories issued from a particular adaptation of Kant’s philosophy: Heydenreich’s blend of Kantianism and Popularphilosophie that was typical of his Leipzig milieu, and Schiller’s recasting of Kant’s tri-partite critique as three stages in the cultural development of human history. Despite the fact that each Mittelweg theory emphasizes a different set of issues, Kant’s philosophy has been the “given,” the muted but persistent basso continuo, that has provided the common vocabulary and principal point of reference for our interpretive framework. The pressing question that remains, however, is whether anything is to be gained by considering the interpretive process in reverse. Having now reached a better understanding of the Mittelweg garden theories in light of Kant’s influence, is it possible that the analysis of these theories has, in turn, generated results that might lead to new and critical insights into Kant’s philosophy itself? And, by extension, 159

160

The German “Mittelweg”

could any such insights have been obtained without recourse to the critical methods and material contexts that are unique to garden theory? Any answer that might be deemed adequate requires that we proceed far beyond Kant’s own (minimal) garden theory, or even his aesthetics, to consider some of the more abstract issues that have been raised by our analysis but left aside up to this point. If not yet a definitive response, the following two chapters are nonetheless offered as a preliminary sketch of the kind of work that must be conducted in order to obtain such an answer. Although one could select an entry point from among any of the Mittelweg theorists or even Kant himself, the best intimation of the central knot of problems is found elsewhere in a rather obscure figure who labored in Kant’s shadow on the Königsberg philosophical faculty: Karl Ludwig Pörschke (1751–1812). In his Gedanken über einige Gegenstände der Philosophie des Schönen (1794), Pörschke makes the remarkable claim that if a garden is to qualify as a work of fine art, it must be cognizable as a “system of reason” (Vernunftsystem). By this he means that all its elements must be subsumable under a single, rational principle whose ordering of relations is comparable to the legislative function of a state constitution. Within the limited context of Pörschke’s aesthetics, this statement about gardens is not a particularly exceptional one, given that he sees rational systematicity as the defining feature of all art forms. Nevertheless, the case of the picturesque garden, the only type of garden he sees as capable of elevation to fine art, must remain an especially curious one even for him.1 For if a “system of reason” implies architectonic structure, as it does in Kant’s philosophy and had throughout the Leibniz-Wolff tradition,2 in what sense could a picturesque garden be construed in such terms? Philosophical architectonics is not synonymous with built architecture, to be sure, but it is almost impossible for the thought of architectonics not to conjure up attendant images of its stone-and-mortar cognate. For this reason, even if it does not strictly entail a geometrical arrangement of garden forms, Pörschke’s Vernunftsystem would hardly have brought to mind a Wörlitz or a Luisium for an audience steeped in the German scholastic tradition. Pörschke’s garden theory seems at first glance, then, oddly out of joint with its own time. For was it not precisely in the revolt against architecture as the starting point of garden theory that philosophers had begun their search for an internal, and thus independent, principle adequate to the novel forms of the late eighteenth century? Paradoxically, by conflating these two notions—architectonic Vernunftsystem and picturesque garden—Pörschke is perhaps, in one sense, truer to his milieu than any other garden theorist of his era. For by baldly articulating the incongruity between the new

The Background of Discourse

161

garden forms and “reason” so conceived, he places at the very center of his theory a problem that others had either quietly finessed or simply failed to notice. In doing so he unwittingly exemplifies a more general contradiction characteristic of Revolutionary-era German philosophy: the almost universal apotheosis of architectonics as the ideal of reason even as it was, from a practical point of view, already an anachronism. While new cultural forms (e.g., the Naturgarten) continued to appear that were clearly unassimilable to its terms, the Lehrgebäude of reason nevertheless remained normative for most German philosophers throughout the 1790s. And if by this time these philosophers could routinely burnish their critical credentials by marshaling “reason” against other, more amenable, targets (e.g., the ossified social norms and institutions of the Old Regime), this campaign did not yet extend to the crystalline3 conception of reason itself. The Critique of Pure Reason was supposed to have inaugurated, if not completed, this reflexive move already. Yet it could easily be argued that Kant, despite the avowed radicalism of his “Copernican revolution,” actually did more than anyone else to sustain the traditional picture of reason as a static, architectural construction. The persistence of the architectonic model of reason in German thought, especially as it is one of the few assumptions of the Leibniz-Wolff tradition that Kant retained uncritically, should give us pause. That it should be proffered by a Königsberg Kantian as the central principle of the picturesque garden should take our breath away. Pörschke’s audacity opens up a path, however, for a potentially fruitful interrogation of the “architectonic” in German thought via the rather circuitous route of the garden. The jarring dissonance in his text, occurring at the moment when Vernunftsystem and garden are forcibly made to coincide, suggests that “systems of reason”—above all Kant’s—may turn out to look quite different when they are thought in garden terms. As we trace this dissonance, or what will eventually show itself to be a line of fissure in a mental topography, it will become increasingly apparent that our received notions about the architectonic structure of Kant’s philosophy may be as uncritical as Kant’s own use of that venerated trope. Despite these initial caveats, there are, in fact, good reasons why Kant’s philosophy has almost universally been interpreted in architectonic terms. In the three Critiques, he consistently identifies the generating principle of philosophical system as architectonics, equating it with the very nature of systematicity itself. Moreover, he often employs the metaphor of a building and its foundations to illustrate his aims and method.4 It is this language that has been emphasized by most of Kant’s interpreters, due in no small part to Kant’s own underscoring of its importance in the closing pages of the Critique of Pure Reason.5 Nevertheless, alongside these architectural images is

162

The German “Mittelweg”

another set of metaphors in Kant’s writings that is at least as old as the more familiar ones. Only rarely remarked upon in the secondary literature, these “topographical” devices present a complementary and, as I will argue, necessary framework for comprehending the critical enterprise. This is especially true by the time we reach the third Critique, at which point topographics essentially supplants architectonics as the dominant image. One might question the importance of visual images in the interpretation of something as abstract as a treatise on philosophical method were it not for Kant’s own awareness of the indispensable role of metaphor in philosophical language. In the Critique of Judgment, for example, he makes the following remark in the context of his discussion of symbols: Our language [German] is full of indirect presentations of this sort, in which the expression does not contain the proper schema for the concept, but merely a symbol for reflection. Thus the words ground (support, basis), to depend (to be held up from above, to flow from something (instead of, to follow), substance (as Locke expresses it, the support of accidents), and countless others are not schematical but symbolical hypotyposes and expressions for concepts, not by means of a direct intuition, but only by analogy with it. (KU, §59)

Jacques Derrida has used this thought as the starting point for his extended meditation on philosophical metaphor in The Truth in Painting, where he conducts his justly famous analysis of Kant’s rhetorical use of the “parergon,” or frame. If we have learned through Derrida to take metaphor in philosophy seriously, he has also taught us to be suspicious of the uncomplicated mode of representation that it is usually understood to entail. Claudia Brodsky has brought this insight to bear on the complex, and often fraught, relationship between architectonics and architecture. In four studies, focused primarily on Descartes and Kant,6 she explores the status of architectonics as an enabling device for discourse as well as the limits one encounters when thinking about architectonics in terms of architectural theory. In Lines of Thought: Discourse, Architectonics, and the Origin of Modern Philosophy (1996) she writes: What became apparent to me in the post-Cartesian writings I worked on was that the language of architectonics employed within them was not symbolic in the conventional sense. It was pragmatic, and functional, even when it took the form of an object; it was active, even when it was explicitly abstract, a means of doing rather than a determined category, schema, or concept. At the same time, it was never merely a

The Background of Discourse

163

convenient way—in the manner first suggested with deceptive modesty by Plato’s Socrates—of representing a metaphysical idea that would otherwise remain unintelligible. . . . 7

We will return to the problem of “representing” a metaphysical idea when we consider Kant’s doctrine of beauty as the symbol of morality, but as a preliminary observation it is enough to highlight what Brodsky has identified as the essential linearity of architectonic form: “The discursive beginning of modern philosophy, the founding of the subject of thinking, occurs not as a linguistic picture or image but as line, an iconoclastic line, a ‘line of thought.’”8 In deploying the notion of architectonics as a freely drawn line that displaces the procedures of representation, resemblance, and mimesis—all of which are assumed in metaphorical language—she states explicitly what is merely inchoate in Pörschke’s line of fissure: namely, that one of the fundamental problems in thinking the picturesque garden as a Vernunftsystem lies in relating the assumed pictoriality of the former to the linearity of the latter. We have already encountered an adumbration of this tension in Heydenreich’s phrase “Nachahmung der landschaftlichen Natur,” with its implication of an “extra” judgment that is necessary for the process of imitation but not reducible to resemblance. But it is only in the course of reexamining Kant’s choice of metaphors for system that its exact contours can be made clear. In fact, it is precisely in terms of “contours” that Kant must effect a resolution between the pictorial and the linear, if indeed he can make the two compatible. What Kant eventually finds in the effort to coordinate their respective structural properties, and especially their requisite forms of mental navigation, is that he must arrange these contours into what is essentially a gardened topography. Kant’s turn to the topographical, although generally overshadowed by his employment of architectural language, has not gone entirely unnoticed by those with a special interest in the systematics of his philosophy. There are a few instances where individual metaphors have been duly noted by scholars, and sometimes explicated with great acuity, but they are usually interpreted as isolated moments within an otherwise straightforward architectonics.9 It is rare that the topographical aspect of Kant’s thought has been understood as an essential characteristic of his conception of system as a whole. The most important exception that has come to my attention is a passage by Dieter Henrich, one of Kant’s foremost interpreters of the past decades. In these two paragraphs, Henrich explains how a shift in Kant’s understanding of the moral image of the world during the 1780s led him to fundamentally alter his conception of system:

164

The German “Mittelweg” All this dramatically alters the view of the overall structure of reason, as well as of the way in which philosophy advances its insight and connects its disciplines. Philosophy cannot derive theorems from highest and self-evident premises. It must instead advance by investigating the connections between relatively independent domains of discourse. Since all these connections eventually indicate the reality of the principle from which moral conduct emerges, a comprehensive moral philosophy constitutes the conclusion of, rather than an application within, the system of philosophy. Until he had arrived at this conception, Kant could not possibly have conceived of a Critique of Judgment. The book as a whole is shaped as a partial discipline within philosophy as an ascent. The very notion of a reflective judgment is the notion of an ascending power of the mind. And its other key term, the notion of purposefulness, is applied in an ascending manner, too: the Critique of Judgment begins with particular kinds of purposefulness, like the beautiful and the organism; it proceeds to nature as a teleological system and arrives at the moral image of the world. In addition, the book is conceived as a network of theories that connect our basic knowledge about the laws constituting the empirical world with the ultimate ideas of reason, and it provides an orderly transition from the former to the latter. Before the revolution in Kant’s thought that led to the second Critique, the third Critique would not have been a possible candidate for a component of the philosophical system.10

Henrich’s description of Kant’s system as a set of “relatively independent domains of discourse” whose “connections” must be investigated through a process of “ascent” is striking. It is all the more so given the explicit contrast he draws between Kant’s later method of ascending through coordinated domains and his earlier procedure of deriving “theorems from highest and self-evident premises,” the modus operandi of classic architectonics.11 Although Henrich seems not to have pursued this insight further, at least not in the sense of fully articulating a topographics,12 its implications are too important to ignore. How can Kant’s claim to be constructing an architectonic of reason be squared with his simultaneous reconfiguration of philosophy as an ascending Wanderung through topographically arranged domains of thought? It is through the insights of philosophers who both absorbed Kant’s system and also produced some version of a “philosophy of topography” that

The Background of Discourse

165

clues should first be sought. The closest approximation we have of such an endeavor is the garden theory of the Mittelweg philosophers. In theorizing the garden according to the categories and methods of Kant’s philosophy, they successfully foregrounded as subject matter what had been only barely visible as structural background in Kant’s system. In other words, topographical structure emerged as a possible subject for Kantian philosophy only after that same philosophy first took up an empirical art (the garden) for which topography serves as the enabling material condition. But the explication of this foregrounding process is not nearly so straightforward as that, and it will require something along the lines of Henrich’s “ascent” to demonstrate how its various domains are connected. In that spirit, we will undertake a three-fold analysis of the topographic that moves toward successively broader levels of application. First, we will consider the process by which topography comes to be bracketed as a subject for Kantian philosophy by way of garden theory. In what might be termed a semiotics of topography, this translation of landform into discourse occurs within the philosophical system, but does not transform it as such. Second, we will consider topographics on the level of the system proper through Kant’s recurrent use of geographical metaphors whenever the vocabulary of architecture proves insufficient for his needs. Once we come to understand how these topographical images function, we will see why difficulties ensue when, at the completion of his critical enterprise, Kant tries to visualize the disposition of its parts synoptically, i.e., as if they still comprised a dichotomously articulated architectonics. At this point, we will evaluate the extent to which the Mittelweg garden theories—the only texts that attempt to synthesize the dichotomies of Kant’s system through explicitly topographical means—contain results that can address, and perhaps even solve, these difficulties. Lastly, we will briefly consider the implications of topographical thought as a specifically post-Kantian reaction to dichotomizing habits of mind. In particular, we will ask to what degree the topographical account of mental organization implicit in the Mittelweg garden theories alters our understanding of that period’s broader efforts to overcome dualism as such. With this thought in mind, we will close by restating in topographical terms the structural relations that obtain among philosophical systems, garden theories, and gardens themselves. VIGNETTE 1 In his Taschenbuch description of the Luisium, one of Prince Franz von Anhalt-Dessau’s gardens near Wörlitz, J. C. A. Grohmann engages in a rather

166

The German “Mittelweg”

lengthy digression on the proper use of artificial ruins in Naturgärten. These reflections are occasioned by his dissatisfaction with the effect produced by the so-called “Nonnenthor,” which terminates the avenue extending east from Princess Luise’s villa residence. The gateway, simulating a Roman triumphal arch that has fallen into decay, frames a view of a sarcophagus on which stands a statue of the goddess Sais. The goddess, a variant of ArtemisIsis, signifies the power of nature to overcome death through its inexhaustible fecundity. Her placement behind the ruined arch underscores that this assured triumph of nature is also a reversal of the one proclaimed by the arch in its (never actual) pristine state. For even if civilization prevails for a time, the allegory suggests, it will eventually succumb to the greater forces of dissolution and death. Nature presides over culture’s decay even as it inaugurates a rebirth and renewal amid the ruins. It is not the ruin’s message that troubles Grohmann, for his assessment of its valuation of nature over civilization is wholly positive. Rather, it is the means by which the theme is articulated, its semiotic strategy, that provokes his criticism. As we have already seen, Grohmann views the Luisium as an exemplary German Naturgarten. By this he means that its edifying effects are achieved primarily by arranging natural scenes with a view toward “interest” rather than beauty. In keeping with this emphasis on unadorned nature, the presence of sculpture, monuments, pavilions, and other architectural elements is necessarily minimized. For Grohmann, these costly objects are extrinsic to the “innocent” character of a Naturgarten and distract the viewer through worldly associations of luxury, pride, and indulgence. He thus justifies the Luisium’s designation as a Naturgarten in almost exclusively moral terms. As central as these moral concerns are to his theory, however, his reasons for censuring the contributions of architecture in Naturgärten are in fact more complex. In his reflections on the Nonnenthor, it is clear that they are epistemological as well: Und so scheinet mir dieses, daß ich die Anwendung mache, der Fall zu seyn bei jener Ruine in dem Luisium, wo in der That das, was das Gefühl an derselben hat, durch Individualisirung, durch Bezugnehmung auf Ideen gleichsam entfernet, oder wenigstens vermindert wird. Kann die Sprache der Natur in ihrer Vergänglichkeit, ihrem Hinsterben, Vergehen, Hinfallen, stärker seyn, als eben durch eine Ruine, die sich da mitten auf der Frühlingsaue, mitten auf der Wiese des verjüngten Frühlings zeiget? Wollen wir diese allgemeine Sprache der Natur, die jeder Mensch fühlet, noch stärker machen, da wir es auf vergangene Jahrhunderte, auf ein sonst blühendes, untergegangenes Rom anwenden, wie

The Background of Discourse

Figure 18. Luisium, plan by Johann Friedrich Eyserbeck, ca. 1790 Reproduced by permission © Anhaltische Gemäldegalerie Dessau.

167

168

The German “Mittelweg”

Figure 19. Luisium, view of Nonnenthor by W. Altzschner, ca. 1830 Reproduced by permission © Anhaltische Gemäldegalerie Dessau. auch dieses mit aller seiner Pracht die Zeit hinweggenommen hat?— Nein, sie wird schwächen die Sprache der Natur durch diese Individualisirung. Es ist ja nicht allein Rom, das untergegange, nicht allein seine blühenden Schätze, die verschwunden sind: mehr, was unser Herz hatte, ist heimgegangen, ist verloren gegangen, und eine bloße Ruine auf der Frühlingsaue, in der Jugend des Sommers hingestellt, o! das ist stark, malerisch genug, das zu bezeichnen, die ganze Fülle der Wehmuth, des Vergehens, des Hinsterbens über unser Herz zu bringen.13 [And so it appears to me, as I apply the principle, that this is the case with the ruin in the Luisium [the Nonnenthor], for the feeling it arouses will in fact dissipate, or at least be diminished, through individualization and through reference to ideas. Can the language of nature in its transitoriness, its passing away, perishing, and decay, be any stronger than what is signified by a ruin in the middle of a springtime meadow, a grassy field rejuvenated by the spring? Would we want to make this

The Background of Discourse

169

universal language of nature, which every person feels, even stronger by referring to past centuries, to a once flourishing, fallen Rome, which even with all its splendor time has taken away?—No, the language of nature would be weakened through this individualization. It is not only fallen Rome, with its resplendent treasures, that has disappeared: more so, it is what was held in our heart that has died, that has been lost. And a simple ruin set in a spring meadow, in the youth of summer—Oh, this is vivid and picturesque enough to signify, to bring to our heart, the fullness of melancholy, perishing, and passing away.]

Grohmann makes use of this pause in his descriptive itinerary to effect an analytic shift from the moral to the semiotic. By introducing a new opposition between the “individualizing” effects of specific ideas and the “universal language of nature,” he temporarily diverts our attention from the contrast between moral and worldly feeling. In its stead, we are invited to reflect upon feeling in general as a mode of communication that is distinct from the conceptual. As Grohmann notes earlier in the essay, this avenue of communication actually bypasses conceptual thought altogether, for the viewing of such scenes figuratively robs us of the capacity for speech: “ . . . and forgetful of all our feelings as we gaze speechlessly over the meadows, yet feeling peace in our hearts even more deeply.”14 It is in this state of “speechlessness,” with our discursive judgment suspended, that nature’s “purer, unveiled forms” (reinern, unverhüllten Formen)15 work most directly on our feelings. In such a view, the most important aspect of the feelings awakened by Naturgärten is not their moral content, but their function within an emotive language that is in principle universally accessible. In contrast, those parts of a garden that are more easily recognizable as artifice, e.g. statues and monuments, communicate primarily through mediating concepts that must be acquired through culture. Because of their specificity, these ideas inevitably lead to a determinant cognition of their object and the cessation of reverie. For this reason, Grohmann maintains that if all references to Rome were removed from the Nonnenthor,16 the resulting simplicity would generate a stronger emotional effect. For in its generality, by suppressing the conceptual component of the cognition, such a ruin would function semiotically more like its setting. It would approximate the indeterminacy and fluidity of nature’s language of feeling: Ueberall mag so ein schönes unübertreffliches allegorisches Denkmal des da gewesenen Roms stehen, aber nur, glaube ich, in einer Landschaft nicht, wo wir blos in unsern Gefühlen leben, nur das hören

170

The German “Mittelweg” wollen, was die Natur sagt. Die Natur spricht heredler, lauter von ihrer Vergänglichkeit in einer bloßen hingestellten Ruine ohne Bezug auf etwas Bestimmtes, das untergegangen; denn wir brauchen diese Zeichen bei der allgemeinen Vergänglichkeit nicht.17 [A beautiful, unsurpassable allegorical memorial to the Roman past can be placed anywhere except, I believe, in a landscape where we live simply in our feelings, where we wish to hear only what nature says. Nature speaks of its transitoriness with more nobility and purity through a simply constructed ruin that does not refer to a particular object that has perished. For we do not need this sign in order to comprehend the general notion of transitoriness.]

Grohmann’s characterization of emotive communication as language is, of course, problematic, given that the “language” of nature is expressly nondiscursive. For if it is to be intelligible in the manner of ordinary language, must it not also employ concepts, however general? When he asserts that nature “speaks . . . of its own transitoriness,” for example, it is not entirely clear whether he believes that we are to apprehend the concept of “transitoriness” itself or simply the feelings that normally accompany this concept. The context suggests the latter, but even in that case the thought itself must first be present if the attendant emotions are to follow. What is certain, in any event, is that Grohmann wishes to preserve the fluidity of the mental experience by preventing its fixation on a terminus that is too specific. And it is this fluidity, irrespective of the experience’s conceptual or emotional content, that is primarily at issue for him. The removal of specific references in a garden’s architectural features—if indeed such features must appear at all—constitutes one strategy for achieving this end. It is not enough, then, that nature be arranged as an emotive analog to discourse. Architecture, too, must be taught to speak the nondiscursive language of nature. OBJECTS AND BACKGROUNDS The distinction between determinant and reflective judgments in Kant’s philosophy is an essential one. One might even say that the articulation of this difference constitutes the very boundary between the subject matter of the first Critique and that of the third. In the former, the faculty of judgment serves merely at the behest of the understanding in its rush toward the determination of objects; in the latter, judgment is presented as an independent faculty that lingers over the sense manifold as it casts about for concepts

The Background of Discourse

171

adequate to the manifold’s contents. Only in this reflective, or “ascending,” capacity does judgment attain the status of a faculty for Kant, for it leads him to the discovery of an a priori principle—the purposiveness of nature—by which judgment legislates on an equal basis with Verstand and Vernunft. This discovery is what allows Kant to postulate the necessity of a third Critique, and with it, the completion of the critical enterprise. Yet there remains a crucial difference between judgment and the other two faculties that has serious consequences for the manner in which Kant’s enterprise can be viewed as complete. This lies in the fact that the judgment’s a priori legislation extends only to the activity of reason itself, not to the world of objects, i.e., experience. In the mode of aesthetic contemplation, for example, reflective judgment attends only to the harmonious play of the cognitive faculties, not to the determination of the beautiful object as a component of experience. Similarly, a teleological judgment operates regulatively to lead reason ever higher in its search for unifying principles. Its legislation applies only to this ascending activity, not to the objects which occasion the reflection. In neither case does the judgment provide material that is constitutive of experience. It is this lack of a proper “domain,” as Kant’s technical language puts it, that poses anew the general problem of objects for the critical philosophy, and with it the attendant problems of boundaries, limits, and completion. For the emergence of judgment as an independent faculty in the third Critique not only raises fresh questions for Kant concerning the relation of reason to the objects of experience (through non-constitutive reflection). More importantly, the very necessity of articulating a “domain-less” discourse within the critical philosophy itself provokes doubts as to the possibility of its closure as an architectonic “object.” The scope of this problem can be sketched as follows. By deducing a domain-less a priori principle within reason, Kant simultaneously assigns himself the task of mapping the correlative “non-domain” over which this principle must be assumed to have jurisdiction. Within the nominal content of the third Critique, this endeavor is carried out through Kant’s examination of material previously excluded by the structuring techniques of his method. That is, the minimally organized contents of the sense manifold, which had served merely as the occasion for determining empirical objects through concepts, are now elevated to the primary subject matter of reflective judgments. What had been background is now bracketed as foreground. But this does not exhaust the full import of the methodological inversion demanded by Kant’s task. In more abstract terms, the object-formation technique through which Kant determines the empirical content of experience is repeated on the level of the system. Just as the sense manifold assumes a new importance in the third Critique, so too

172

The German “Mittelweg”

does the philosophical material out of which and against which critique itself emerges as a discursive object. In this way, the textural realm elaborated by the third Critique necessarily appears in Kant’s philosophy as the “non-object,” or background, against which the delimited domains of the first two Critiques stand out in relief. Thus, the backgrounding maneuver that gives rise to the critical philosophy as an “object” (Gegenstand), or “subject” (Gegenstand) for thought, also produces that object’s concomitant Folie. It is therefore difficult to concur with Kant’s assessment of the critical enterprise as “complete,” if by completion he means its enclosure within discernible boundaries. For the third Critique’s appearance as a non-object within the system forecloses the possibility of completion on the basis of delimitation alone. Any claims of finality or totality would have to employ an economy that gives comparable weight to the unbounded material lying beyond the domains’ borders. For this reason, rather than fulfilling his announced intention to construct an additional object, i.e., a “bridge,” that will overcome the gap between the first two Critiques and complete the “foundation” for his “edifice,” Kant finds instead that he must fill this gap, not span it. Background texture must, in this instance, supplant architecture as the requisite mediating material. The elucidation of this necessary maneuver, and its expression both in the content and systemic function of the third Critique, form the thread of what follows. *** There are many passages in Kant’s writings prior to the Critique of Judgment that indicate the depth of his commitment to characterizing experience in terms of objects. This orientation is at work even in texts that would not seem to be dealing with objects in the ordinary sense. In the Critique of Practical Reason, for example, Kant devotes an entire chapter to “the concept of an object of pure practical reason” even though it serves only negatively to locate the determination of the will in the form of the moral law rather than in such an “object.” Nowhere is this habit of mind more apparent, however, than in the two major works on theoretical philosophy, the Critique of Pure Reason and the Prolegomena. In them Kant consistently characterizes experience as the cognition of objects, constructed by reason through the subsumption of sensible intuitions under concepts. This epistemology depends on the maintenance of a sharp distinction between these two equally necessary components of knowledge. Intuitions are representations passively received under the forms of space and time and minimally organized by the imagination; concepts (both a priori and empirical) are rules generated by

The Background of Discourse

173

the spontaneous activity of the understanding. It is the function of judgment to secure and regulate the boundary between them. The essential feature of this scheme for our present discussion is the grasping motion by which concepts form recognizable entities out of the manifold of intuitions presented by the imagination. In the middle of the Transcendental Deduction (A), for example, Kant pauses to emphasize the implied physicality of this work, here performed by a priori concepts, or “categories”: “The word ‘concept’ [Begriff] might of itself suggest this remark. For this unitary consciousness is what combines the manifold, successively intuited, and thereupon also reproduced, into one representation” (KrV, A103). And in an earlier section: “By synthesis, in its most general sense, I understand the act of putting different representations together, and of grasping [begreifen] what is manifold in them in one [act of ] knowledge” (KrV, B102). For Kant, then, the employment of Begriffe is best visualized as the grasping (begreifen) of the manifold by consciousness. That the product of this movement is an “object” is made clear by passages such as the following: “and an object is that in the concept of which the manifold of a given intuition is united” (KrV, B137). And similarly: “Now there are two conditions under which alone the knowledge of an object is possible, first, intuition, through which it is given, though only as appearance; secondly, concept, through which an object is thought corresponding to this intuition” (KrV, B125). In short, to be an object is to be an intuition that is thought under a concept. Moreover, it is only as objects that experience can be “seen” by reason, i.e., the only manner in which experience can “appear” to us. In the absence of the grasping movement of concepts, the content of the sense manifold remains unintelligible, or indecipherable. This results from the specific character of the imagination in its role as mediator (Vermittler) between the understanding and sensibility (KrV, A124). Although the imagination, at least in its “productive” aspect, exercises a spontaneous power of synthesis over the manifold, this activity is not as goal-directed as that of the understanding, which aims toward determination. Because of this lack of an Absicht, Kant characterizes the imagination as “blind”: Synthesis in general . . . is the mere result of the power of imagination, a blind [blinden] but indispensable function of the soul, without which we should have no knowledge whatsoever, but of which we are scarcely ever conscious. To bring this synthesis to concepts is a function which belongs to the understanding, and it is through this function of the understanding that we first obtain knowledge properly so called. (KrV, B103)

174

The German “Mittelweg”

Kant’s portrayal of imagination as a blind activity gives the character of the sense manifold a peculiar in-between status that is neither atomistic chaos nor fully cognized object. The manifold possesses a synthetic unity, gained through “apprehension” and “reproduction,” but its contents are not yet “cognized” under a determinant judgment. This results in “objects” of a sort “since intuition stands in no need whatsoever of the functions of thought, appearances would none the less present objects to our intuition” (KrV, B123). But, as other passages make clear, the apprehended contents of the manifold are not fully realized as objects for knowledge until they are grasped under concepts: “The two extremes, namely sensibility and understanding, must stand in necessary connection with each other through the mediation of this transcendental function of imagination, because otherwise the former, though indeed yielding appearances [Erscheinungen], would supply no objects [Gegenstände] of empirical knowledge, and consequently no experience” (KrV, A124). Put another way, if it were not for concepts, the contents of the manifold would remain mere “appearances” of intuition but not “appear” to the understanding, which “sees” only in terms of objects: Now all experience does indeed contain, in addition to the intuition of the senses through which something is given, a concept of an object as being thereby given, that is to say, as appearing [erscheint]. Concepts of objects in general thus underlie all empirical knowledge as its a priori conditions. (KrV, B126)

Concepts, then, by constructing objects out of the “not yet determined” (KrV, B94) representations of the sense manifold, make experience actual, or visible, for reason. Although identified early in the first Critique, these “not yet determined” representations assume little importance for Kant until the Third, where they become the primary focus of his account of aesthetic judgment. As either the material that is not yet cognized in a determinant judgment or that which is excluded through its grasping movement, these representations comprise the background out of which the objects of experience emerge. For this reason, it has been essential to explain the central importance of the sense manifold in Kant’s general epistemology. Otherwise, it is difficult to make sense of that particular empirical object, the work of art, whose manifold must be subject to both reflective and determinant judgments simultaneously (as opposed to natural beauty, for which reflective judgments suffice). In the former principle, we attend exclusively to the play of the sense manifold in its formal qualities, and in this respect the work of art is not determined as

The Background of Discourse

175

an object for us. In the latter, we require a supplementary, although equally necessary, judgment whereby we recognize (through concepts) the manifold’s content as a fabricated object of human provenance and intention. To be successful, a work of art must persuade us to linger over its non-cognitive qualities even as it resolves into a cognized object. More specific to our purposes, both principles find a peculiar convergence within the aesthetic category of the garden, which, although necessarily presented in the system of art as a fabricated object, functions for Kant almost exclusively as a background. We have already encountered the significance of Kant’s object-orientation for garden theory in our analysis of Heydenreich’s arguments. In that context, we saw that Heydenreich’s treatment of garden elements and their combination bore unmistakable traces of Kant’s bundle model of experience. The difficulties Heydenreich faced with the instability and indeterminacy of the garden’s “natural signs” stemmed in part from his adoption of Kant’s atomistic conception of perception. We are now in a position to assess the impact of this object-orientation on Kant’s own garden theory, including the consequences it holds for his broader conception of art and aesthetics. Just as Heydenreich’s meditations on garden art exposed the limits of his Kantian epistemology, Kant’s encounter with the garden accomplishes a similar result. But in this case, because of Kant’s vastly more sophisticated intellectual framework, the repercussions are more keenly felt. Through its essential ambiguity, the garden demonstrates in nuce the paradoxical nature of Kant’s backgrounding economy once this technique is bracketed as subject matter in the third Critique. This aspect by which garden art functions within the critical philosophy as a particular species of background constitutes the first move toward a definition of Kantian topography. THE GARDEN AS BACKGROUND Kant’s most extensive comments on gardens are found in §51 of the Critique of Judgment, where he outlines his tri-partite division of the arts according to an analogy with speech. Although Kant includes a disclaimer that this division is “provisional,” i.e. only one among several possible divisions, his choice of analogy is nonetheless significant. By choosing speech as the most apt comparison, Kant draws a direct link between aesthetic judgment and discourse. This choice leads Kant to focus on the communicative aspects of art and, by extension, to interpret the distinctive communicative strategies of each artistic discipline within the framework of the understanding’s discursive activity. Given what we have seen so far of the backgrounding

176

The German “Mittelweg”

economy implicit in this activity, it is clear that Kant’s division of the arts must repeat, on its own level, the privileging of objects. The means by which this preference will manifest itself are already embedded in Kant’s introductory remarks: If, then, we wish to make a division of the beautiful arts, we cannot choose a more convenient principle, at least tentatively, than the analogy of art with the mode of expression of which men avail themselves in speech, in order to communicate to one another as perfectly as possible not merely their concepts but also their sensations [Empfindungen]. This is done by word, deportment, and tone (articulation, gesticulation, and modulation). It is only by the combination of these three kinds of expression that communication between the speaker [and his hearers] can be complete. For thus thought, intuition, and sensation are transmitted to others simultaneously and conjointly. There are, therefore, only three kinds of beautiful arts: the arts of speech, the formative arts, and the art of the play of sensations (as external sensible impressions). (KU, §51)

Kant’s tri-partite division at first glance suggests a merely horizontal positioning of the arts in relation to one another. As analogs of the three necessary components of speech, they appear to be of equal standing. However, in §53, “Comparison of the Respective Aesthetical Worth of the Beautiful Arts,” it becomes clear that Kant’s categories in fact form a vertical hierarchy. The “arts of speech” occupy the top rung while those of the “play of sensations” lie at the bottom. This ordering of the arts follows directly from Kant’s equally hierarchical ranking of concepts, intuitions, and feelings according to the degree to which they “actively” contribute to knowledge. That is, concepts are the spontaneous activity of the understanding; intuitions are the partially-organized products of the imagination; and feelings are the merely passive, subjective aspects of sentience that do not contribute to knowledge.18 In descending order, this list also closely parallels the vocabulary of object, outline, and background that structured our initial foray into Kant’s aesthetics, a similarity that results from each triad’s complementary description of the begreifen movement of discursive understanding. Because this fundamental movement intrinsically links word, concept, and object, Kant’s system of the arts cannot properly be understood, then, apart from its roots in his object-oriented epistemology.19

The Background of Discourse

177

The translation of Kant’s §51 vocabulary into that of objects and backgrounds holds significant consequences for his garden theory. Although Kant places garden art at the center of his system along with architecture and painting, it is backgrounded in relation to them because of a perceived deficiency in its conceptual content and a resistance to being grasped as an object. In other words, even within the class of the “formative arts,” Kant recapitulates the same gradations that characterize the system as a whole. But in order to establish the exact meaning of this structural repetition for garden art, it will be helpful to look first at its more pronounced manifestation in the relation between the arts at either end of the system, poetry and music. For Kant, poetry is essentially the stimulation of the imagination through the medium of words. As a mere play of the sense manifold, albeit one supplied by the imagination itself, it entertains in the manner of the other arts. It is superior to them, however, because of an additional edification that issues from its unique discursive basis. As Kant puts it, “the poet promises little and announces a mere play with ideas; but he supplies something which is worth occupying ourselves with, because he provides in this play food for the understanding and, by the aid of imagination, gives life to his concepts.”20 Poetry thus both enlivens abstract concepts through imagery and leaves behind a conceptual residue after the imaginative play has ceased. In this respect, Kant differs little from other contemporary thinkers who saw poetry primarily in terms of the “sensualization” (Versinnlichung), or “sensible clothing” (sinnliche Verkleidung) of ideas. Placed within the context of Kant’s broader concern with reflective judgment, however, this principle looks slightly different. Because words, the raw materials of poetry, possess a strong conceptual vector, their rules of subsumption immediately elicit determinant judgments unless otherwise hindered. It is the work of the poet to bring about this hindrance, or reflective judgment, whereby the material vehicle of language is made to predominate over its conceptual content. The referents of the words do not disappear in poetry, of course, but in a reversal of normal prosaic practice, they are subordinated to the imagery and feelings they arouse, as well as to the materiality of the signs themselves. The latter is an important distinction, one that Kant does not entirely recognize himself.21 For an emphasis on the accidental qualities of words, such as their sound, rhythm, and even visual appearance on a page (if written) makes the physicality of language as essential as the mental imagery it inspires. Poetry, then, is not just a sense manifold constructed by words, but also a sense manifold constructed of words. Kant never

178

The German “Mittelweg”

acknowledges this dual principle, however, and in effect disavows it by omission. Its recognition is crucial, however, for it tempers his assertion that the supremacy of poetry lies in its essential ideality. Music, in contrast, occupies for Kant an ambivalent position among the arts, being both the art that is most closely aligned with, and yet farthest from, poetry. Introducing his thoughts on this relationship, Kant states: After poetry, if we are to deal with charm and mental movement, I would place that art which comes nearest to the art of speech and can very naturally be united with it, viz. the art of tone. For although it speaks by means of mere sensations without concepts, and so does not, like poetry, leave anything over for reflection, it yet moves the mind in a greater variety of ways and more intensely, although only transitorily. It is, however, rather enjoyment [Genuß] than cultivation [Kultur] (the further play of thought that is excited by its means is merely the effect of a, as it were, mechanical association), and in the judgment of reason it has less worth than any other of the beautiful arts. (KU, §53)

The affinity of poetry to music is most evident, of course, when they are united in song, one of the possible combinations of the arts Kant mentions in §52. The ease of their union results from the fact that the modulation of tone is already at work in ordinary speech. This condition ensures their complementarity when speech and tone are rendered into art, but it does not lead to systemic proximity. In fact, their relative positioning is just the opposite: [Music’s] charm, which admits of universal communication, appears to rest on this that every expression of speech has in its context [im Zusammenhange] a tone appropriate to the sense. . . . Thus as modulation is, as it were, a universal language of sensations intelligible to every man, the art of tone employs it by itself alone in its full force, viz. as a language of the affections, and thus communicates universally according to the laws of association the aesthetical ideas naturally combined therewith. Now these aesthetical ideas are not concepts or determinate thoughts. Hence the form of the composition of these sensations (harmony and melody) only serves instead of the form of language, by means of their proportionate accordance, to express the aesthetical idea of a connected whole of an unspeakable wealth

The Background of Discourse

179

of thought, corresponding to a certain theme which produces the dominating affection in the piece. (KU, §53)

In one respect, then, music fulfills more closely than any other art Kant’s original demand that the arts be judged on their facility in communicating feeling. And yet, as these texts demonstrate, Kant dismisses music even as he admits its particular superiority on this central point. The reason for his double-mindedness lies in an epistemological orientation that prefers concepts to feelings even in an aesthetic theory that is ostensibly built around emotive expression. With such a yardstick in mind, music must appear in Kant’s philosophy as a deficient form of language. It will always be the mere “context” to the text of poetry, even if its formal structure constitutes a “natural” and “universal” language on its own terms. Given his positioning of poetry and music in the system of the arts, one would have expected Kant to elucidate this negative assessment of music’s conceptual content by way of contrast with the arts of speech. Instead, he chooses as his foil the formative arts, a decision which is all the more illuminating for what it indirectly says, or rather does not say, about music’s inverted structural relation to poetry. In what we have sketched of Kant’s logic so far, music must occupy the lowest position among the arts because it enacts a movement between concept and materiality that is the reverse of poetry. Whereas the vector of poetry descends from fully realized concepts toward intuitions, that of music begins with sensual material and rises toward concepts. Poetry retains its ideational content in this descent, even acquiring additional worth through its Versinnlichung; music, however, never quite succeeds either in transcending its material origins or in attaining to concepts. And yet Kant chooses to frame this contrastive argument in terms of the formative (bildende) arts, not poetry: “These two species of art [music and the formative arts] take quite different courses; the first proceeds from sensations to indeterminate ideas, the second from determinate ideas to sensations” (KU, §53). Kant’s choice makes more sense, however, if we recall our previous observation that the only manifold he recognizes in poetry is one inspired by words, not composed of words. That is, he recruits the formative arts for his argument because he is comfortable with the materiality of sculpture, painting, etc. but not with the materiality of language. Whereas poetic language indeed makes use of intuitions (although even here only indirectly through the imagination),22 Kant finds any commerce between poetry and the even lower category of sensibility to be inadmissible. In a very real sense, the physicality of linguistic signs is “inadmissible evidence” for Kant’s theory of judgment.

180

The German “Mittelweg”

This general observation is not new, of course. One of Kant’s earliest and most perceptive critics, Johann Georg Hamann (1730–1788), seized upon this very point in his 1783 essay, “Metakritik über den Purismum der reinen Vernunft” (published 1800). In this seminal reply to Kant, Hamann argues that the first Critique’s claim to have deduced the a priori forms of reason relies upon an unacknowledged hypostasis whereby reason’s “pure” categories are, in fact, simply abstracted from natural language. Although Kant views the categories as universal, he can do so only by ignoring the historical exigencies that have given rise to them as linguistic constructions in particular cultures. This ineluctable connection to the material and social origins of language means, for Hamann, that reason must always be understood as embodied, rather than as universal and ahistorical.23 The trenchancy of Hamann’s line of argument was not lost on those who would soon develop the principal versions of post-Kantian idealism, and its influence has continued to the present day. The echo of Hamann can be heard, for example, in Ulrike Oudée Dünkelsbühler’s Reframing the Frame of Reason (2002), where in reflecting on Derrida’s reading of the third Critique’s “parerga,” or supplementary frames, she includes this insight into the material basis of concepts: What does it mean—translated—“like enclosures [Einfassungen] of paintings”? Not quite like the frames for paintings but rather something like seizing and encircling, literally a kind of “incept” [Inzept], if there were such a concept, to indicate that the semantic idea of ideas [Konzept des Konzepts] and of the concept of comprehension [Begriffs von Begreifen] is caught, contained, held together, dominated, and dictated—controlled—precisely through the idea of enclosure. One sees at once that the “hard” idea [Konzept] of ideas is based on a primarily secondary and “soft” metaphor that has always already been translated.24

The upshot of all this for Kant’s garden theory is that it is governed by an epistemology that privileges concepts at the expense of sensation while suppressing the physical basis of the “concept of comprehension” as enclosure. In a time when gardeners had “leaped the fence,”25 as Horace Walpole put it, the interpretation of garden art within a philosophy emphasizing mental frames and enclosures was bound to present novel difficulties. The hortus conclusus may have given way to the landscape garden, even in parts of provincial Königsberg,26 but it was not a simple fit for Kant’s philosophy. In fact, the tension between closure and openness is only heightened by Kant’s rather sensible placement of gardens within the category of the formative arts. For the governing principle of this middle category—“delineation” (Zeichnung)—mediates between

The Background of Discourse

181

the conceptual and sensible foci of the other two categories by sketching outlines (Abrisse).27 That is, it enacts the grasping movement of concept formation in sensible terms. Thus, garden art is theorized by Kant under a principle that centers both his system of the arts (explicitly) and his epistemology (implicitly), yet it was being practiced in a manner that seems fundamentally at odds with that principle’s formal requirements. The consequences of Kant’s dilemma, appearing in this first instance rather deceptively as a conflict between theory and practice, will ultimately be seen to revolve around the paradoxical logic of Abriß, which requires the gardener both to construct encompassing boundaries and simultaneously to raze them. In the present context, however, it is enough to ascertain what garden “delineation” means for the economy of object and background. This, too, will involve us in a certain form of deception. DELINEATION AND FLATNESS Kant divides the formative arts between those that express aesthetic ideas through sensible truth (Sinnenwahrheit) and those that employ the techniques of sensible illusion (Sinnenschein). By “truth” Kant means that the representation is executed in three dimensions, “in its bodily extension (as the object itself exists)” and can be apprehended by both sight and touch. By “illusion” he understands an image that “paints [malt] itself on the eye (according to its appearance when projected on a flat surface [Fläche])” and is available to vision only. To the first group (Plastik) belong architecture and sculpture; to the second (Malerkunst), painting proper and gardening. Kant is not unique in his usage of the terms “truth” and “illusion” to denote the distinction between two- and three-dimensional forms of representation. Nor is he alone in assuming a close relationship between garden art and painting, a formula that was almost ritually invoked by many of his contemporaries. He is quite remarkable, however, for the manner in which he backs himself into corner, so to speak, by attempting to reconcile these principles in his garden theory. To identify the productive contradiction that Kant uncovers in this context, let us first quote in full Kant’s comments on garden art that appear in the main body of the text: Painting, as the second kind of formative art, which presents a sensible illusion artificially combined with ideas, I would divide into the art of the beautiful depicting [Schilderung] of nature and that of the beautiful arrangement [Zusammenstellung] of its products. The first is painting proper, the second is the art of landscape gardening [Lustgärtnerei]. The

182

The German “Mittelweg” first gives only the illusory appearance of corporeal extension; the second gives this in accordance with truth, but only the appearance of utility [Benutzung] and availableness for other purposes than the mere play of the imagination in the contemplation of its forms. This latter is nothing else than the ornamentation [Schmückung] of the soil with a variety of those things (grasses, flowers, shrubs, trees, even ponds, hillocks, and dells) which nature presents to an observer, only arranged differently and in conformity with certain ideas. But again, the beautiful arrangement of corporeal things is only apparent to the eye, like painting; the sense of touch cannot supply any intuitive presentation of such a form. (KU, §51)

So after Kant makes a first division under the formative arts in which painting is defined as expression through sensible illusion, the latter is itself subdivided according to same criteria of truth and illusion. Within this second division of “illusion,” pleasure gardening appears as truth in contrast to the illusory effects of painting proper. Garden art becomes, then, a sort of “truthful illusion” or an “illusory truth.” It represents its object “truthfully” in three dimensions, yet Kant believes that the representation must be apprehended by the eye as if it were executed in only two. This reduction of garden art to vision, which we have already explored in Heydenreich, is what prompts Kant to insist that both gardening’s Zusammenstellung and painting’s Schilderung are equally figures “painted on the eye.” This presents no difficulties for painting proper, for the “Schild” in Schilderung already implies a projection “on a flat surface.” It is not so clear, however, how a garden reduces to a Fläche. Kant’s discomfort regarding the garden’s “strange” (befremdlich) placement, or rather lack of place,28 in his system of the arts is evident in his attempt to explain away the “flatness” imposed by its problematic location. Not only is the explanation itself unconvincing, but it is tucked away in a footnote almost as long as the discussion in the main text. (One might even say that it is “backgrounded,” but in the more unconventional sense of Hintergrund as a Fond lying below the normal field of vision.): That landscape gardening may be regarded as a species of the art of painting, although it presents its forms corporeally, seems strange. But since it actually takes its forms from nature (trees, shrubs, grasses, and flowers from forest and field—at least in the first instance [wenigstens uranfänglich]) and so far is not an art like plastic, and since it also has no concept of the object and its purpose (as in architecture) conditioning

The Background of Discourse

183

its arrangements, but involves merely the free play of the imagination in contemplation, it so far agrees with mere aesthetical painting which has no definite theme (which arranges sky, land, and water so as to entertain us by means of light and shade only). In general the reader is only to judge of this as an attempt to combine the beautiful arts under one principle, viz. that of the expression of aesthetical ideas (according to the analogy of speech), and not to regard it as a definitive analysis of them. (KU, §51)

Kant’s justification for classifying gardening as a form of painting obviously raises more questions than it answers. To forestall these troubling questions, however, Kant brings the matter to a halt with a perfunctory admonishment, addressed directly to the reader, that we are not to take his division of the arts too seriously after all. It is not a “definitive analysis.” We will ignore Kant’s advice, however, because the contradiction, or structural dislocation, that he stumbles over is actually of great benefit for our current task. Garden art presents Kant with a case that will not readily fit into his economy of object, outline, and background, and the reasons are significant. The lack of “fit,” which forces the garden to appear as a “truthful illusion,” turns primarily on two notions in Kant’s characterization of its technique: (1) the garden artist uses materials from nature that are essentially unaltered, and (2) the original image (Urbild) governing the arrangement of these materials is not conditioned by a determinant concept of utilitarian purpose, but rather by the mere play of the imagination. One notices immediately that both principles ultimately define the garden negatively, i.e., according to what it is not rather than what it is. The first emphasizes that its materials are not altered, from which it follows that the garden is not a form of sculpture; the second, that its Urbild is not determined with regard to use, which means that the garden is not a species of architecture. The hesitant phrase “so far as” and its near-double “so far agrees with” supply further, rhetorical evidence that Kant’s attempt to define garden art is primarily a deduction by elimination. Once one has determined that gardens differ (in at least two respects) from sculpture and architecture, he reasons, they “so far” seem to behave like our only remaining choice, paintings. But Kant takes us only so far. To go further would require an acknowledgment that his subtractive method leaves an unassimilable remainder, one that is neither truth nor illusion because it is somehow both. It is a worrisome conclusion that Kant conspicuously leaves unstated. To elucidate this conflict in greater detail, let us begin with the second of Kant’s negative principles, which regards use. In requiring that a garden

184

The German “Mittelweg”

display the “appearance [Schein] of utility and availableness for other purposes,” yet not be determined by a concept of actual use, Kant has subtly adapted the general principle of “purposiveness without a purpose” that runs throughout the Critique of Judgment.29 This general formula has reference to our forms of cognition, such that we judge a beautiful object as having been organized according to the purpose of a will, although we cannot determine what this purpose might be, or even if this will actually exists. Our judgment is thus one of mere “purposiveness” and defines what Kant calls free, or natural, beauty. In the case of garden art, Kant interprets this purposiveness within the more restricted vocabulary of utility—as a “usefulness without a use,” so to speak. This translation, or shift in emphasis, reflects the comparative use Kant makes of architecture in situating gardens among the other formative arts. While all of these arts share the requirement that we render a supplemental, determinant judgment according to a concept of what the object is to be, i.e. its “perfection,” architecture bears a unique relation to utility. Because its Urbild originates in human reason rather than in nature, the concept of what a work of architecture is “to be” is intimately related to how it is “to be utilized”: “The beauty of . . . a building (be it church, palace, arsenal, or summer house [Gartenhaus]), presupposes a concept of the purpose which determines what the thing is to be, and consequently a concept of its perfection” (KU, §16). In this respect, it is unlike sculpture, that other formative art that expresses its aesthetic ideas in “truth,” i.e., in three dimensions. For sculpture’s perfection, consisting in the replication of the form of a beautiful object found in nature, serves no utilitarian purpose. Gardens, in contrast, employ aspects of both stances toward utility, which is also to say that they fully embrace neither. Unlike sculpture, gardens accommodate use. Yet insofar as they are Naturgärten, these uses take place in a zone composed entirely of “natural beauties,” the judgment of which is not conditioned by notions of perfection or utility: “Hardly anyone but a botanist knows what sort of thing a flower ought to be” (KU, §16). But neither does one find evidence of utilitarian intent in the disposition of these found objects since a garden “also has no concept of the object and its purpose (as in architecture) conditioning its arrangements” (KU, §51). Consequently, any notion of perfection cannot be located either in the mimesis of individual elements, as in sculpture, or in the realization of a determinant use through composition, as in architecture. We are left with the peculiar demand that gardens display the mere appearance of utility as the criterion for its supplementary judgment as art. Upon closer inspection, it becomes clear that this requirement of a “usefulness without a use” ultimately stems from the same condition that

The Background of Discourse

185

generates the “placelessness” of garden art in Kant’s overall system. Whereas Kant at least articulates the paradox of the garden’s “truthful illusion,” even if he does not solve it, the parallel problem engendered by the overlay of utility on these same divisions is only implied. That is, Kant not only makes a double subdivision of the formative arts according the categories of truth and illusion, but he also assumes an identical double structure with regard to use and contemplation. In this secondary, unstated schema, Kant divides the plastic arts according to the categories of use (architecture) and contemplation (sculpture). And he does the same for painting in the broad sense, where in order to maintain parallelism, garden art must appear as “useful” in contrast to the “contemplative” status of painting proper. Yet gardens violate the visual expectations of useful objects because their forms originate in nature. And because gardens accommodate various uses, they also violate the social expectations of other art objects, such as sculpture, where apprehension is restricted to mere looking. Only by appealing to the “appearance of utility” can Kant adjust the frames of his system to encompass the peculiar conditions of use that characterize garden art. Although Kant does not directly address these twin violations in the principal passage on garden art, it is fortunate for our purposes that he does so elsewhere in the Critique of Judgment. The first of these issues, the formal appearance of utilitarian gardens, is taken up in §22 in the context of a more general discussion of regularity and symmetry. In this section, Kant argues that objects that are “only possible by means of design [Absicht],” such as buildings, parterres (Gartenplätze), and flower beds (Blumenstücke) must respect symmetry in order to please. “The regularity which leads to the concept of an object is indeed the indispensable condition (conditio sine qua non) for grasping [zu fassen] the object in a single representation and determining the manifold in its form.” But where it is a matter of the free play of the imagination alone, such as in pleasure gardens (Lustgärten) and interior decoration, too much regularity is to be avoided because of the associated feeling of restraint. Significantly, Kant lists parterres and flower beds among his examples of regular objects, yet he avoids the term “object” altogether when speaking of pleasure gardens. His subsequent clarification that the gardens he has in mind are those of the English style lends support to our observation that gardens consistently appear in Kant’s thought as non-objects. But this is not all. Following the reference to English gardens, Kant expounds on the relative inability of regular objects to hold our attention when compared with the seemingly inexhaustible interest of natural beauty. To illustrate the point, Kant draws upon his reading of William Marsden’s The History of Sumatra (1783) 30 to offer yet a third garden example:

186

The German “Mittelweg” Marsden, in his description of Sumatra, makes the remark that the free beauties of nature surround the spectator everywhere and thus lose their attraction for him. On the other hand, a pepper garden, where the stakes on which this plant twines itself form parallel rows, had much attractiveness for him if he met with it in the middle of a forest. And he hence infers that wild beauty, apparently irregular, only pleases as a variation from the regular beauty of which one has seen enough. But he need only have made the experiment of spending one day in a pepper garden to have been convinced that, if the understanding has put itself in accordance with the order that it always needs by means of regularity, the object will not entertain for long—nay, rather it will impose a burdensome constraint upon the imagination. On the other hand, nature, which there is prodigal in its variety even to luxuriance, that is subjected to no constraint of artificial rules, can supply constant food for taste. (KU, §22)

Like parterres and flower beds, which are “only possible by means of design,” the Sumatran pepper garden is grasped as an object, a single representation that stands out against the background of a forest. Its parallel rows of staked plants contrast with the unstructured luxuriance of the surrounding tropical vegetation out of which it is carved. The sense of restraint that the garden imposes on the imagination, however, precludes for Kant any lasting satisfaction that its simple order may initially suggest.31 The primary sign of its utility—the geometrical arrangement of its parts—is both the source of its apprehension as an “object” as well as the aesthetic shortcoming it shares with its non-utilitarian relatives, the parterre and the flower bed. This assumption about the geometrical consequences of shaping gardens according to utilitarian ends, even though the text acknowledges cases where regular form serves solely as ornament, underlies Kant’s dictum that any usefulness of Lustgärten be regarded as mere appearance. For if geometry is a precondition for use, then it becomes impossible to signify real utility through the free beauties of a Naturgarten. Kant’s thoughts on the second violation, the accommodation of various uses by sites not specifically designed for them, can be ascertained in a rather incidental example that appears in §15. In the midst of defining objective purposiveness32 against the subjective purposiveness that grounds aesthetic judgment, Kant again leads us to an “object” in a forest: And this, although it [the formal unity of an object] furnishes a certain purposiveness of the representative state of the subject, and so a facility

The Background of Discourse

187

of apprehending a given form by the imagination, yet furnishes no perfection of an object, since the object is not here conceived by means of the concept of a purpose. For example, if in a forest I come across a plot of sward [Rasenplatz] around which trees stand in a circle and do not then represent to myself a purpose, viz. that it is intended to serve for country dances, not the least concept of perfection is furnished by the mere form.

Unlike the pepper garden, where, in addition to the parallel rows, the selection of a single food species and the use of stakes secure the recognition of human design, the circle of trees is insufficient in itself to suggest a definite purpose. We might even surmise at first that the opening, although unusual, is an accident of nature. If upon closer inspection we notice that the radius of the circle is constant, that the trees are of the same age and species, that their spacing is perfectly even, etc., this regularity still does not tell us what, if any, utilitarian purpose its creators had in mind. This information we must supply ourselves. As Kant notes much later in §62, a circular figure can be applied toward the solution of “a multitude of problems,” yet it does not analytically contain these purposes. It simply accommodates them. It may be helpful to recall in this context that Kant’s line of thought closely resembles a set of problems we have encountered earlier, namely J. C. A. Grohmann’s enchantment with situations in nature that undesignedly serve human purposes, such as fallen logs that can be used as bridges, and raised beds of moss that can be used as seats. Like these log bridges and mossy banks, Kant’s circle in the forest easily lends itself to projections of human use. Yet for Kant, it is not the exploitation of a fortuitous accident that spurs thoughts of purpose, but (again) the discovery of a geometry that contrasts with nature’s background. There is, however, a key difference in this instance. Unlike the pepper garden, which clearly signifies utility, the conditions under which geometry is encountered in the clearing are sufficiently ambiguous to achieve an effect more like the one prized by Grohmann, i.e. the suggestion of a purpose that is not determinant of the form. The price of this effect is that the clearing must coalesce into an “object,” at which point the landscape situation differs qualitatively from the background structure of a pure Naturgarten. Nevertheless, this passage remains the clearest indication of what Kant means by the appearance of use in such gardens, even as it also delineates the implicit figure-ground reversal that makes this formula problematic. In denying any real utility to pleasure gardens, Kant assumes a rather tenuous partition between the mere viewing of scenery and the immense

188

The German “Mittelweg”

range of activities that actually took place in late eighteenth-century gardens. Kant’s own experience suggests some of these uses, such as the storied first encounter with his close friend and intellectual companion, Joseph Green, which took place under an arbor (Laube) in the Tompsonschen Garten, one of Königsberg’s many public coffee gardens.33 We might also consult a theorist such as Christian Semler, who supplies an extensive list in his 1803 Gartenlogik, noting that people “eat breakfast and drink tea while in gardens; make plans and projects there; chat about the latest neighborhood gossip, family happenings, and newspaper reports; bowl on the lawn; enjoy target practice; and even play whist. In short, they engage in hundreds of activities without paying the least bit of attention to the fact that they are in a garden.”34 J. G. Grohmann catalogs a similar list of amusements in his Sammlung von gesellschaftlichen Gartenspielen und ländlichen Vergnügungen.35 Kant was certainly not unaware of the social dimensions of gardens, or of the fact that for many people such interaction constituted the primary experience of such spaces. Rather, what is at stake for Kant in the segregation of use from visual contemplation is the status of the garden as a fine art. The direct employment of natural elements in gardens already guarantees for them a disinterested judgment of beauty. Yet the reality that gardens also accommodate a variety of uses with no discernible relation to these beautiful forms presents a special problem. In Kant’s view, any such utility is only an ancillary characteristic that does not condition the composition in an essential way. Or as Semler puts it, we pursue these activities without any special awareness that they take place in a garden. For Kant, this lack of awareness is actually a conscious, even cultivated, effort to attenuate garden experience into a rarefied formal apprehension, specifically a flattened field of vision. Even if an activity as quintessentially garden-based as strolling be admitted as a form of use, it must be interpreted in Kant’s theory as “illusory,” i.e., according to the conventions of two-dimensional representation. Just as the Leipzig Promenade is experienced by Schelle’s stroller as a green Folie, a Kantian garden stroll becomes a walk through a picture gallery. Despite its admitted “strangeness,” the flattening of garden space is not a marginal addendum to Kant’s theory, nor is it the merely unfortunate consequence of an ill-fitting framing logic of utility and purpose. As Kant inadvertantly makes clear in several passages, the “flatness” of garden art is in fact shared by other artistic disciplines that receive an equally minimizing background treatment in the Critique of Judgment. We have already noted some of these comparisons in passing, such as the grouping of English gardens with interior decoration in §22. A similar list follows our main text in §51, where Kant categorizes gardens with “the decoration of rooms by the aid of

The Background of Discourse

189

tapestry, bric-a-brac [Aufsätze], and all beautiful furniture which is merely available to be looked at,” along with “the art of tasteful dressing.” Kant then compares the latter with a parterre: “For a bed of various flowers [Parterre von allerlei Blumen], a room filled with various ornaments (including under this head even ladies’ finery), make at a fête a kind of picture [Gemälde] which, like pictures properly so called (that are not intended to teach either history or natural science), has in view merely the entertainment of the imagination. . . .” The odd comparison with “ladies’ finery” (Putz der Damen) is made more comprehensible when we remember that in the previous paragraph Kant describes garden design as the “ornamentation of the soil” (Schmückung des Bodens). It is as if to say that garden art amounts to little more than the application of make-up and jewelry to a topographic surface. There is more than a subtle put-down in this conflation of surfaces, for Kant’s disdain of the feminine as superficial, and of women as irrational, is well known.36 Unlike J. C. A. Grohmann’s more positive assessment of the Naturgarten’s “feminine” qualities, whose forms he describes as “supple,” Kant’s gendering of garden art re-affirms its relatively low stature in his system.37 Of the comparisons that can be made to the other “background” arts, perhaps the most profound is the one with music. Although Kant does not make this comparison directly, it was the one most widely recognized by those influenced by his aesthetics. Schiller, for example, speaks of the “musicality” of landscape in the Kallias letters. J. C. A. Grohmann, in his analysis of the Luisium, at one point equates the composition of its groves with “simple, unaffected melodies.”38 And even such temporally distant thinkers as Deleuze and Guattari, writing in the late twentieth century, employ the concept of a “melodic landscape” as a pendant to what they term “face-landscapes.”39 We have already explored one aspect of music’s background status in the third Critique, namely its relation to poetry. By way of a brief survey of Kant’s other comments on music, we will now pick up the thread of that thought to guide us back toward our original problem of topography and discourse. In a passage that recalls Semler’s observation that gardens often serve merely as a backdrop to the independent pursuit of amusements, Kant identifies a similar use of music that demotes it to a pleasant, rather than a fine, art: (Among these [pleasant arts] are also to be reckoned the way of arranging the table for enjoyment and, at great feasts, the management of the music [Tafelmusik]. This latter is a wonderful thing. It is meant to dispose to gaiety the minds of the guests, regarded solely as a pleasant noise

190

The German “Mittelweg” [angenehmes Geräusch], without anyone paying the least attention to its composition; and it favors the free conversation of each with his neighbor.) Again, to this class belong all games which bring with them no further interest than that of making the time pass imperceptibly. (KU, §44)

The peripheral reference to games, of course, immediately brings to mind the social world of J. G. Grohmann’s Gartenspielen. But it is Kant’s use of the term “banquet music” (Tafelmusik) that chiefly concerns us. The backgrounding of music as a “pleasant noise” is implied in the word itself, for Tafelmusik literally means “table music,” the vocal or instrumental entertainment one enjoys while sitting round a banquet table. The connection to our main topic lies in the fact that even though Kant is talking about music, we again find ourselves within the semantic horizon of surfaces and flatness. This topographical association, however, extends even beyond the primary reference to the horizontality of the table, for a Tafel can also be a writing board or placard that hangs on a wall. It is in this sense that music most completely recedes as a backdrop because its reduction to just another ambient element that no one is “paying the least attention to” places it among the tapestries, bric-a-brac, and wallpaper that decorate the interior surfaces of the banquet hall. In this reduction to flatness, implicit in the notion of Tafelmusik, we find the first characteristic that music shares with gardens as a background art. Music’s planar quality also entails the indefinite extension of its tonal “surface” in all directions, adding new impetus to the problem of enclosures and boundaries that we have already touched on. Kant’s choice of words on this point is striking, for he again conjures up images of a specific topos: Besides, there attaches to music a certain want of urbanity [Urbanität] from the fact that, chiefly from the character of its instruments, it extends its influence further than is desired (in the neighborhood), and so as it were obtrudes itself and does violence [Abbruch tut] to the freedom of others who are not of the musical company. The arts which appeal to the eyes do not do this, for we need only turn our eyes away if we wish to avoid being impressed. The case of music is almost like that of the delight derived from a smell that diffuses itself widely. The man who pulls his perfumed handkerchief out of his pocket attracts the attention of all around him, even against their will, and he forces them, if they are to breathe at all, to enjoy the scent; hence this habit has gone out of fashion. (KU, §53)

The Background of Discourse

191

It is difficult not to chuckle when reading this passage, for Kant’s humanity and droll wit are more in evidence here than is generally the case in his technical writing. One can only assume that he had suffered personally from such an assault of wafting perfume.40 The serious point, of course, is that because of its particular material conditions, music has no natural boundaries. Its sound waves extend indefinitely until they are interrupted by barriers, or until they simply dissipate. In this, music resembles an undulating topography, a “melodic landscape” without borders. Yet through this unboundedness, specifically the intrusion of its charms into regions where they are not welcome, music also displays a “want of urbanity,”41 or rudeness of manners. Although Kant’s handkerchief analogy presumably refers to a gentleman or a dandy, the man’s “rudeness” (at least insofar as it is the opposite of urbanity) also carries the sense of an uncultured rusticity. That is, by calling attention to himself, the dandy in his impropriety has the same disruptive effect as a rustic who stumbles into a salon populated by worldly sophisticates and does not know how to behave. In drawing this implicit contrast between the urban and the rural, Kant has again backgrounded music, but now in the even more radical sense of associating it with the countryside, the topos most unlike the urbane, or the urban. Thus, it is not just a certain “flatness” that forces music to take a back seat to the main aesthetic course. Rather, it is also music’s unchecked sensuality—a cloying seductiveness that threatens even the violation of the body—that makes it unsuitable for the polite company of the fine arts.42 Our final musical excursion takes us back to the complementary relationship between music and poetry, and more generally of that between tonal backgrounds and discursive objects. We again consider one of Kant’s comparative lists of closely aligned arts: So also delineations [Zeichnungen] à la grecque, foliage for borders [Laubwerk zu Einfassungen] or wall papers, mean nothing in themselves; they represent nothing—no object under a definite concept—and are free beauties. We can refer to the same class what are called in music phantasies (i.e. pieces without any theme), and in fact all music without words.43 (KU, §16)

Lacking the urbanity of a poetic text, music appears once more as patterned wallpaper, a phantasie without any conceptual, thematic material that would fix the composition into a bounded work. We have already encountered the term Phantasie in Heydenreich’s aesthetics, where it denoted a function of the imagination that unites distinct representations into a composite Hauptbild,

192

The German “Mittelweg”

or Hauptstimmung. Kant’s use of the term is somewhat different, for even though he, too, invokes the imagination, he emphasizes that faculty’s free play rather than its concordance with a single thematic resolution.44 In Kant’s view, the grasping motion that produces an “object” requires the contribution of “definite concepts,” or structuring themes. Musical phantasies, because they elaborate their material through textural rather than textual means, resist such limitations. Consequently, they more closely resemble the nonrepresentational linearity of decorative “delineations” and “foliage borders” that—although sometimes approaching figural definition—never fully trace a closed outline.45 Like these other merely pleasant trifles, music in Kant’s estimation ultimately “means nothing” and “represents nothing.” It is worth noting that Kant was taken to task on this very point just a few years later by Johann H. G. Heusinger, professor of philosophy at the University of Jena. In his Aesthetik (1797), Heusinger refers indirectly to the passage quoted above when he states that all such “delineations” (Zeichnungen) are more accurately understood as “Risse.”46 Although semantically related to the closed outlines of Umrisse, Heusinger’s Risse are more open in character, serving primarily to articulate the structural seams in a work of architecture. As such, the term is difficult to translate, for the seams highlighted by these linear designs are both the loci of a building’s structural integrity as well as visual “ruptures” in its otherwise undifferentiated surfaces. Despite serving no practical purpose, Risse are nevertheless necessary supplements for a proper reading of architectonic structure and acquire their meaning from this relation. Thus, although both “non-grasping” in form and (therefore) “non-conceptual,” Risse paradoxically appear in Heusinger’s thought as the most articulate components of architecture. Heusinger’s decidedly un-Kantian appreciation of the background arts is further underscored by his sensitive and nuanced treatment of music in the Aesthetik, the analysis of which runs a full eighty pages. Oddly enough, it is in the section on garden art that Heusinger’s distance from Kant in the valuation of music actually finds its most telling moment. This occurs when he turns Kant’s music/poetry dyad on its head to argue for a similarly inverted relation between gardens and architecture: Aus eben diesem Standpuncte müssen auch die Verschönerungen beurtheilt werden, die ein Garten durch andere Künste erhält, die Verschönerung durch Gebäude, Bildsäulen und Denkmäler. Diese Verschönerungen sind das, was in der Musik der Text, oder in einem lyrischen Drama die ganze Begebenheit ist, sie geben dem Ganzen mehr Bestimmtheit.47

The Background of Discourse

193

[The embellishments that a garden receives from other arts, such as buildings, statues, and monuments, must also be judged from this standpoint. These embellishments correspond to the text of a musical work, or the plot of a lyric drama, in that they lend greater specificity and determination to the whole.]

Whereas in the Critique of Judgment, music and gardens are accorded only secondary status as the backgrounds of poetry and architecture, respectively, Heusinger in this passage reverses the primacy that Kant gives to the “object” arts. It is now text that embellishes music, and architectural works that serve as the supplementary ornaments for a gardened topography. This is not to say that Heusinger consistently ranks the arts in this way, for there are other passages in the Aesthetik where he does not. However, his willingness to entertain the thought of the primacy of backgrounds, at least in passing, is a marked departure from Kant—or at least from the Kant who permits himself this thought only in an unguarded moment, which is itself backgrounded in his text. For Heusinger’s insight returns us to that “strange” footnote in §51 of the Critique of Judgment, where Kant briefly raises the possibility that topographic backgrounds, insofar as they are configured as gardens, possess a representational capacity in their own right. Positing a semiotic independence for garden art that even Heusinger does not suggest, Kant recognizes here that a designed topography does not depend on “words” in order to convey meaning, i.e., it does not require the addition of architecture as a poetic text. Instead, “since it actually takes its forms from nature” (KU, §51), landscape gardening represents nature through itself. As we noted earlier, Kant moves with conspicuous haste to deny the significance of this proposition. Nevertheless, it is essential to bear in mind that it is his own consistency that forces him to articulate it. For even if he does not wish to delve into the consequences of his discovery, Kant has deduced a principle within his own critique that threatens to undo both the object-centeredness of his aesthetics and the framing technique on which the construction of such objects depends. As for the first consequence, he is faced with the paradox of a representational logic built around discrete objects that is now called upon to employ non-object backgrounds as elements. Representation requires the delimitation of elements in order to function, yet the very nature of backgrounds proscribes the delineation of any such encompassing outlines. As for the second, the fundamental principle of Kant’s garden semiotics similarly involves the drawing of a problematic line. In this case, however, the situation is even more vexing because the requirement that the garden both “be” and “not be” nature necessitates that the boundary line

194

The German “Mittelweg”

between “nature that represents” and “nature that is represented” be drawn and erased simultaneously. As both consequences ultimately entail lines that must—and yet cannot—be drawn, Kant uncovers in these interlocking problems yet another version of the “line of fissure” that we have been tracing throughout our discussion. We have examined it up to this point in the various guises of “delineation,” “outline,” and “Riß.” But now, because Kant’s garden theory portends the very collapse of this line, we must consider a further complexity in its character, one closer to the sense of Abriß that we noted earlier. By carrying within it the necessity of its own erasure or annihilation, garden delineation assumes the peculiar form(lessness) of a type of frame that Derrida and others have thematized as a parergon. GARDEN PARERGA The term parergon, although holding a philosophical pedigree that goes back at least to Plato, is more immediately taken from Kant himself, where it famously occurs in §14 of the Critique of Judgment. Here, Kant re-introduces it as the notion of an ornamental form that is “external” to the representational economy of a work of art and yet adds to its beauty: Even what we call “ornaments” [parerga], i.e. those things which do not belong to the complete representation of the object internally as elements, but only externally as complements, and which augment the satisfaction of taste, do so only by their form; as, for example, the frames of pictures [Einfassungen der Gemälde], the draperies of statues or the colonnades of palaces. But if the ornament does not itself consist in beautiful form, and if it is used as a golden frame [Rahmen] is used, merely to recommend the painting by its charm, it is then called finery [Schmuck] and injures genuine beauty. (KU, §14)

It lies outside the scope of our current set of problems to rehearse the full range of insights that have been gained from Derrida’s meditations on this passage.48 However, there are four basic moments in parergonal logic that have a direct bearing on the Abriß character of Kant’s garden theory. (1) An ergon is a “work brought forth” that represents reality. It is a copy (through mimesis) of an original model (Urbild), or the real. (2) The difference between ergon and Urbild is what guarantees the identity of the Urbild as true and real. If the ergon resembles the Urbild too closely, it threatens to undo this difference. (3) In order to achieve the conflicting goals of maximum imitation and the maintenance of difference, it is necessary to construct a frame that

The Background of Discourse

195

will secure the demarcation between the copy and the real. (4) This frame, a parergon, stands in the same relation to ergon as ergon does to Urbild. As a Nebenwerk, a parergon is both alongside (Neben) and against (Gegen) the ergon, or main work. That is, because the necessity of the frame indicates a lack within the work itself, this recruitment of an “outside” element to constitute the identity of the work means that its “interior” can never be pure or self-sufficient. Thus, the border zone of the parergon—exterior to the main work but simultaneously incorporated into it as an indispensable supplement—functions as “an atopic mediating site.”49 The general content of these four moments has a familiar ring, for we have already encountered similar language in passages cited from §51 of the Critique of Judgment. In particular, Kant uses the terms Urbild and Nachbild, together with the parallel “archetype” and “ectype,” to explain in those paragraphs the relation between aesthetic ideas and works of art. In Kant’s account, the aesthetic idea (Urbild or archetype) in the mind of the artist functions as the original “reality”; the work of art is the copy (ectype) that is brought forth to express that reality. Kant’s classification of aesthetic ideas as “reality” may seem puzzling at first, but it is consistent with his characterization of them elsewhere as pendants to rational ideas (Ideen), the “real” of practical philosophy. That is, Kant believes that the artist gives sensible expression to rational ideas, e.g. the soul or eternity, through “symbols” that are apprehended aesthetically.50 The details of Kant’s construal of this relationship need not detain us, but the strong hint of Platonism that structures his approach deserves our attention. For the motifs of archetype and ectype also provoke in Kant a persistent and deep worry, one central to our present concerns, that we may not always be able to recognize the boundary separating art from nature. “Nature is beautiful because it looks like art, and art can only be called beautiful if we are conscious of it as art while yet it looks like nature” (KU, §45). Kant’s modernity may have given him license to fashion a “unified theory” that judges the beauties of art and nature according to the same formal standard, but his latent Platonism insists that we continue to respect their essential distinction as illusion and reality.51 It is ultimately this worry that lies behind Kant’s discomfort with garden art, whether in the notion that the garden “actually takes its forms from nature” or in the need to classify landscape gardening as a “truthful illusion.” In fact, although Kant does not supply the example, it is the Naturgarten that most completely realizes his fear of the total conflation of art with nature: “For the former [beautiful art] is either such an imitation of the latter [beautiful nature] that it reaches the point of deception [Täuschung] and then produces the same effect as natural beauty (for which it is taken), or it is an

196

The German “Mittelweg”

art obviously directed designedly to our satisfaction” (KU, §42). Kant does, however, bookend this remark with two examples of a different sort of garden deception. The first is as follows: But it is noteworthy that if we secretly deceived [insgeheim hintergangen] this lover of the beautiful by planting in the ground artificial flowers (which can be manufactured exactly like natural ones) or by placing artificially carved birds on the boughs of trees, and he discovered the deceit [Betrug], the immediate interest that he previously took in them would disappear at once, though perhaps a different interest, viz. the interest of vanity in adorning [auszuschmükken] his chamber with them for the eyes of others, would take its place. This thought then must accompany our intuition and reflection on beauty, viz. that nature has produced it; and on this alone is based the immediate interest that we take in it.

The second example—the hiring of a boy at a garden party to imitate the song of a nightingale while concealing himself in the bushes—illustrates a similar relation between artifice and natural beauty. The guests are delighted by the “nightingale” song while they take it to be nature, but are no longer charmed once the cheat is revealed.52 The case of the landscape garden, however, involves a subtler notion of artifice than the two examples Kant considers here. As we have seen, its artificiality lies in the re-arrangement of existing natural products rather than in the fabrication of clever facsimiles. Moreover, because of the garden artist’s peculiar technique, it is not even clear that the uncovering of the deception (Täuschung) will result in disappointment (Enttäuschung). For even after we become aware of the subterfuge that shapes the whole, the individual elements of the garden still confront us with the raw fact of their natural beauty. The real flowers do not disappoint. Kant’s uneasiness with garden art, then, lies not in its potential for disenchantment—the mere exchange of one causal attribution for another—but in the injurious effect on judgment itself that results from our inability to stabilize either attribution. That is, because a Naturgarten does not supply definitive criteria for determining whether it has been brought forth as ergon by nature or by human ingenuity, it stubbornly appears as both truth and illusion. As such, it reveals an additional antinomy in the Critique of Judgment that is both more difficult to state and more challenging to solve than the two Kant actually addresses.53 We will return to this problem much later in the analysis of Kant’s “aporia.” For now, it is enough to observe that the “truthful illusion” of garden art, first introduced as a placeholder marking the structural gap in Kant’s system of the arts, now takes on an additional

The Background of Discourse

197

characteristic. By signaling the loss of difference between “original” nature and its copy, it further defines that gap as the void left by a disappearing frame. The need to draw a line between truth and illusion, to force a decision between them, is imposed of course by Kant’s dichotomizing habit of mind, which creates the dilemma in the first place. But because of the “strange” manner by which garden art eludes the categories of his system and refuses to meet this demand, it exhibits an intractability that calls Kant’s entire framing method into question. Kant’s awareness of the garden’s “rudeness” in this regard, its failure to conform to the rules observed by the other “polite” arts, is reflected even in his terminology, which differs significantly from that of his German-speaking contemporaries. Whereas most theorists of his era consistently use the term Gartenkunst when they wish to speak of garden design as a fine art, Kant is conspicuously alone in preferring the word Lustgärtnerei. He uses it in place of Gartenkunst on all but one occasion in the Critique of Judgment,54 a divergence so noteworthy that Gottlob Heinrich Rapp was compelled to remark upon it in the 1796 edition of Cotta’s Taschenkalender.55 The reason for Kant’s choice almost certainly lies in his presupposition that a work of art, as ergon, must be executed in a material different from its Urbild. But since landscape gardening “actually takes its forms from nature,” it “so far is not an art like plastic [und sofern nicht, etwa wie die Plastik, Kunst ist]” (KU, §51). Bernard’s translation unfortunately gives the impression that Kant is saying nothing more than that gardening “is not like the other formative arts” insofar as it employs the products of nature directly. But Kant’s meaning is actually more pointed: insofar as gardening does not respect the basic material criterion for distinguishing Nachbild from Urbild (as sculpture and architecture do), it is not really an art (Kunst) at all. Hence, it is merely “pleasure gardening” (Lustgärtnerei) rather than “garden art” (Gartenkunst). We have already seen how Kant’s use of the phrase, “ornamentation of the soil,” (Schmückung des Bodens) insinuates that gardening is something less than a fully-fledged art. Bearing in mind the previous quotations from Sections 14 and 42, we can now add that this epithet also connects semantically with both the deceitful adorning (auszuschmükken) of rooms and gardens with artificial flowers as well as the finery (Schmuck) of a golden frame that injures a painting’s “genuine beauty.” In all of these cases, Kant is gesturing toward a type of frame, border, or supplement that detracts from the main work that we are meant to apprehend. Perceptually distinct from the object it adorns or surrounds, it appears as an ancillary, and unfortunate, afterthought whose charms “must only be admitted by indulgence as aliens [Fremdlinge]” (KU, §14). Yet as we have explored in great detail, boundaries are essential to

198

The German “Mittelweg”

the fundamental economy of object and background that permeates Kant’s mode of thinking. The objects of aesthetic contemplation, not to mention the conceptual objects of thought, would be impossible without them. Kant’s anxiety surrounding the garden, then, is closely related to this ambivalence toward the frame. For if his unflattering language belies nagging doubts as to the inclusion of garden design among the fine arts, then it also suggests that—like a gilded frame—the garden is ultimately a “stranger” in that company, a Nebenwerk that merely charms and deceives. Given such a potentially negative assessment, it remains to be asked whether Kant’s philosophy also contains resources for constructing a different relation between garden and frame, one that might in turn alter our understanding of his framing logic as a general technique. The answer to this question, a qualified “yes,” requires that we at last directly confront the frame as parergon. To this end, we conclude with summary remarks on the parergonal structures that are distinct to the three topical horizons of this chapter: (1) the effaced boundary between art and nature internal to Kant’s garden theory, (2) the placeless delineation of garden design within Kant’s system of the arts, and (3) the domain-less discourse of the Critique of Judgment within the critical philosophy as a whole. Up to this point, we have moved rather freely among these horizons, presenting the various aspects of Kant’s backgrounds as strands in a single interwoven fabric. For the sake of a different, perhaps “artificial” kind of clarity, we now disentangle these horizons so as to arrange them sequentially as a set of successively broader frames. To confront the parergon directly in this manner, to frame it “within” a series of nested horizons, is of course deliberately to mislead. For a parergonal frame is not a delimitable object (Gegenstand) that one can “stand against,” but rather a delineation that must be approached obliquely through its own logic.56 At this juncture, however, given that we are concerned primarily with depicting the frame as it operates within Kant’s system, i.e. how it appears from Kant’s point of view, it is to our initial advantage to adopt his resolutely frontal perspective. In fact, as will gradually become apparent, this object-oriented standpoint is itself the systemic reason why parerga appear whenever Kant attempts to treat background material as the subject of discourse. For the only strategy available to this method—the uncoupling of the frame from its normal usage so as to encompass background as object—inevitably reconfigures that frame as a problematic line. WANDERING FRAMES Within the horizon of Kant’s garden theory, this strategy is expressed, as we have seen, in terms of a framing logic intended to guarantee the differ-

The Background of Discourse

199

ence between a portion of nature that is re-presented as “art” and all other nature(s) from which it is set apart. Kant’s classification of garden design as a form of painting implies that the imposition of this frame will be a rather straightforward matter, involving little more than the identification of an appropriate garden analog for the customary border around a canvas. However, as with Zeuxis’s famous painting, whose frame enabled human eyes to recognize the artifice of his perfectly depicted grapes even as birds fell prey to the illusion and pecked at them, the success of such an approach assumes a certain level of sophistication on the part of the viewer.57 The frame must be recognized as a frame. For Kant, this sophistication ultimately rests on a universally available sensus communis,58 the cultivation of which enables the observer to view nature as art, which in turn presupposes the ability to frame their difference.59 But even if Kant is granted the universality of this sense, the necessity of its cultivation reveals that the cues for discerning which situations call for such judgments must still be learned. Guests who are deceived by a false nightingale song at the season’s first garden party, for example, are unlikely to fall for the same trick again, for attendance at future parties will now carry the expectation of encountering similar ruses as amusements. Likewise, having been guided through several landscape gardens while touring estates in foreign territories, it is now easier to ascertain for oneself that the “natural” beauties of the abutting Landgut are in fact the result of design. One has seen these techniques before. Thus, although Kant argues that the ability to negotiate the line between nature and art is a priori, the specific skills involved, not to mention the subtler awareness of knowing when one is expected to render this type of judgment, can only be acquired through a certain kind of social experience. Kant’s strategy, if it is to be successful, will have to respect this experience as much as it does his purely systemic requirements. For even if the resulting frame satisfies the rules of “universal” reason, it will invite the chaotic spectacle of Zeuxis’s birds unless it also takes into account the particular garden culture familiar to his readers. In short, Kant’s frame must be legible to a garden stroller of his era. But which framing strategies does Kant implicitly borrow from that experience and why should they exhibit a parergonal logic when imported into the critical philosophy? Let us begin with the garden wall. Until the eighteenth century in Europe, the most common way to distinguish a piece of ground as a garden, either utilitarian or ornamental, was to encircle it with a wall, fence, or hedge.60 In the second half of the Critique of Judgment, Kant invokes this tradition in passing when he observes that we ascribe purposes to the geometrical objects and spaces we encounter in experience: “It is quite different

200

The German “Mittelweg”

[from mere purposiveness] if I meet with order and regularity in complexes of things, external to myself, enclosed within certain boundaries, as, e.g. in a garden, the order and regularity of the trees, flower beds, and walks. These I cannot expect to derive a priori from my bounding of space made after a rule of my own” (KU, §62). Although it would have been sufficient for his illustration to mention only the regular plantings and walks,61 it is instructive to note that Kant imagines them “enclosed within certain boundaries” (in gewisse Grenzen eingeschlossen). This “extra” frame, supplemental to the geometry of the garden’s layout, provides the means by which its “complex of things” (Inbegriff von Dingen), although sufficiently ordered in themselves, can be more readily grasped as a whole. The garden frame thus makes its most literal appearance in Kant where, strictly speaking, it is not really needed, at least not as the guarantor of the difference between garden and mere nature. Instead, because it supplements a perceived deficiency in the coherence of the garden’s interior structure, the garden wall serves as a parergon to the garden “proper.”62 The imagery in Kant’s example is consistent with much of garden practice in his time, yet it is curiously out of step with both the innovations from England that had swept Germany after about 1770 and his own portrayal of Lustgärtnerei elsewhere in the third Critique. For garden designers had been experimenting for many decades with enclosures of a different sort, made necessary by a growing desire to make “nature” within the garden more closely approximate “nature” without. This widely shared aim was perhaps best summed up by J. C. A. Grohmann toward the end of the century: Denn die Gegend, die Aussichten außerhalb des Gartens gehören noch zur Bildung dieser Landschaft. Der Gartenkünstler muß daher auch die umliegende Landschaft mit seinem Anliegen in Verbindung setzen, und beide einander gemäß bilden; er muß seinem Garten näher oder entfernter den Charakter geben, den die umliegende Gegend hat.63

[For the countryside onto which the garden has views also belongs to the formation of this landscape. The garden artist must on that account unify his design with the surrounding landscape and make them conformable to one another. He must give his garden more or less the character of the surrounding countryside.]

Early versions of this idea, such as the great bastioned wall encompassing Wray Wood at Castle Howard in England, treated the enclosing frame as

The Background of Discourse

201

a highly visible design element while making few alterations to the space within. Although the Wood’s sixty-six acres were embellished with a scattering of sculptures and fountains, it was the commanding and unifying presence of the wall—not étoiles or rond-points—that enabled the eye to read its form as a gardened object. By mid-century, two other framing ideas had gained currency. The first approach was to retain the idea of the garden as a space both physically and visually enclosed, but to give the illusion that one was in untouched surroundings. The archetypal example is Julie’s Elysium in La Nouvelle Héloïse (1762), in which Rousseau describes a walled orchard that has been transformed into a facsimile of a woodland glade. The wall and gate are retained so that the garden can be kept under lock when not in use, yet the barrier, now hidden by thick vegetation, is so unobtrusive as to be invisible. This garden is, of course, a literary construction rather than an actual place, but its impact on the development of the German Naturgarten is no less decisive on that account.64 The second framing innovation also disguised the garden wall, but did so more cleverly by recessing it rather than merely covering it. The sunken fence, or “ha-ha” as it was often called, was hailed by many contemporary observers as the most significant innovation of the eighteenth-century garden because it opened up views to the surrounding countryside while retaining the practical functions of enclosure.65 Because sight-lines could now run unimpeded to the horizon, one could indulge in the fantasy that the garden extended seamlessly into the pastoral and agricultural land beyond its borders, even visually annexing properties owned by others. Under these conditions, the Grohmannian vision of congruent interior and exterior topographies could be fully realized. Although each of these three techniques possesses distinct qualities, all are alike in assuming a negotiation of the garden frame in terms of physical adjacencies. Garden and Gegend are placed alongside and against one another, with a wall (of varying construction) marking the difference. But what of the difference between art and nature that occurs within the walls, or even of the plurality of natures contained therein? And what sort of frame could delineate these distinctions, especially when prevailing garden practices no longer employed a traditional wall? It is to these troublesome questions that Kant’s garden theory is ultimately addressed, at least implicitly, for the difficulties that Kant experiences in theorizing the garden stem from discrepancies between the framing techniques of contemporary garden culture and the framing logic of his aesthetics. In short, because of the specific displacement of the frame within the empirical realities of the German Naturgarten and its social world, Kant’s critical philosophy is presented with a novel delineation of nature and art that it is prima facie unequipped to accommodate.

202

The German “Mittelweg”

Figure 20. Diagram of ha-ha’s in Magazin für Freunden des guten Geschmacks, 1796 Reproduced by permission from Gerndt, Idealisierte Natur, 17.

One dimension of Kant’s problem lies in the fact that the “nature” of which he and other theorists speak is in fact a highly complex and intensively cultivated entity. It is neither singular in its appearance nor “pure” in the sense of being free from human modification, yet for both rhetorical and

The Background of Discourse

203

philosophical purposes it is conceived in these terms. Grohmann is again of assistance in this matter, for he provides a rich vocabulary of the “natural” when he argues that only “the most simple nature of the countryside” (die einfachste ländliche Natur) is suitable for garden vistas: “The German garden’s cheerful prospect onto surrounding pastures and meadows, grazing herds, fields full of grain, secluded thickets, a solitary village—that is what best depicts the character of the German garden.”66 When he writes elsewhere of the actual views from the Luisium, Grohmann refers specifically to the meadows (Auen) that surround the garden, and at one point he even describes the distant prospect of urban Dessau as inducing feelings of “joy” (Freude) and “playfulness” (muthwilliger Scherz), terms usually associated with the viewing of “natural” phenomena.67 Similarly, August Rode refers to the working landscape simply as “nature” when he asserts that the dike at Wörlitz is a “dividing line between contrasting nature and art”68 That is, when viewed from the promenade atop this earthen infrastructure, the “art” of the garden to the one side contrasts with the “nature” of the Elbe’s pastorally managed floodplain to the other. It is only in this sense of nature as cultivated, or what John Dixon Hunt has referred to as a “second nature,”69 that the motivating principle of eighteenth-century garden art can be interpreted as nature’s imitation and embellishment. Such an understanding, for example, informs Grohmann’s reply to the hypothetical charge that in using nature as its sole model and material, the German Naturgarten becomes indistinguishable from mere wilderness: Eben so glaube man aber auch nicht, daß ich beim dem deutschen oder interessirenden Garten alle Verschönerung ausgeschlossen wissen wolle, daß der deutsche Garten nur ein hingeworfenes ungeordnetes Gewebe von wilden Büschen, von unregelmäßigen Hecken, nichts von fremden Hölzern und Pflanzungen, alles nur so roh, ungebaut, ungepflegt seyn solle, wie es aus den ersten Händen der Natur kommt. Nein—nur Verschönerung soll hier der untergeordnete Maßstab des Künstlers und die Darstellung des Interessirenden der erste Zweck bei diesen Anlagen seyn.70 [Even so, one should not think that I want to banish all embellishment from German, or interested, gardens such that the German garden should be merely a tossed together, disorderly fabric of wild thickets and irregular hedges, with no exotic groves and plantings, and with everything as raw, unstructured, and uncultivated as what comes directly from the hands of nature. No—it is just that for this type of garden

204

The German “Mittelweg” layout, embellishment is the artist’s subordinate criterion while the presentation of the interesting is his primary aim.]

If the nature that is being “presented” in a Naturgarten is one already cultivated as grainfields, woodlots, and grazed meadows rather than the “raw” material given directly by the “hands of nature,” then the garden designer is in a strange position indeed. For it is then only a short conceptual distance before the familiar cultural landscape comes to be judged as more natural than unassisted nature’s own arrangements. The wholesale incorporation of working fields into the garden’s interior, as was done in Wörlitz’s Neue Anlagen by extending the canal system as an enclosing armature, is the inevitable outcome of this line of thought.71 These concerns about the “impure” status of nature, by now a commonplace in studies of the landscape garden, would not be in need of special emphasis were it not for the fact that Kant constructs his entire aesthetics on the assertion that judgments of natural beauty are pure. This assertion is difficult to defend on its own terms, but we need look no further than one of Kant’s archetypal examples of natural beauty to identify the fundamental problem: “On the other hand a flower, e.g. a tulip, is regarded as beautiful, because in perceiving it we find a certain purposiveness which, in our judgment, is referred to no purpose at all” (KU, §17n). The parenthetical reference to the tulip,72 a mere specification of the general example to render it more concrete, seems unremarkable at first glance. It is revealed as problematic, however, when considered in relation to the chain of reasoning that precedes it. As Kant writes, “There are two kinds of beauty: free beauty (pulchritudo vaga), or merely dependent beauty (pulchritudo adhaerens). The first presupposes no concept of what the object ought to be; the second does presuppose such a concept and the perfection of the object in accordance therewith . . . Flowers are free natural beauties . . . In the judging of a free beauty (according to the mere form), the judgment of taste is pure” (KU, §16). For Kant, then, a flower is exemplary of natural beauty because its form, which pleases through a pure judgment of its purposiveness, develops in complete independence of human purposes. Had Kant illustrated this point by referring to a species of wildflower,73 the difficulties in his account of natural beauty might more easily have gone unnoticed. But he does not. Instead, the image that comes before his mind is specifically that of a tulip, which, as Rudolf Borchardt succinctly notes, “was hardly a North Balkan wildflower, but rather an already highly developed Persian cultural form.”74 Far from exemplifying a “free natural beauty,” the tulip was the flower that by Kant’s time had been subjected to more intensive cross-breeding and selec-

The Background of Discourse

205

tion than perhaps any other. No blossom was more closely associated with efforts to attain by art the “perfection of the object.” Why then does Kant envision a tulip when he thinks of natural beauty, and what is the significance of its exemplary status in his aesthetics? Perhaps the shortest route to an answer lies in revisiting Lukács’s notion of “double mimesis,” by which the garden artist represents for aesthetic ends complexes of materials that have already been transformed by social and economic processes. This concept earlier proved helpful in interpreting Heydenreich’s suppression of the utilitarian origins of garden art, but in the present context it takes on a slightly different cast. Rather than applying primarily to questions of appropriation and re-arrangement, it can now be expanded to include the fundamental alteration of the garden’s organic materials themselves, providing a more comprehensive notion that bears directly on the question at hand. For when we recall that Kant predicates natural beauty, indeed the entire third Critique, on the principle that reason judges nature according to an analogy with art,75 it is hardly surprising that he should single out a highly cultivated organic form as an archetype for such judgments. That is, the tulip is exemplary of natural beauty for Kant not because it fortuitously conforms to the principles of art, as he believes, but less mysteriously because its form has already been modified to supremely satisfy those principles. In short, it embodies the core character of “free natural beauty” precisely because it surpasses what nature can produce unassisted. And in doing so, it delineates a paradox in Kant’s aesthetics by which natural beauty can be constituted in its purest form only through cultivation, i.e. by recourse to an “artificial” supplement. Lukács’s foregrounding of the social and material matrix in which garden art is produced would appear to offer a detour around Kant’s paradox, if not an outright solution. Yet Lukács’s own example of an ideal balance between the “antinomial” architectonic and organic vectors of garden design—a cloistered courtyard with a single aged tree at the crossing—seems itself to pass over questions of the cultural history of the organic, including the selection of the particular species of the tree, its availability through the plant trade (perhaps even as an improved cultivar), and the practical knowledge related to its tending and pruning.76 One might even say that, like Kant, he has been tripped up by the frame. For the architectural frame of the cloister, envisioned by Lukács as a counterbalance to the independent, self-generating form of the tree, in fact acts parergonally, not contrapuntally, to remedy a deficiency in the tree’s “organic-vegetative essence” (organisch-pflanzliches Wesen). That is, the tree appears entirely natural only to the degree that attention is diverted from those factors in its development that are contingent

206

The German “Mittelweg”

upon human intervention. In part, Lukács’s image accomplishes this by conjuring up the idiosyncratic form that a tree assumes only with great age. Its cultivated origins, evident while still a sapling because of stabilizing stakes, pruning scars, or perhaps even grafting joints, are gradually effaced over time simply by growth. But it is only with the imposition of an architectural frame that the erasure is made complete. Because Lukács’s tree occurs as a “moment” within the cloister’s “architectural totality” (Gesamtarchitektur), the resulting morphological contrast of trunk and branch to column and arch supplements the amnesia of origins induced by the tree’s maturity. Or to translate into the language of purity, by identifying all inorganic contingencies with itself, architectural form exorcises the tree’s cultural contamination and keeps it at bay.77 Thus, in a manner reminiscent of Kant’s garden wall but structurally inverse to it, the identity of the cultivated tree as natural is secured by an encompassing frame. It is this reliance on an architectural frame, without which the purity of natural beauty could not be established, that characterizes the deep affinity between the situation described by Lukács and Kant’s garden theory, even though the latter refers specifically to landscape gardening rather than to enclosed formal gardens. The resemblance, therefore, is not one of visual appearance, but of a congruence of relations on a more abstract level, where the architectural frame of the cloister has been replaced by the architectonic frame of philosophy. This substitution, coinciding historically with the disappearance of the physical wall in eighteenth-century garden design, does not occur in isolation, however, but in coalescence with a number of compensatory structures that attempt to frame the Natur of the Naturgarten by other means. Whereas the traditional garden wall had demarcated an interior space given over to “art,” these emergent structures place a set of imbricated frames around natural beauty to establish the Naturgarten as a realm of “pure nature,” one that is legible as art only by virtue of these frames. That is, space for a judgment of pure natural beauty is created by removing the supplementary judgment of human agency to these border devices, where the “border” is no longer necessarily co-extensive with a physical edge. Kant’s tulip, by demonstrating this logic in nuce, already suggests the advantages of multiplying these frames. For the border that establishes the identity of natural beauty, already compromised in this archetypal instance by the cultivation of both corolla and (corollary) setting, will require mutually reinforcing structures if it is to reconstitute the partitioning function of the absent wall.78 It is important to note, however, that because the primary identity of the garden interior shifts from “art” to “nature,” the compensatory frames of the Naturgarten do not, strictly speaking, replace the garden wall. In part, this is due

The Background of Discourse

207

to a non-identical relation to the interior that follows from this reversal, but more importantly because most of these devices are no longer fully localized in a particular place. What they “stand in for” is an itinerant border around natural beauty that, unlike the wall, never existed physically and yet is constituted both logically and historically as its substitution. Thus, the framing structures that supplement this placeless border, being for the most part atopic in character and functioning as replacements only problematically, appear parergonal in relation to the garden interior.79 Broadly speaking, then, the architectonic frame that Kant places around natural beauty is an isomorphic expression, in philosophical terms, of the structures that govern the design and experience of the Naturgarten. This isomorphism holds well enough when the garden is considered abstractly, i.e., as an instance of natural beauty interchangeable with any other in the third Critique; however, the parallelism breaks down when certain concrete conditions are taken into account. Specifically, Kant has a problem with the ground. For although architectonics readily accommodates exemplary garden objects such as the tulip—either as “natural beauties” under the modality of aesthetic judgment, or as “natural purposes” under teleological judgment— it is ill-equipped to deal with the indefinite expansiveness of terrain. That is, unless regularized into terraces and parterres or “enclosed within certain boundaries,” the topographical basis of the garden eludes the architectonic strictures of object formation. The garden flower may be frameable for Kant, but the garden qua topography is of a different order.80 One might reasonably counter that the most physically localized of the Naturgarten’s frames, the ha-ha, effectively recovers this function of enclosing ground as a bounded entity. While there is some truth to this observation, it is more accurate to say that the ha-ha encloses ground functionally only so that it may open it up visually. And in doing so, the fundamental effect is to displace the grounded, horizontal frame that formerly defined the garden’s interior onto a virtual, vertical frame defined by the observer’s cone of vision. The general shift in garden representational technique from bird’s-eye view in the early eighteenth century to vignette in its latter decades is symptomatic of this displacement. Kant, like the picturesque theorists, recognizes and accepts this changed perceptual habitus when he classifies gardening as a form of landscape painting. And given the similarity in spirit to his own “Copernican Revolution,” the picturesque’s re-grounding of garden theory within the observer’s frames of reference would seem to work to his advantage as a borrowed strategy. Yet Kant’s casting of these perceptual frames as an architectonics, quite unlike the affective and associational relations favored by the picturesque theorists,

208

The German “Mittelweg”

Figure 21. Bird’s-eye view of Kleinbosescher Garten in Leipzig Courtesy of Koch, Sächsische Gartenkunst, 78.

introduces a philosophical tunnel vision that prevents him from recognizing the consequences of the garden’s topographical dimension. In part, this constriction filters out any affective “coloring of relations,”81 a result consistent with Kant’s exclusion of color in general. But more strikingly, because it permits reason to “see” only in terms of objects, it impinges even on the content of the framed view that falls within the purview of form. With this systemic limitation in mind, what was previously characterized as Kant’s uncoupling of the frame can now be stated more exactly. Because Kant relegates topography to background status, as a textural “outside” against which objects are delineated, its presence via garden theory in the framed space where an object ought to be signals a further breakdown in his careful division between interiority and exteriority. The permeability of this division, already apparent in the supplemental activity of cultivation, now takes on a more explicitly spatial character. Or rather, it is an overcoming of space, specifically of the expansive sweep from garden interior to prospect. For if architectonics demands that any “exterior” be made “interior”

The Background of Discourse

209

Figure 22. Vignette by Johann Heinrich Brandt in Hirschfeld’s Theorie der Gartenkunst, I:230 Reproduced by permission from Kehn, Christian Cay Lorenz Hirschfeld, Plate 40.

(i.e., formed into a bounded object) if it is to be comprehensible as experience, then the attempt to fuse foreground and prospect into a single object through framing must neutralize topography in order to succeed. As a matter of optics, horizontal distance is collapsed into a vertical adjacency of points formed by the intersection of projected sight lines and a virtual canvas. As for the material itself, the approximation of nature within to nature without accentuates this adjacency by having an indistinguishable interior and exterior content occupy the same framed “space.” The result is that both the form and the content of the cone of vision are flattened, or leveled, but on a plane perpendicular to the real ground. Topography “disappears” at the very moment it is successfully framed. In sum, then, the dual aspect by which the landscape garden’s “exterior” space is re-framed as an “interior,” i.e., the interiorizing of the prospect at the same time and by the same means that the garden qua exterior (outdoor) space is constituted as a planar “scene,” means that garden topography can appear only paradoxically as a delineable object within Kant’s architectonics. Simultaneously interior and exterior, spatial and surficial, it must be viewed from that standpoint as a “truthful illusion.”82 The sedentary assumptions of this scenario only underscore Kant’s failure to appreciate the centrality of topography in garden design. His depiction of the garden frame as a mere encircling of natural beauty, carried out from a stationary vantage point, stands in sharp contrast to other theories for which

210

The German “Mittelweg”

movement across topography is a major concern. The most notable of these is Heydenreich’s, which brings to the fore the complex semiotic consequences inherent in the garden stroller’s mobile frames of reference. Far more than Kant, Heydenreich understands the “vagabond” aspect of “free beauty” (pulchritudo vaga)—marvelously translated by Derrida in La Vérité en Peinture as “wandering beauty” (beauté errante)—that is central to the experience of his Herumwandler.83 Because in Heydenreich the frame around natural beauty is no longer defined in relation to a stationary point, its uncoupling appears as more of an “unhinging” by which the compensatory borders of the Naturgarten become fully transportable. The static frame of Kant’s architectonics is given legs, so to speak, in the person of the stroller. In emphasizing this portability, Heydenreich’s theory, unlike Kant’s, mirrors a novel development in bourgeois viewing habits that is closely tied to the shift in representational technique mentioned above. If Kant can receive some credit for recognizing, with others, the garden view’s descent from aerial to embedded perspective, then Heydenreich can claim the additional distinction of appreciating that the image’s mode of publication experiences a kind of social descent as well, one which results in the radical portability of the represented view. That is, whereas the former type of garden depiction had typically appeared as a plate in an expensive folio edition, the latter was more likely to be found in a cheaper, more widely available octavo volume or pocketbook guide. And because of the physical differences in size and weight, the bird’s-eye view could comfortably be enjoyed only while sitting indoors, whereas the new vignette easily lent itself to being consumed in transit. One could, for example, carry a copy of Becker (1792) while strolling in Seifersdorfer Tal and quickly compare one’s actual perceptions with the canonical views presented in the book. Similarly, one could have Cotta in hand while touring Hohenheim so as to re-enact the itinerary described in its pages. In such cases, the experience of the garden as a succession of scenes would be deeply conditioned, if not entirely choreographed, by the ability to consult authoritative printed views in situ. Thus, put to a new, portable use through changes in format and readership, the published image itself becomes one of the “vagabond,” or “wandering” devices by which the Naturgarten is framed. Convenient formatting was not the only means, however, by which garden images were made more portable. It is also the case, as Dünkelsbühler has pointed out via the work of Walter Pater, that the actual frames around pictures in general, whether bordering an original canvas or a mass-produced print, acquired a similar function in the context of the early modern period’s expanding art markets, lending the artwork greater mobility as a com-

The Background of Discourse

Figure 23. Hirschfeld Memorial in W. G. Becker, Das Seifersdorfer Thal, 1792 Reproduced by permission from Kehn, Christian Cay Lorenz Hirschfeld, Plate 31.

211

212

The German “Mittelweg”

modity.84 Among the broader implications of this commodification was the greater ease with which individuals could appropriate such works for enjoyment and edification in an autonomous private sphere.85 Almost identical to the way that horticultural cultivation forms a supplemental frame around natural beauty, the spread of self-cultivation in the sense of Bildung further strengthened the border demarcating art as a pure, self-contained discipline. Although Dünkelsbühler emphasizes the interiorizing aspects of this development, namely the enclosure of the aesthetic in a private, domestic, and specifically indoor space withdrawn from public (political) life, the interpretation of the frame as an interiorizing gesture is only half of the picture. For it does not adequately account for that peculiar art form—the garden—for which the articulation of a private aesthetic sphere is quintessentially an exterior, or out of doors, endeavor. Because of this condition, it is no accident that the contemporaneous institutionalization of garden art as an autonomous discipline resulted in paradoxes that closely resemble those that appear when garden topography is framed by architectonics. In fact, the two operations are essentially coterminous. Given that Kant’s philosophy became, in the words of Randall Collins, “the ideology of the [German] university revolution”86 after about 1790, the entrance of garden art into the academy during those years was by definition its enclosure within an architectonic discourse. THE GROUND OF CRITICAL PHILOSOPHY It is not just in the matter of mobility, then, that Kant has a problem with the ground. As with topography’s “disappearance” through architectonic framing, the attempted grounding of garden art as an academic discipline equally replicates that loss in terms of institutional territory, expressed by the gap in Kant’s system of the arts where garden design is supposed to reside. This loss is all the more significant given the academy’s newfound role as one of the most substantial compensatory structures standing in for the absent garden wall. As Dünkelsbühler writes of the similar case in which twentiethcentury painting comes to jettison the physical frame as a standard feature of the work: In the context of the problematic of framing . . . it is important to note that a particular phenomenon, such as the frame around a painting, seems to have become of less concern in Western art. No wonder, for it is instead the frame around art as such, that is, its institutional frame that has been of concern, and without which art could hardly have been attributed its “autonomous” status—and thereby its identity.87

The Background of Discourse

213

In this respect, having dispensed with its physical frame at the same time that it acquires an institutional one, the Naturgarten is over a century ahead of painting in its modernity. Yet it remains that the entry of garden art into the German academy was incomplete; its admission did not, and indeed could not, include the guarantee of a permanent place. This deficiency is not just a matter of the empirical arrangement of particular educational institutions, whether of the special case of Leipzig or of others, but more acutely of the Kantian conception of the university as the institution of reason itself, i.e., reason’s “founding” in institutional form.88 In short, because of the structural consequences of this conception, the garden’s placelessness is deeply implicated in what Hent de Vries has termed, “the paradoxical topography of the university.”89 In part, de Vries’s formulation refers to the way in which the philosophical faculty comes to function in the Kantian university as a critical “voice from nowhere.” Without delving into the full complexity of this notion, de Vries’s basic insight is that in delimiting an inner free zone within which reason can be exercised without restraint, the university simultaneously constructs a boundary beyond which such freedoms must not be allowed to extend.90 This boundary, or limit, of the exercise of pure reason takes the form of censorship and is placed under the problematic guardianship of the philosophical faculty. The inherent difficulty of this arrangement is that even though in its disciplinary practice the faculty collectively embodies the Kantian “tribunal” (KrV, Axi-xii) that (in principle) determines the a priori limits of pure reason, as an institutional entity it lacks both the grounds to decide, and the power to enforce, any empirical limits on that activity: Philosophy, then, being the guardian of truth, the principle of reason, and the idea of the university, must and must not mediate between itself and its other, between its freedom and its limitation. Precisely this aporia, Derrida argues, demonstrates that the institutional place of philosophy, the cornerstone—the very meaning and truth—of Kantian architectonics, is in the final analysis no longer localizable and therefore unjustifiable. Caught in this aporia, the critique of philosophy and everything for which it stands can, strictly speaking, no longer be said to take place as such, that is to say, here and now, in the present, as an intelligible discipline. . . . The philosophical faculty is thus inscribed in a paradoxical topography that allots it no proper place. Derrida speaks of a “mobile non-place.”91

If the philosophical faculty as a whole does not have a “proper place,” then for a philosopher producing garden theory under these conditions, the situation is doubly aporetic. That is, not only is garden art difficult to

214

The German “Mittelweg”

accommodate within the architectonics of Kantian philosophy, but the architectonics of philosophy’s institutional setting proves equally inhospitable to the securing of garden theory’s disciplinary location. The matter can perhaps best be articulated as a double-pronged question: Once architectonics has removed or suppressed its own grounding by making topography “invisible,” how can the ground qua topography be re-inserted, or recovered, within both an architectonic discourse and its institutional form, the university? This question is, in essence, a restatement of the dilemma of de Vries’s “paradoxical topography,” but in a more generalized form and with the added inflection of a compensatory program. The latter is not to suggest that such a dual “recovery” of topography is the specific task of academic garden theory. For while it is true that as a discipline it must confront the problem of institutional territory if it is to be grounded as a philosophical discourse, the securing of this territory is not equivalent to the quixotic task of its recovery and reconstitution. (Even if such a recovery were possible, it would have to be understood parergonally as a “replacement” that replaces nothing.) Rather, it is to argue that those in the Kantian university who engage in critical reflection on designed topographies are uniquely “positioned” to register, and explain, the exclusion and re-assertion of topography as a necessary feature of all architectonics. As the “strolling philosophers” of the university, they are the truest denizens of the lower faculty’s “mobile non-place” and its most critically situated “voice from nowhere.” This mobile relation to the ground carries its own risks, however, both for garden theory and the university. For the former, the non-localizable nature of its principles conflicts with the need to think them in relation to the singularity and fixity of particular sites.92 As for the latter, this risk is framed by de Vries in terms of institutional responsibility, by which university-based philosophy must “walk on two feet”93 to balance alternating aims: Responsibility with respect to the institution should adhere to a paradoxical rhythm of at once adopting the most traditional and rigorous standards of academic competence and going as far as possible in the direction of thinking the groundless ground of reason. Such a questioning would have to operate on both sides of the line that is said to demarcate and divide the university internally and externally.94

What is common to both scenarios, and what defines their inherent hazard, is the irreducible gap between the “groundless ground of reason” on the one hand, and everything outside its borders that reason represents as “grounded” on the other. The negotiation of this borderline, regardless of the specific

The Background of Discourse

215

form given to the heterogeneous “outside” that must be assimilated into its discourse (the “empirical” in Kant, the Anstoß in Fichte, etc.), is the central feature of any philosophy that announces itself as “critical.” This operation is nowhere more apparent, either as a philosophical or as an institutional maneuver, than in aesthetics. As de Vries writes of philosophy’s general problem with its exterior as a necessarily aesthetic one: The task of the philosopher is a strictly prosaic, not a poetic, or more broadly aesthetic endeavor. The aesthetic comes into play, however, wherever philosophical scholarship—in spite of or, rather, because of its universalistic intent and import—leaves the confines (and hence, in a sense, the particularism) of the academic discipline, the state apparatus, called the university.95

To take up the aesthetic as a topic, then, is equally to engage a topos that necessarily involves the outside of the university as well as a certain “outside” of philosophical thought. Thus, one inevitably becomes entangled in the transition from a priori principles to examples and illustrations, the “go-cart [Gängelwagen] of judgment” (KrV, B173) to use Kant’s phrase, that are helpful in the context of tutelage, but which often mislead.96 Despite Kant’s general reservations toward empirical illustration, which he sees as all too easily leading to the kind of popularization advocated by the “strolling philosophers,”97 his debt to illustrative language is more profound than he lets on. For in his justification of reason’s autonomy, Kant finds that he must turn repeatedly to the highly physical, i.e., non-philosophical, metaphors of “foundation” and “ground” in order to inaugurate that autonomy in the form of discourse. As is the case with a censorship that limits the freedom of reason, or the political act that founds reason in its institutional form,98 philosophy relies on a power other than itself to either create or to delimit the ground of its putative autonomy. In an unavoidable founding gesture, it must “borrow” from its empirical “outside” and yet at once efface this borrowing in order to retain its purity and autonomy as a discourse. That is, “Kant,” as reason’s narrator, must temporarily “stand” somewhere, on some ground other than reason, to achieve the critical distance by which he can envision it as an object (Gegenstand) for reflection. J. C. A. Grohmann gives an incisive critique of this aspect of Kant’s critical procedure in a remarkable passage from his essay “Fichte und Kant, oder Versuch einer Ausgleichung der Fichteschen und Kantischen Philosophie” (1797).99 The general thrust of the text is to demonstrate the superiority of Fichte’s philosophy on the basis that it provides a more immediate, and

216

The German “Mittelweg”

therefore truer, account of the act of critical thinking. In order to amplify this point, Grohmann compares Fichte’s philosophical approach with an understanding of bodily movement that comes directly from the experience of walking: [Fichtes] Wissenschafts-Lehre, ihre Methode zu Philosophiren, verhält sich zu der Kantischen Methode des Philosophirens, wie der physische Mensch, der die Gesetze seiner Bewegung selbst mitten in der Bewegung und durch die Bewegung ablernt, zu dem, der die Bewegung und die Grade der Geschwindigkeit erst nach den hinterlassenen Spuren der eingedrückten FußTritte abstrahiren will.100 [Fichte’s method of philosophizing in the Science of Knowledge is to the Kantian method of philosophizing as the physical man who studies the laws of his own motion while in motion and through that motion is to him who wants to understand movement and speed by first abstracting from the footprints he has left behind.]

In contrast with Fichte’s firsthand knowledge, then, Kant is depicted as merely looking back at his own footprints from a fixed standpoint, unaware of the actual movement that has left its traces on the ground. Grohmann then expands the comparison to argue that the footprints are emblematic of a general object-orientation in Kant’s philosophy that necessarily presents a distorted image of thought: Nun ist es aber auch gewiß, wenn wir den menschlichen Geist in seinem ursprünglichen Handeln, den ursprünglichen Gesetzen seiner Handlung nach, kennen lernen und darstellen wollen, wir diejenige Methode wählen müssen, wo wir unmittelbar dieses Handeln und diese ursprünglichen Gesetze des Handelns auffassen und bemerken können; wo nicht, wenn jenes ursprüngliche Handeln durch einen MittelWeg [Grohmann’s capitalization] geht, ein anderer Schein über diesen ursprünglichen Act des menschlichen Geistes geworfen wird. . . . Hier, wenn wir das Denken als Object vorstellen, (und dieses geschieht nach der Kantischen Methode), müssen sich die ursprünglichen Thätigkeiten des menschlichen Geistes, dem vorgestellten Object gemäß, in den Schein von festen ruhenden Formen kleiden, als isolirte feste für sich bestehende Einheiten erscheinen—als objective Behältnisse gleichsam, die in dem Gemüthe statt finden. Alles dieses ist dem vorgestellten Objecte gemäß.101

The Background of Discourse

217

[Now it is also certain, however, that if we wish to acquaint ourselves with and represent the human spirit in its original activity, according to the original laws of its activity, we must choose that method whereby we can comprehend and observe this activity and these original laws without mediation—not one where, if the activity passes through a mediated path, this original act of the human spirit will be cloaked with a different appearance. . . . Here, if we represent thought as an object (and this happens according to the Kantian method), the original activities of the human spirit must, in conformity with the represented object, be clothed in the appearance of fixed, still forms and appear as isolated, self-sufficient unities—as objective containers, so to speak, that occur in the mind. All of this is in conformity with the represented object.] Grohmann’s use of the term Mittelweg to describe Kant’s mediated approach is striking in this context, contrasting as it does with the usage that it customarily receives in garden theory as well as Kant’s own meaning when at one point he describes his critical method as a Mittelweg between dogmatism and skepticism (Prol, 360). Here, it is a pejorative designation meant to emphasize the structural mediation (the drawing of outlines to construct objects, the spatializing of the mental faculties by arranging them “nebeneinander” in tables, etc.)102 by which Kant attempts to fix what is, according to Grohmann and Fichte, fluid. Whether or not Grohmann accurately presents Fichte’s thought, or whether either philosopher offers an accurate interpretation of Kant, is beyond the scope of this discussion. What is of great interest, however, is the manner in which Grohmann chooses to make his point about Kant’s propensity toward, and even obsession with, the “exhibition of objects” (ObjectenAusstellung).103 For in this image we find the borrowed ground of Kant’s architectonics in full view—yet invisible to Kant as topography and appearing only as a background on which traces of objects (his own footprints) are inscribed. Grohmann’s portrayal of Kant brings us full circle, at least in one respect, to the vignette with which this chapter opened. For in his comments on the Luisium’s artificial ruins, Grohmann pursues an almost identical line of reasoning to argue that architecture, at least when it forms a larger composition with a garden, should not fix thought, but rather direct it in its “natural” fluidity. In seeking the limit where the semiotic function of architecture approximates that of its gardened background, Grohmann offers an unusually lucid sketch of the borderline of critical method where architectonics meets its exterior, the same border that presents itself as various aesthetic and institutional parerga, and the same “mobile non-place” where philosophy recruits the ground on which it leaves its footprints. It

218

The German “Mittelweg”

remains to be determined, however, whether this “outside” of architectonics, which I have implicitly argued constitutes a complementary topographics, acts more as an “enclosure” (Einfassung) to Kant’s philosophical architecture or as a “gilded frame” (goldene Rahmen). These two species of parerga, which Kant carefully distinguishes in §14 of the third Critique, offer contrasting models for interpreting the supplemental role of such a topographics: either the “enclosure” of discursive architecture through an “external complement” (äußerlich als Zutat) that has as much formal integrity as the main work; or the mere decoration of this discourse with a “gilded frame,” which as “finery” (Schmuck) offers nothing more than a secondary sensual charm.104 The latter recalls Kant’s censure of rhetoric as a decorated discourse that corrupts poetic “illusion,” i.e., presents it as the main work in order “to deceive by a beautiful show” (durch den schönen Schein zu hintergehen), (KU, §53) as well as his characterization of garden art’s “truthful illusion” as an “ornamentation of the ground” (Schmückung des Bodens). Given these associations, it appears that for Kant all such forward assertions of background (Hintergrund) carry with them the danger of turning into deception (Hintergehung) and, hence, should remain outside the bounds of philosophy proper.105 It is hardly surprising, then, that the only time topography makes a “formal” appearance within Kant’s work as subject matter—as garden art—it should receive no proper place. For the visual flattening that it undergoes, which entails, in Kant’s words, that “the sense of touch cannot supply any intuitive presentation of such a form,” (KU, §51) is also to say that topography eludes the grasp of the hand and, by extension, the general grasping (begreifen) movement of conceptual determination. Kant’s only alternative containment strategy, the enclosure of certain “formless” topographical features within the category of the sublime (das Erhabene),106 does indeed directly confront this boundlessness. However, it addresses a set of problems different from those found in garden art, which in the German context is never an erhabene Gartenkunst, but always (Kant’s singular terminology notwithstanding) a schöne Gartenkunst, i.e., an art predicated on (beautiful) form.107 As the systemic issues raised by Kant’s sublime are expressed negatively in terms of an abyss (Abgrund),108 it is the paradox of “topographical form” as delineated by garden art, then, that must decide the positive question of how Kant’s architectonics is “enclosed” and/or “framed” by borrowed ground. In doing so, this paradox also sketches the general limit outside of which Kant cannot plausibly present his architectonics as a self-standing edifice, and explains why, although necessarily suppressed, topography must find discursive expression parergonally both “outside” and “within” that system—most notably within the “domain-less discourse” of the third Critique.

The Background of Discourse

219

Figure 24. “Stein” (or “Vesuv”) at Wörlitz, aquatint by Karl Kuntz, 1797 Reproduced by permission. © Kulturstiftung DessauWörlitz, Bildarchiv.

It is to these systemic issues that we turn in the next chapter in an analysis of Kant’s topographical analogies, where because of garden art’s unique relation to “topographical form,” it will be the Mittelweg theory of the Naturgarten that provides the primary interpretive reference. Supplying, as it does, a positive image of the “designed ground” on which Kant must stand in order to survey the system, the garden theory written under the banner of Kritik articulates—as perhaps no other genre can—the problematic that must attend the grounding of any discourse that erects itself on the premise of critical distance.

Chapter Seven

Architectonics and Topographics

VIGNETTE 2 When Heydenreich opens the first dialogue between Xenophanes and Parmenides in Natur und Gott nach Spinoza, he presents the two protagonists in a dialectic not of words, but of settings. Xenophanes, the philosopher and Spinoza sympathizer, is leaving his urban study at the end of a long day of reflection to gain some respite in the nearby countryside: “He left his room in order to refresh his spirit by looking at the beauties of nature, and also to see whether the rarefied ideas he had strung together would hold up against the feeling of reality and the living perception of the world.”1 As he is strolling, he sees his friend Parmenides sitting under an oak at the top of a hill. Parmenides, who shares his friend’s interest in speculative philosophy but whose main passion is for the fine arts, has just completed a sketch of the landscape before him, along with a poem, when Xenophanes arrives. The landscape scene is embellished with a group of shepherds and several monuments (Grabmäler); the poem is a “hymn to nature.”2 The status of these “free” acts of artistic production, the drawing of the sketch and the composition of the poem, will serve as the entry point for the two friends’ discussion of agency and mechanism in Spinoza’s philosophy. So before either character has spoken a word, Heydenreich has already set in place a binary opposition, signaled by topographical location, that will structure much of his presentation of Spinoza’s philosophy that follows. The characters represent two different core sensibilities—one an analytically inclined philosopher, the other a poet-artist3—deliberately placed in particular settings meant to correspond with their respective mentalities. Xenophanes carries out his primary work in an urban study; Parmenides pursues his endeavors on a pastoral hillside somewhere near the outskirts of town. The city is depicted as the locus of abstract thought, removed from the grounding 221

222

The German “Mittelweg”

“reality” of nature and always in danger of straying beyond its proper bounds. Xenophanes must leave the city in search of nature in order to test his speculations against the realities of the concrete (non-human) world. However, it is not just nature, but natural beauty that he must encounter, for ultimately it is the feelings aroused by natural beauty that will be the standard by which his speculations will be judged. In contrast, the countryside is depicted as the locus of the “real,” the inspiration for poetry and the arts, and the source of intellectual creativity. It is also the home of an idealized “natural” man, the shepherd, taken by so many eighteenth-century moralists to embody simple virtue. Thus, Parmenides, not content merely to depict what lies before his eyes, is also compelled to embellish the scene with his own forms of expression. His visual representation, far from being “real” nature, essentially duplicates the conventions found in contemporary landscape painting and garden art by adding a group of shepherds and several monuments to the elements actually present.4 Likewise, the poem, entitled “The Liberty of Mankind” (“Die Freiheit des Menschen”) and referred to by Parmenides as a “hymn to nature,” is less about nature itself than about his own feeling of freedom that accompanies the contemplation of natural beauty. Fittingly, it is these “free” acts, which begin with nature but then embellish it, that establish the initial point of contention, i.e., whether humans possess a will capable of spontaneous action outside nature’s mechanism or whether they are merely modifications of a single substance and thus equally as determined in their actions as the rest of nature. In Heydenreich’s hands, the dialogue’s dichotomous settings and their re-presentation through Parmenides’s artworks become, then, as much a part of the argument as the words themselves. With regard to their functional roles, whether serving as symbolic settings or as objects of artistic representation, Heydenreich’s opening topographical devices are rather conventional. Like most metaphors, they participate in a logic of direct correspondence that is interior to the argument. There is, however, another and more significant use of metaphor in Natur und Gott that refers not to individual elements in the argument but to a more general characterization of the whole, specifically the nature of its structural coherence. In Heydenreich’s time, the received view of Spinoza’s philosophy was that it exemplified the structural ideal of an architectonic system. Vestiges of this conventional view can indeed be found in Natur und Gott, where, for example, Heydenreich occasionally speaks of Spinoza’s thought in architectural terms as a Lehrgebäude.5 More often, though, Heydenreich turns to the language of topography when he wishes to render the system visible. One already sees this impulse in Xenophanes’s ascent of the hill, which he climbs both to gain the actual prospect and figuratively to gain an overview of his

Architectonics and Topographics

223

train of thought.6 More directly, in the introduction to Natur und Gott Heydenreich implies that attaining the proper intellectual standpoint for comprehending Spinoza’s philosophy is analogous to scanning a landscape: Denn ein jedes erfordert eine besondere Richtung des Geistes, die Versetzung auf einen Gesichtspunkt, von dem aus allein man die ganze Fläche der Ideen, die es befaßt, mit seinen Blicken bestreichen kann; man muß, um nicht vielleicht durch Bilder zu täuschen, wenigstens im Voraus wissen, wovon eigentlich bey dem Ganzen des Systems die Rede ist.7 [For this requires a particular orientation of the spirit, the removal to a viewpoint from which alone one can scan the entire plain of ideas that it encompasses. One must at the very least, in order not to be deceived by images, gain knowledge of the whole of the system one is actually dealing with beforehand.]

Here, as in Heydenreich’s garden theory, we find a warning that “the entire plain” (die ganze Fläche) cannot be comprehended through individual pictures or foreground features alone. Instead, one must search for a more comprehensive point of view. Certainly, the Hauptstimmung of the garden theory is a more complex rendering of how such a view is attained, elaborated there as a synthetic “view” constructed in the mind’s eye from a succession of scenes rather than as a single, encompassing prospect. Nevertheless, in this earlier, simpler notion of the view, the direction of Heydenreich’s thought is already clearly marked out. The most extended use of topographical language in Natur und Gott occurs at the beginning of Part II, where the following exchange takes place: Parmenides: Allein da ich nun einmal ohne es zu wissen mitten darin [Spinoza’s system] gewesen bin, und es hier nicht so fürchterlich aussieht als ich geglaubt hatte, so hätte ich nicht übel Lust, eine Reise durch das ganze Gebieth zu machen. Xenophanes: Wenn du Zutrauen zu mir hast, so schlag ich mich dir zum Geleitsmann vor: ich kenne die Wege ein wenig. Daß wir uns dort nicht häußlich niederlassen, versteht sich von selbst bey Leuten, die schon bequem und glücklich angesessen sind. Wir streichen umher, besehen die Gegenden, Felsen, Thäler, Steppen und Untiefen, kurz, alles, was wir vorfinden. Den Vorzug haben wir gewiß vor vielen Reisenden, daß wir nicht durch die Brille des Partheygeistes sehn. Wir sind nicht gegen

224

The German “Mittelweg” das Land eingenommen, welches wir durchreisen, auch hindert uns keine Furcht, alles nahe zu beschauen. . . . 8 [Parmenides: Now that I find myself within Spinoza’s system unawares, and see that it does not appear so frightening as I had supposed, I am not averse to traveling through the entire domain. Xenophanes: If you trust me, then let me recommend myself as your guide: I know the way a little. As we are already satisfied and happily settled [in our beliefs], it goes without saying that we will not take up residence there. We will strike out in all directions to examine the terrain, cliffs, valleys, steppes, and gorges—in short, every feature that we happen to come upon. Certainly, we have the advantage over many travelers of not looking through the lens of partisanship. We have not come to conquer the land through which we travel, nor are we hindered by fear from closely inspecting everything. . . . ]

In this passage, Heydenreich portrays Spinoza’s system as an elaborately complex topography of cliffs, valleys, gorges, vast steppes and other dramatic features. This inventory of landscape elements, along with the hint of danger that is implied, suggests that we are within the discourse of the sublime. In conformity with the notion of a sublime landscape, Spinoza’s system has the potential to provoke fear in those who dare to traverse it. The terrain contains unexpected pitfalls, and those who enter may lose their way and not return. For Xenophanes and Parmenides, however, this terrain can be explored without fear because they choose to approach it not as partisan opponents or conquerors, but as curious travelers, i.e., they embody the Popularphilosophie ideal of the “strolling philosopher.” By refusing the partisanship of architectonic system-building, symbolized here as filtered vision, they inoculate themselves against any adverse effects that an immersion in Spinoza might have on their religion and morals. In this sense, Heydenreich’s construal of Spinoza’s system as a sublime landscape is a typically popularphilosophisch attempt to neutralize the “dangerous” Spinoza of the Lehrgebäude by rendering his system as something more open and fluid, even episodic in form. Experienced as a series of curiosities, it becomes the anti-systemic foil of architecture.9 And because it is now perceived directly by the roving eye (alles nahe zu beschauen) rather than through the constraining lenses of an imposed architectonic structure, the terrain’s danger to the philosopherstroller, like that of the threatening cliffs and cataracts of a “sublime” landscape garden,10 is revealed to be only apparent.

Architectonics and Topographics

225

One could further argue that the metaphor of the sublime landscape is replicated somewhat abstractly on the level of method in the two-person dialogue form of Natur und Gott itself. Unlike Spinoza’s own deductive, “geometric” method of presentation in the Ethics, Heydenreich’s text proceeds through a meandering series of arguments, refutations, and counter-arguments that mimics the movement of a “strolling philosopher” over a mental terrain. Reinforcing this notion is his choice to let the argument unfold through two voices in conversation rather than to present the system univocally and authoritatively as a closed architectonics. This vision of reason in Part II as embedded, perspectival, and developmental is at odds with the earlier metaphor of the encompassing prospect found in the Introduction. Both are topographical metaphors, but in the introductory passage one gets the sense that the entire system is to be surveyed in a single, God’s-eye glance, as if one climbs the mountain to have the system delivered in toto on stone tablets. In actuality, however, the text turns out to be a dialectic of very earthbound human voices exploring a terrain from within.11 This contradiction between Heydenreich’s announced intention and his subsequent exposition not only marks a tension within his own thought,12 but it also echoes a broader development in much of German philosophy in the late eighteenth century. Just as when in Heydenreich’s hands Spinoza’s Lehrgebäude is made to speak the language of landscape, soon much of German philosophy would begin to exhibit topographic forms of thought. TOPOGRAPHICAL THOUGHT IN KANT’S CRITICAL PHILOSOPHY The image of Kant constructing such a Lehrgebäude, as we have noted, has been inspired by his own insistence that philosophy is an exercise in architectonic system-building, a claim which inevitably invites comparisons to both the discipline of architecture and the physical buildings it constructs. When, for example, he speaks of criticism as securing the foundations for the edifice of metaphysics “in order that it may sink in no part,” (KU, pref.) interpreters have understandably focused their attention on the architectural function of those foundations rather than the ground in which they are laid. In order to rectify this imbalance, it will be helpful to trace Kant’s equally pervasive use of topographical language, in a more or less chronological fashion, from the “isle of truth” in the first Critique to the “domains” and “territories” of philosophy in the third Critique. For it is only by displaying the full range of uses Kant assigns to these metaphors that it will become apparent why Kant’s “architecture” had always presupposed a geographical setting with its own

226

The German “Mittelweg”

structural properties and modes of navigation. After presenting the most significant examples of Kant’s topographical language, I will close by briefly sketching some of the consequences that this shift in imagery holds for the interpretation of his system. *** In the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant often conveys his thoughts in spatial terms. Some of the more abstract concepts, such as “transcendental location,” could be interpreted as referring to a space in general, but the further specification of locational method as a “transcendental topic” suggests that logical space already carries for Kant some sense of a topographical surface (KrV, B324 ff.). This tendency is even more pronounced in his extended discussion of genera and species, where Kant speaks of a stationary observer whose range of vision delimits these categories as a set of nested horizons: “Every concept may be regarded as a point which, as the station for an observer, has its own horizon, that is, a variety of things which can be represented, and, as it were, surveyed from that standpoint” (KrV, B686–87). Kant uses similar imagery when he wishes to convey the notion that reason has definite bounds: “The sum of all the possible objects of our knowledge appears to us to be a plane, with an apparent horizon—namely, that which in its sweep comprehends it all, and which has been entitled by us the idea of unconditioned totality” (KrV, B787). The most striking example of this language in the first Critique, however, is that of the “isle of truth,” which occurs toward the end of the “Transcendental Analytic.” The passage is rather lengthy, but it is worth quoting it in full. We have now not merely explored the territory [Land] of pure understanding, and carefully surveyed [sorgfältig in Augenschein genommen] every part of it, but have also measured its extent, and assigned to everything in it its rightful place. This domain [Land] is an island, enclosed by nature itself within unalterable limits. It is the land of truth— enchanting name!—surrounded by a wide and stormy ocean, the native home of illusion, where many a fog bank and many a swiftly melting iceberg give the deceptive appearance of farther shores, deluding the adventurous seafarer ever anew with empty hopes, and engaging him in enterprises which he can never abandon and yet is unable to carry to completion. Before we venture on this sea, to explore it in all directions and to obtain assurance whether there be any ground for such hopes, it will be well to begin by casting a glance upon the map of the land which

Architectonics and Topographics

227

we are about to leave, and to enquire, first, whether we cannot in any case be satisfied with what it contains—are not, indeed, under compulsion to be satisfied, inasmuch as there may be no other territory [Boden] upon which we can settle [anbauen]; and, secondly, by what title we possess [besitzen] even this domain [Land], and can consider ourselves as secured against all opposing claims. (KrV, B294–95)

At this juncture of his argument Kant is concerned primarily with emphasizing the limits of reason in that aspect of its usage as the Understanding (Verstand), which is directed solely toward the cognition of experience. Kant uses this illustration to prepare the reader for the next major section of the text, the “Transcendental Dialectic,” which enumerates the inevitable illusions that result when these limits are ignored, as well as to introduce several themes he will develop more thoroughly in the works following the first Critique. These themes are: (1) the portrayal of the supersensible domain lying outside experience as an undifferentiated surface with no landmarks, in this case an ocean, (2) the determination of the border separating these two domains, (3) the contrast between land and sea as the difference between truth and illusion, and (4) the contrast between the sedentary administration of land through mapping, settlement, and possession, and the navigation of the sea through as yet unidentified forms of orientation. Although they are modified slightly as Kant develops his critical project, these issues shape the topographical aspect of his thought at least through the completion of the final Critique. Within the context of the first Critique, i.e., from the standpoint of the Understanding, the supersensible is viewed from the secure shores of empirical experience only as a distant prospect. Any attempt to explore this region by employing the concepts of the Understanding beyond their proper usage results in dialectical illusion, symbolized by the seafarer who is deluded by what appears to be firm ground, but is not (e.g. melting icebergs, mirages of distant shorelines). The second phase of Kant’s critical work, however, consists in determining the proper navigation of this region though a different aspect of reason (Vernunft)—its practical, rather than cognitive usage. In particular, reason is given the task of rendering a positive account of freedom, which it was able to define only negatively in the first Critique. Kant’s first major statement on this problem came in an essay entitled, “What is Orientation in Thinking?” published in 1786 at the height of the so-called “pantheism controversy.” In this essay Kant offers an argument that was intended to settle a public dispute between Moses Mendelssohn and Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi over reason’s authority to establish the reality of supersensible ideas,

228

The German “Mittelweg”

such as God and freedom.13 In making this argument, Kant begins with a familiar situation in experience whereby we coordinate two forms of orientation, an outer one based on the points of the compass and an inner one based on the distinction between left and right: “To orient one’s self in the strict sense of the word means to find, from one given direction in the world (one of the four into which we divide the horizon), the others. . . . But for this I certainly need the feeling of a distinction in my own person, that between my right and left hand. I call it a feeling, because the two sides in intuition show no externally noticeable difference. . . . Thus I orient myself geographically by all the objective data of the sky only by virtue of a subjective ground of distinction.” Kant then asks us to apply these forms of orientation to progressively more abstract situations: “This geographical concept of the procedure of orientation can be broadened to purely mathematical orientation so as to include orientation in any given space. . . . Finally I can broaden this concept even more, since it consists in the ability to orient myself not merely in space (i.e., mathematically) but in thought as such (i.e., logically). One can easily guess by analogy that this kind of orientation will be the business of pure reason in directing its use when, starting from known objects of experience, it tries to extend itself beyond all boundaries of experience, finding no object of intuition but merely space for it.”14 Kant is arguing, then, that when exploring the supersensible, it is insufficient for reason to rely only upon the sort of map that one uses in empirical experience. We also need an internal directional device, and this Kant believes he finds in the form of “rational faith,” which he likens to a signpost (Wegweiser) or compass.15 This compass is necessary in the realm of the supersensible because, like the ocean, it is a surface with no differentiating landmarks. Just as if we were naval captains triangulating with sextants, we have no recourse but to gain our bearings from “the starry heavens above [us] and the moral law within [us]” (KpV, 161). In fact, it is precisely for failing to navigate in this manner that Kant faults the British philosopher David Hume. In the Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics (1783), Kant writes: “Yet even he [Hume] did not suspect such a formal science, but ran his ship ashore, for safety’s sake, landing on skepticism, there to let it lie and rot; whereas my object is rather to give it a pilot who, by means of safe navigational principles drawn from a knowledge of the globe and provided with a complete chart and compass, may steer the ship safely whither he listeth” (Prol, 262). The chart Kant has in mind, of course, is the map of experience elaborated in the first Critique; the compass is the directional “need of reason” that would be posited in the second. Had Hume been in possession of these tools, Kant suggests, he could have avoided shipwreck because the map and the compass would have given him the means

Architectonics and Topographics

229

to determine the exact location of the shoreline. Similarly, when Kant elsewhere refers to Hume as a “geographer of human reason,” it is primarily to accuse him of drawing an inaccurate map (KrV, B788). If, as Kant insists, “all the questions raised by our pure reason are as to what may be outside the horizon, or, it may be, on its boundary line” (KrV, B788), then the central task of the “geographer of reason” must be to survey and to plot this line. Although Kant determined the location of reason’s “shoreline” to his satisfaction in the first Critique, he tended to present it in that work as having no dimensions. It merely denoted the edge of experience. By the time Kant wrote the Prolegomena, however, he had developed a more subtle understanding of this boundary. The first new characteristic he describes is its thickness: “For in all bounds [Grenzen] there is something positive (e.g., a surface is the boundary of corporeal space, and is therefore itself a space; a line is a space, which is the boundary of the surface, a point the boundary of the line, but yet always a place in space), whereas limits [Schranken] contain mere negations” (Prol, 354). Kant’s second insight was that a boundary communicates with, and even annexes itself to, the realms on either side: “But as a boundary is itself something positive, which belongs to what lies within as well as to the space that lies without the given complex, it is . . . an actual positive cognition which reason only acquires by enlarging itself to this boundary, yet without attempting to pass it because it there finds itself in the presence of an empty space in which it can think forms of things but not things themselves” (Prol, 361). Both of these principles lent a greater urgency to Kant’s scrutiny of the line that he had drawn around experience, even if now it was more frame than line. And although not the sole reason for his eventual investigation of the faculty of judgment, this expansion of the borderline into a borderland opened up a space for—as well as showed the need for—a third Critique. It is in the second “Introduction” to the Critique of Judgment that Kant gives his most complex account of the design of the system as a terrain, where he identifies the border region as the third and final site of his critical investigations. In doing so, Kant also carefully distinguishes three categories of topography—fields, territories, and domains—that differ according to the relation they have to concepts. Concepts, so far as they are referred to objects, independently of the possibility or impossibility of the cognition of these objects, have their field [Feld], which is determined merely according to the relation that their object has to our cognitive faculty in general. The part of this field in which knowledge is possible for us is a ground or territory [Boden] (territorium) for these concepts and the requisite cognitive faculty. The part of this

230

The German “Mittelweg” territory, where they are legislative, is the domain16 [Gebiet] (ditio) of these concepts and of the corresponding cognitive faculties. (KU, ii)

Kant is most concerned with the third category, “domains,” for it is the one that, through the authority of legislation, determines the shape of the system. In his estimation, there are two, and only two, such legislative authorities—cognitive understanding and moral reason—and these have served as the subject matter of the first two Critiques. Although they determine separate realms, these domains together constitute the single territory of experience:17 “Understanding and reason exercise, therefore, two distinct legislations on one and the same territory of experience, without prejudice to each other” (KU, ii). Because of their complete separation, the relation between the two domains comprising experience presents a special problem for Kant, one that now causes the “borderland” to appear as an “immeasurable chasm” (unübersehbare Kluft) in the heart of his system. If understanding and reason legislate through exclusive a priori principles, how can Kant hope to negotiate a transition, to “throw a bridge from one realm to the other” (KU, ix)? Kant’s answer, the subject of the third Critique, is to deduce an a priori principle unique to the faculty of judgment, which in the first two Critiques had merely been annexed to the other faculties as needed. Now Kant looks to judgment, the “middle term” (Mittelglied) between understanding and reason, to provide the transition over the chasm. The solution, however, comes with a caveat. Judgment indeed contains an a priori principle of its own, identified by Kant as the “purposiveness of nature,” but it turns out that it has no domain: “This principle, even if it have no field of objects as its domain, yet may have somewhere a territory with a certain character for which no other principle can be valid” (KU, iii). This “territory” is reason itself, made into its own “object” through reflective judgment. The overall result for Kant’s system is that the notion of “designed nature” (KU, §68) comes to occupy the very center of his philosophy. Figuratively filling the space of the chasm as its territory, yet possessing no domain because it is regulative rather than constitutive, this image of a purposive nature guides reason in its self-directed activity of system building. Only now, because of its topographical ambitions, reason appears more landscape gardener than architect. *** Having now presented an overview of Kant’s topographical analogies, I would like to suggest several areas of inquiry for assessing their significance. Although not given in the form of definitive conclusions, these broad themes

Architectonics and Topographics

231

outline a program for further analyzing the topographical aspects of Kant’s thought in relation to the Mittelweg garden theories. THE SEDENTARY PHILOSOPHER VS. THE STROLLING PHILOSOPHER In presenting judgment as a middle term between understanding and reason, Kant implicitly suggests that its form of legislation will mediate between the surveying and mapping activities of the first Critique and the compassdirected movement of the second. Because it is a self-directed movement of reason, judgment in effect places these object-oriented activities in the creative service of the imagination. In this respect, judgment’s regulative “play” has a double affinity to garden art. First, its reflexive activity bears a strong structural resemblance to the garden’s semiotic character, which both Kant and the Mittelweg theorists define as the representation of nature through itself. Second, the specific techniques of garden art can be interpreted as analogs to the new functions assumed by surveying and navigation under judgment’s jurisdiction. In the former, the theodolite is detached from its administrative usage to assume a creative function, i.e., reshaping landform according to a design (see fig. 25). In the latter, directional navigation is detached from its goal-orientation and comes to resemble the Mittelweg theorists’ conception of strolling. In both cases—surveying and strolling— architectonics must be coordinated with topographics in a novel way. This conclusion is stated most clearly by Heydenreich when he maintains that a garden is constructed as a “succession of scenes.” Because the individual scenes must be experienced sequentially, any unity that governs the composition as a whole is not available in an actual intuition. That is, the Hauptbild, or primary image, must be constructed synthetically within the imagination. If we picture Kant’s “domains” in this way, then we may similarly conclude that the synoptic vision of architectonics has been displaced across a topography. Because criticism does not give us a “God’s-eye view,” the unity of the system can be “seen” only by drawing a synthetic line, as it were, that connects the individually apprehended scenes along Kant’s “critical path” (KrV, B884). Kant’s notion of a “critical path,” which as we have already noted was also for him a Mittelweg between dogmatism and skepticism,18 must be also be squared, however, both with his censure of a type of philosophy he characterizes as aimless wandering and his own preference for a style of philosophizing that takes sedentary legislation as its model. Typically, it is the dogmatists who are accused of “wandering,” presumably a reference to the “strolling

232

The German “Mittelweg”

Figure 25. Humphry Repton’s tradecard, ca. 1790 Reproduced by permission from Frances Loeb Library.

philosophers” of Popularphilosophie, although he also sometimes describes skeptics in these terms.19 The terrain on which their aimless searches are conducted is, as noted earlier, often pictured as an ocean, but it also can take the form of swampland, marsh, or quicksand. In short, non-critical thinkers are said to inhabit a philosophical terrain that is anything but “firm” ground. Kant’s reference to the skeptics as “a species of nomads, despising all settled modes of life” (KrV, Aix-xii) is especially in need of further investigation in light of Deleuze and Guattari’s rehabilitation of “nomadic thought” (which they also refer to as “exterior thought”) as an antidote to thinkers like Kant.20 More prosaically, it also needs to be placed in the context of Kant’s own attitudes toward outdoor strolling, which he saw as a mere propaedeutic to the serious work of thinking that was to be done later indoors.21 Heydenreich’s character, Xenophanes, in leaving his urban study to seek inspiration and refreshment on a solitary walk, could be seen as a prototype of this attitude. Kant’s greatest concern with “wandering thought,” however, stems from his deep respect for the bounds (Grenze) of reason, which he believes are immovable. That is, to employ reason in its cognitive form (Verstand) beyond these bounds is to do something presumptuous (vermessen) (KU, §68, §89),

Architectonics and Topographics

233

which is also to say that reason leaves cognitive territory that can properly be “measured” and “surveyed.”22 At one point in the Prolegomena, for example, Kant writes of this tendency in the “common sense” (i.e., “strolling”) philosopher: “And even he, this adept in sound sense [gesunden Vernunft], in spite of all his assumed and cheaply acquired wisdom, is not exempt from wandering [geraten] inadvertently beyond objects [Gegenstände] of experience into the field [Feld] of chimeras [Hirngespinste]” (Prol, 314). It is telling that Kant describes this transgression as a movement from “objects” to a “field,” for only bounded objects—not background fields—are visible within his epistemology. Topography, if it is to be assimilated to this object-oriented vision, must likewise be measured, i.e., appear as topographical “form,” and any movement across it must be regulated through “method.” In fact, it is only in the image of a walking observer who plots his own movements in relation to a (no longer stationary) horizon that Kant comes close to a pictorial representation of his “critical path.”23 Like the method of “middle path” garden theory, it denotes a relation to topography where the necessity of assuming a mobile perspective also entails that one’s knowledge of the whole must forever remain indirect. REGULATIVE IDEAS AS PROJECTED IMAGERY Landscape gardening uses a number of visual techniques, especially those related to the notion of “truthful illusion,” that bear upon the topographical treatment of philosophy. For example, when Kant figuratively “stands” on the edge of experience, looking over the chasm toward the supersensible, he essentially treats it as a giant ha-ha, visually occupying the supersensible domain by projecting onto it the “truthful illusions” of regulative ideas: “There is, then, an unbounded but also inaccessible field for our whole cognitive faculty—the field of the supersensible—wherein we find no territory and therefore can have in it, for theoretical cognition, no domain either for concepts of understanding or reason. This field we must indeed occupy with ideas on behalf of the theoretical as well as the practical use of reason . . .” (KU, ii). The two domains, although rigorously disjunctive, are made to appear as a seamless system by analogically applying to supersensible ideas “properties borrowed from the sensible world” (Prol, 355). The end result is the construction of systemic “prospects” (Aussichten)24 that closely resemble the real ones recommended by Grohmann, whereby the domain within is made to approximate the domain without. And when Kant worries about the tendency of reason to lose sight of the actual differences between them, to embrace “principles which incite us to tear down all those boundary-fences

234

The German “Mittelweg”

and to seize possession of an entirely new domain which recognizes no limits of demarcation” (KrV, B352), one can almost imagine that he has in mind that watershed moment in garden history when William Kent figuratively “lept the fence.” Nevertheless, in his use of philosophical prospects and haha’s to create a visually coordinated system, Kant is more like Kent than he realizes. The comparison attains even greater force when one examines passages in Kant that depict the projective technique of regulative ideas as a visual play of depth and flatness, for this accords both with his account of garden art as paradoxically two-dimensional as well as the contemporary understanding of the landscape garden as “picturesque.” In Kant’s most explicit account of this procedure, he likens regulative ideas to the convergence of sight-lines within a mirror image, an effect which produces the illusion of depth even though it occurs on a flat surface: On the other hand, [transcendental ideas] have an excellent, and indeed indispensably necessary, regulative employment, namely, that of directing the understanding towards a certain goal upon which the routes marked out by all its rules converge, as upon their point of intersection. This point is indeed a mere idea, a focus imaginarius, from which, since it lies quite outside the bounds of possible experience, the concepts of the understanding do not in reality proceed; none the less it serves to give to these concepts the greatest [possible] unity combined with the greatest [possible] extension. Hence arises the illusion that the lines have their source in a real object lying outside the field of empirically possible knowledge—just as objects reflected in a mirror are seen as behind it. Nevertheless this illusion (which need not, however, be allowed to deceive us) is indispensably necessary if we are to direct the understanding beyond every given experience (as part of the sum of possible experience), and thereby to secure its greatest possible extension, just as, in the case of mirror-vision, the illusion involved is indispensably necessary if, besides the objects which lie before our eyes, we are also to see those which lie at a distance behind our back. (KrV, B672–73)

As suggestive as this passage is, an important task of future research will be to carry out more detailed comparisons of philosophical “prospects” with actual garden design techniques. This could include, for example, a study of how a single cognitive function, e.g. the imagination, appears slightly altered when viewed from each of Kant’s three major standpoints: theoretical understanding, practical reason, and judgment. Or it could focus on how two differ-

Architectonics and Topographics

235

ent functions, although “residing” in separate domains or territories, might be seen in combination by being framed from a third vantage point. The so-called Toleranzblick at Wörlitz—which encompasses a church spire, synagogue pavilion, and Greek urn within a single vista, although each is located in a distinct and otherwise visually separated “domain” of the garden—would be an appropriate analog for exploring the technique by which Kant constructs such prospects across domains. TOPOGRAPHY AS A FORM OF PROPERTY Given Kant’s frequent recourse to images of the “occupation” and “possession” of mental territory,25 it is worth asking to what extent his conception of reason’s “legislation” over its “domains” is influenced by, or even simply adopted wholesale from, the empirical realities of owning and administering land in late eighteenth-century Prussia. Such an investigation would need to examine not only analogies with governments (KrV, Aix-xii) and the juridical web of deeds, inheritance lineages, and property rights that they establish.26 Additionally, it would also need to take into account differences between the traditional manorial lordship (Gutsherrschaft) that still dominated the lands east of the Oder and the more bureaucratic administration (Verwaltung) that characterized territories like Saxony, where rising commercial interests

Figure 26. “Toleranzblick” at Wörlitz Reproduced by permission from Alex and Kluge, Gärten um Wörlitz, 39.

236

The German “Mittelweg”

increasingly viewed land as a trade commodity. In each situation there is a different conception of the rights and responsibilities of landowners, as well as marked differences between whether authority is vested in an individual lord (Gutsherr) or in a multiplicity of agents with overlapping privileges and claims.27 Kant’s assumptions about the nature of territorial boundaries and the function of reason’s various legislative authorities need to be interpreted in relation to these conditions. It is also imperative to extend the work of Manfred Brocker in examining Kant’s own doctrine of property (Besitzlehre). Brocker has shown that Kant sees the lawful rights of ownership as the end result of a progression from a temporally distant, original act of violence—the seizure and occupation of a piece of ground (Boden)—to the posterior justification of this appropriation through civil codes that affirm the subsequent status quo. In short, Kant’s doctrine charts the process by which occupied ground becomes “naturalized” over time into “property.”28 Several studies of eighteenth-century English estates have already shown how garden design can serve the ideological need of landowners to create the impression that a family has ancient roots in its holdings, and by extension, a natural right to ownership and rule.29 Such insights can now be brought to bear on those passages in Kant where he worries about reason’s claims to its patrimony, whether in his figurative account of how empiricism writes a false genealogy of the territorial claims of metaphysics (KrV, Aix), or in his palpable anxiety that certain competing “claims that, while old, have never become superannuated” might thwart criticism’s aim to “gain for ourselves a possession which can never again be contested” (KrV, B805–6). Closely bound up with these issues is the emergence of a form of “bureaucratic vision” within cameralist science in eighteenth-century Germany, which reduces the empirical complexities of a territory to a set of variables that can be quantified and arrayed in tables.30 It has been argued quite convincingly that Kant’s epistemological procedure, in treating objects as formally interchangeable units, strongly resembles this mode of vision and reflects the general emergence of commodification and reification in early industrial societies.31 It remains to be seen, however, whether a closer look at cases more specific to land management, such as the remarkable changes in Saxon forestry that occurred during the late eighteenth century,32 might expand or alter these insights into Kant’s use of property metaphors. His theorization of the garden as giving the appearance of “usefulness without a use”—meaningful only in the context of an economy where the removal of land from economic production warrants special notice—fits into this matrix of economic issues, as does his notion of aesthetic disinterest as the

Architectonics and Topographics

237

contemplation of an object in the absence of any desire for possessing it.33 The political dimensions of the latter are especially noteworthy, and John Barrell’s study of landscape prospects in eighteenth-century England provides a model for how similar work might be done for Kant’s context. For Barrell shows that the type of encompassing prospect cultivated on large estates was also coded as a “disinterested” view of the whole, a self-appraisal of aesthetic judgment which was used by these same landowners to legitimate the exercise of a similarly “disinterested” political judgment on behalf of all society.34 THE DESIGN OF PHILOSOPHICAL SYSTEMS: BETWEEN NATURE AND ARTIFICE Kant’s visualization of his system as alternately architectonic and topographic is also closely related to his treatment of art and nature in the Critique of Judgment. If as Kant believes, “nature is beautiful because it looks like art, and art can only be called beautiful if . . . it looks like nature” (KU, §45), then the Naturgarten of the Mittelweg theorists must certainly be judged as one of the most fully realized moments of their conflation. Kant seems to be aiming for a similar naturalization of the “art of system-building” (Kunst der Systeme) (KrV, B860) when he describes architectonics as an organic unity (KrV, Bxxxvii, B861) and when he contrasts the mere “artificer of reason” (Vernunftkünstler) with its “lawgiver” (Gesetzgeber), i.e., one who discovers reason’s natural laws (KrV, B867). The same appeal to nature is at work when Kant assures us that the “territory” of experience is “enclosed by nature itself within unalterable limits” (KrV, B294–95). But perhaps his most striking attempt to depict the design of the system as “natural” comes in his treatment of the relation between criticism as “topography” and metaphysics as “edifice.” Although Kant clearly separates these analogies in the preface to the third Critique, he suggests in the first Critique that we may also think of metaphysics in a second, broader sense that is inclusive of both criticism and metaphysics proper (KrV, B869). In doing so, he performs an operation that is the inverse of the Naturgarten. Whereas the Naturgarten deliberately conceals its artifice in order to appear natural, Kant’s broader sense of metaphysics effaces the “natural,” i.e. topographical, basis of its critical component in order to present the whole as a pure architectonics. However, by “covering his tracks” in this manner, Kant also paradoxically appropriates for his edifice a “naturalness” that he could not otherwise claim. This tension between the “natural” and the “artificial” status of the system’s design forms the third antinomy of the Critique of Judgment, and arguably the central antinomy of the entire critical project, even though the

238

The German “Mittelweg”

conflict is not formally stated as such by Kant. It finds expression in his dual use of architectural and topographic metaphors to describe his system, but as the Mittelweg garden theories have shown, the division does not admit of a simple overlay of artifice and nature. Kant’s system-building “procedure” (Verfahren)35 is such that its “projected unity”36 must approximate the undesigned character of nature if it is to be “true,” yet it remains a product of human design (for Kant, this is always “to do violence to nature” (KrV, B654)) that can only be carried out through conscious effort. Thus, the procedure of “method,” the arrangement of philosophy’s parts, must be natural and artificial at the same time. Much of Kant’s difficulty in resolving these competing aims lies in the way he pictures the archetype, or schema, that gives rise to his system. As should by now be fully expected, he visualizes its unifying “ground” as a “problematic” “object” (KrV, B709), a schema “which must contain the outline [Umriß] (monogramma) and the division of the whole into parts, in conformity with the idea” (KrV, B861–62). This commitment to objects and outlines does not do justice to the ground that Kant must recruit, with the result that topographical features remain problematic for him as system components37 even as topographical design is revealed to be an indispensable aspect of his procedure. Brodsky has suggested that if Kant had written a fourth Critique, it would necessarily have been a critique of architecture, or more broadly, of architectural form.38 In light of Kant’s dual use of architectonics and topographics, I would concur with this conclusion but also expand the scope of such a volume to encompass a critique of structure in general, one that, like the Critique of Judgment, would comprise two parts. This second part would be a critique of garden art, or more broadly, of topographical form.

Notes

NOTES TO CHAPTER ONE Unless otherwise noted, all translations are my own. 1. Charles Joseph de Ligne, Der Garten zu Beloeil, nebst einer kritischen Uebersicht der meisten Gärten Europens, trans. Wilhelm Gottlieb Becker (Dresden, 1799), 2:168–69. The English translation is from Charles-Joseph de Ligne, Coup d’Œil at Belœil and a Great Number of European Gardens, trans. and ed. Basil Guy (Berkeley, 1991), 259. 2. Examples include Thomas Whately, Observations on Modern Gardening (London, 1770); Horace Walpole, The History of the Modern Taste in Gardening (London, 1771); Claude-Henri Watelet, Essai sur les jardins (Paris, 1774); Jean-Marie Morel, Théorie des jardins (Paris, 1776); and René-Louis Marquis de Girardin, De la composition des paysages (Geneva and Paris, 1777). 3. Johann Ernst Zeiher’s translation of Whately appeared in 1771. Girardin’s treatise was translated into German by Wilhelm Gottlieb Becker in 1778 as Von Verschönerung der Natur um Landwohnungen. 4. Most German theorists of this period label formal gardens as “French” even though adaptations of the English landscape garden in France had preceded those in Germany by about two decades. A new or recently replanted “French” garden was, consequently, just as likely to be “irregular” in style as it was “formal.” The French did not, however, typically see their modified “English” garden as a mediation of two extremes. See Dora Wiebenson, The Picturesque Garden in France (Princeton, 1978); John Dixon Hunt, The Picturesque Garden in Europe (London, 2002). 5. In brief, the Sonderweg thesis states that Germany did not experience the development of a strong bourgeoisie during the nineteenth century in contrast to the supposedly “normal” pattern observed in England and France. David Blackbourn and Geoff Eley were among the first to offer a vigorous rebuttal of this notion in The Peculiarities of German History: Bourgeois

239

240

Notes to Chapter One

6. 7.

8.

9.

10. 11.

12.

13.

Society and Politics in Nineteenth-Century Germany (Oxford, 1984). For an excellent summary of the main issues involved, see Jürgen Kocka, “Bürgertum und Sonderweg,” in Sozial- und Kulturgeschichte des Bürgertums: eine Bilanz des Bielefelder Sonderforschungsbereichs (1986–1997), ed. Peter Lundgreen (Göttingen, 2000), 93–110. See also Helga Grebing, Der “deutsche Sonderweg” in Europa 1806–1945: eine Kritik (Stuttgart, 1986). For a discussion of Sulzer’s garden theory, see Johannes Dobai, Die bildenden Künste in Johann Georg Sulzers Ästhetik (Winterthur, 1978), 152–57. Christian C. L. Hirschfeld, Anmerkungen über die Landhäuser und die Gartenkunst (Leipzig, 1773); Theorie der Gartenkunst (Leipzig, 1775); Theorie der Gartenkunst, 5 Bde. (Leipzig, 1779–85). “In what follows a middle path [Mittelweg] will emerge between these two prevailing tastes, one that forsakes the old style but does not become entirely lost in the new, one that, while occasionally veering down a path already cleared, still more often follows its own direction.” C. C. L. Hirschfeld, Theory of Garden Art, trans. and ed. Linda B. Parshall (Philadelphia, 2001), 137. Norbert Hinske et al., eds. Der Aufbruch in den Kantianismus: Der Frühkantianismus an der Universität Jena von 1785–1800 und seine Vorgeschichte (Stuttgart, 1995), 121–38. John Dixon Hunt, Greater Perfections: The Practice of Garden Theory (Philadelphia, 2000), 17, 242n18. In contrast to Miller and Ross, Allen S. Weiss in Mirrors of Infinity: The French Formal Garden and Seventeenth-Century Aesthetics (Paris, 1992) has framed a relationship between gardens and philosophy in a more historically bounded way by interpreting Le Nôtre’s work as an expression of Cartesian metaphysics. John Dixon Hunt’s excellent chapter on John Evelyn’s circle in late seventeenth-century England could be considered an exception to this observation if one disregards the qualification that the garden theorists must be professional philosophers. Hunt, Greater Perfections, 180–206. Friedrich Schleiermacher, Arthur Schopenhauer, and Georg W. F. Hegel all included comments on garden art in their aesthetic theories. For a short summary of their positions, see Clemens Alexander Wimmer, Geschichte der Gartentheorie (Darmstadt, 1989). Later in the nineteenth century, other treatises on garden aesthetics include Lothar Abel, Aesthetik der Gartenkunst (Wien, 1877); K. E. Schneider, Die schöne Gartenkunst in ihren Grundzügen dargestellt: ein Versuch zur ästhetischen Begründung derselben (Stuttgart, 1882); and K. E. Schneider, Die Aesthetik der Gartenkunst: ein Beitrag zur Einführung derselben in das Kunstsystem (Leipzig, 1890). Georg Simmel’s essay, “Philosophie der Landschaft,” in his Das Individuum und die Freiheit: Essais (Berlin, 1984), 130–39 (originally published in Die Güldenkammer, III, 1913) and Georg Lukács’ chapter on garden art in his Ästhetik Teil I, Bd.

Notes to Chapter One

14.

15. 16.

17.

18. 19.

20.

21.

22.

23.

241

12, Werke (Neuwied am Rhein and Berlin-Spandau, 1963), can also been seen in this tradition. Like the Germans from whom they derived (or simply translated) many of their main ideas, this small circle of thinkers benefited from ties to an institutional academic base. However, because they worked within a different intellectual tradition, they were less overtly philosophical in their ambitions and, in the end, pursued garden theory for only a few years. J. G. Grohmann’s relationship to these Italian theorists has been explored in Enzo Bentivoglio and Vincenzo Fontana, eds., Giardino romantico in Italia tra Settecento e Ottocento: negli scritti di Marulli, Pindemonte, Cesarotti, Mabil e nel Recueil de dessins di J. G. Grohmann (Rome, 2001). Marie Luise Gothein, Geschichte der Gartenkunst, 2 Bde. (Jena, 1914). Alfred Hoffmann, Der Landschaftsgarten, Bd. 3 of D. Hennebo and A. Hoffmann, Geschichte der deutschen Gartenkunst (Hamburg, 1963); Adrian von Buttlar, Der Landschaftsgarten (Munich, 1980). Siegmar Gerndt, Idealisierte Natur: die literarische Kontroverse um den Landschaftsgarten des 18. und frühen 19. Jahrhunderts in Deutschland (Stuttgart, 1981). A few Italian studies of garden theory also include short sections on Kant and Schiller, including Massimo Venturi Ferriolo, Giardino e paesaggio dei romantici (Milan, 1998), 102–24; and Rosario Assunto, Ontologia e teleologia del giardino (Milan, 1988), 77–83. Harri Günther, ed., Gärten der Goethezeit (Leipzig, 1992). Wolfgang Schepers, Hirschfelds Theorie der Gartenkunst, 1779–1785 (Worms, 1980); Michael Breckwoldt, “Das Landleben” als Grundlage für eine Gartentheorie: eine literatur-historische Analyse der Schriften von Christian Cay Lorenz Hirschfeld (Munich, 1995); Wolfgang Kehn, Christian Cay Lorenz Hirschfeld, 1742–1792: eine Biographie (Worms, 1992). Wolfgang Schepers, “C. C. L. Hirschfelds Theorie der Gartenkunst (1779– 85) und die Frage des ‘deutschen Gartens,’” in Park und Garten im 18. Jahrhundert: Colloquium der Arbeitsstelle 18. Jahrhundert Gesamthochschule Wuppertal (Heidelberg, 1978), 83–92. Eva Marie Neumeyer, “The Landscape Garden as a Symbol in Rousseau, Goethe and Flaubert,” Journal of the History of Ideas 8, no. 2 (April 1947): 187–217; Sheila M. Benn, Pre-Romantic Attitudes to Landscape in the Writings of Friedrich Schiller (Berlin, 1991); Linda Parshall, “C. C. L. Hirschfeld’s Concept of the Garden in the German Enlightenment,” Journal of Garden History 13 (1993): 125–71. Sarah Richards, “A Magazine for the Friends of Good Taste: Sensibility and Rationality in Garden Design in Late Eighteenth-Century Germany,” Studies in the History of Gardens and Designed Landscapes 20, no. 3 (Autumn 2000): 229–48. Frederick C. Beiser, The Fate of Reason: German Philosophy from Kant to Fichte (Cambridge, MA, 1987), 3–4, 287–88; F. Beiser, German Idealism:

242

Notes to Chapter Two

24. 25.

26.

27.

28.

The Struggle against Subjectivism, 1781–1801 (Cambridge, MA, 2002), 20, 24, 25, 182, 218, 312, 318–19, 466–67. Erich Adickes, German Kantian Bibliography (Würzburg, 1970). Paul Schlüter, “Carl Heinrich Heydenreichs System der Ästhetik” (diss., Halle, 1939). One other dissertation has been written on Heydenreich, but it deals primarily with his approach to education. See Kurt Hebold, “Karl Heinrich Heydenreichs Individual-Pädagogik dargestellt mit besonderer Berücksichtigung seiner Philosophie, Psychologie und Ästhetik” (diss., Leipzig, 1909). Paul Guyer, Kant and the Experience of Freedom: Essays on Aesthetics and Morality (Cambridge, 1996), 145–47. A short discussion of Heydenreich’s architectural theory can also be found in Klaus Jan Philipp, Um 1800: Architekturtheorie und Architekturkritik in Deutschland zwischen 1790 und 1810 (Stuttgart, 1997), 186–89. Elaine P. Miller uses the suggestive title, “Kant: The English Garden” for the first chapter in her The Vegetative Soul: From Philosophy of Nature to Subjectivity in the Feminine (Albany, 2002), 19–44. Her analogy between Kant’s philosophy and English landscape gardening is based on her disagreement with Schopenhauer, who in one passage compares Kant’s thought to the avenues and clipped hedges of a formal garden. Miller uses her analogy only loosely, however, and does not analyze Kant’s garden theory in any detail. David W. Bates, for example, has analyzed the use of topographical metaphors in depicting epistemological error in his Enlightenment Aberrations: Error and Revolution in France (Ithaca, 2002). See especially Chapter 2, “Wandering in the Space of Knowledge,” 19–40.

NOTES TO CHAPTER TWO 1. One of the better introductions to the history of botanic gardens can be found in Richard Drayton, Nature’s Government: Science, Imperial Britain, and the ‘Improvement’ of the World (New Haven, 2000), 3–25. 2. Wolfgang Kehn, Christian Cay Lorenz Hirschfeld, 1742–1792: eine Biographie (Worms am Rhein, 1992), 55–56. 3. Kehn, C. C. L. Hirschfeld, 150n218. Wiedewelt had been the director of the Copenhagen Academy since 1770. He was a sculptor by profession and had studied with Winckelmann in Rome in 1756–57. 4. Ibid., 84. 5. In a letter to Wiedewelt dated August 23, 1774, Hirschfeld states that he sees the teaching of the schöne Wissenschaften primarily “zum Vortheil junger Herren von Stande, die nicht auf Reisen gehen oder in der großen Welt leben wollen.” Ibid., 70. 6. Ibid., 70. Kehn elaborates this view more fully in “Adel und Gartenkunst in Schleswig-Holstein in der zweiten Hälfte des 18. Jahrhunderts,” in

Notes to Chapter Two

7. 8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13. 14. 15. 16.

243

Staatsdienst und Menschlichkeit, ed. Dieter Lohmeier and Christian Degn (Neumünster, 1980), 271–96. Kehn, C. C. L. Hirschfeld, 88–90. “A select library, a natural history collection, an assortment of rocks or dried plants can be arrayed in special pleasure cabinets and dispersed gracefully among the stands of trees. [This is also an appropriate place for temples with allegorical ornaments, or monuments with brief inscriptions, dedicated to the sciences or to deserving men.]” C. C. L. Hirschfeld, Theory of Garden Art, trans. and ed. Linda B. Parshall (Philadelphia, 2001), 411. Parshall’s translation ends with the first sentence. The quotation in brackets is my translation. As with Hirschfeld’s fine arts lectures, such overtly didactic features were to be directed in large measure toward the sons of the landed nobility, who would need a basic level of botanical knowledge for the proper management of their estates: “In addition to these adornments the academic garden can contain areas dedicated primarily to the scientific study of plants. A knowledge of plants is useful to every citizen of the planet, and for the landed nobility or a future gentleman farmer it is indispensable.” Ibid. Although he was never admitted into the Copenhagen Academy, Hirschfeld was unanimously accepted into the Prussian Academy of Arts and Sciences as an honorary member in 1788. In its report of the announcement, the Kielische Gelehrte Zeitungen maintained that in bestowing this honor on Hirschfeld, the Prussian Academy was the first learned institution to give garden art an official place (öffentliche Stelle) among the ranks of the fine arts. It is not clear from the text, however, whether this “official place” denoted the establishment of garden art as a course of study, presumable at Berlin’s art academy, or if it was simply referring to the symbolism attendant to Hirschfeld’s selection. Most likely it was the latter. See Kehn, C. C. L. Hirschfeld, 110. Martin Franke, “Adam Friedrich Oeser und die Leipziger Akademie,” in—die ganze Welt im kleinen—: Kunst und Kunstgeschichte in Leipzig, ed. Ernst Ullmann (Leipzig, 1989), 144–54. One of the most extensive accounts of Krubsacius’ work at the Dresden Academy can be found in Dresden: von der Königlichen Kunstakademie zur Hochschule für Bildende Künste (1764–1989) (Dresden, 1990), 64–74. For Longuelune’s career, see Heinrich Gerhard Franz, Zacharias Longuelune und die Baukunst des 18. Jahrhunderts in Dresden (Berlin, 1953). Hugo Koch, Sächsische Gartenkunst (Berlin, 1910), 251–54. Pliny the Younger, letters 2.17, 5.6. See Helen H. Tanzer, The Villas of Pliny the Younger (New York, 1924). In fairness to Krubsacius, it should be noted that many of these English gardens were loosely based on interpretations of Pliny, themselves often

244

17.

18.

19.

20.

21.

22. 23.

24.

25. 26.

Notes to Chapter Two mediated through Castell’s images, so his tendency to see the new English forms as “Plinian” is understandable. Koch, Sächsische Gartenkunst, 304. During the same year that he published his book on Pliny, Krubsacius also contributed some material on English gardens to Gottsched’s Handlexicon. See Dresden: von der Königlichen Kunstakademie, 72. One could just as easily find this sensibility in any number of Italian villas built from the fifteenth to the seventeenth centuries. The frequent inclusion of a vigna or barco in these villa complexes, often larger than the core gardens themselves, indicates that the English were hardly the first to resurrect a Roman appreciation of the countryside. It was generally not until the late eighteenth century, however, with the establishment of a significant expatriate community in and around Rome, that German intellectuals began to recognize this aspect of Italian gardens. See, for example, two short essays of Karl Philipp Moritz from his Italian journey, 1786–88, “Abwechselung und Einheit in der Landschaft. Bei einem Spaziergange in der Villa Borghese” and “Die Villa Borghese,” in his Schriften zur Ästhetik und Poetik: Kritische Ausgabe, ed. Hans Joachim Schrimpf (Tübingen, 1962), 217–18, 249–54. It is noteworthy that this design precedes by four years the earliest work at Wörlitz, generally considered to be the first significant English garden on the Continent. Hermann Jäger, however, mentions several English gardens in Germany that predate Wörlitz, including that of Freiherr Otto von Münchhausen in Schwöbber (1750) near Hameln an der Weser, Hinüber’s English garden in Hannover, and the park at Marienweder. Hermann Jäger, Gartenkunst und Gärten sonst und jetzt: Handbuch für Gärtner, Architekten und Liebhaber (Berlin, 1888), 325. Koch, Sächsische Gartenkunst, 257, 305. It is probably not accidental that the name recalls the “Elysian fields” at Stowe, but I have found no textual evidence that Krubsacius was consciously making this allusion. Koch notes that the Neue Bibliothek was one of two journals that were early proponents of the English style in Saxony. The other was the Deutsche Museum. See Koch, Sächsische Gartenkunst, 321. Dresden: von der Königlichen Kunstakademie, 72. Koch, Sächsische Gartenkunst, 304. “So schloß er ein Kompromiß. Er vereinigte in seine späterer Schöpfungen beide Systeme, den streng architektonischen Garten mit dem englischen.” Ibid., 306. “Beide Gartenstile wurden auf der Akademie gleichmäßig gelehrt, damit die jungen Architekten allen an sie gestellten Ansprüchen genügen konnten.” Ibid., 342. Koch states that Racknitz’s principles differentiating French and English gardens were still the main structuring ideas in the Architektur- Naturgarten debate of his own time (1910). See Ibid., 393–94.

Notes to Chapter Two

245

27. Another of Krubsacius’ students, Christian Traugott Weinlig (1739–1799), also provided illustrations for Hirschfeld’s treatise. 28. Hirschfeld, Theorie, IV:86, IV:127. 29. Randall Collins, The Sociology of Philosophies: A Global Theory of Intellectual Change (Cambridge, 1998). The chapter on German Idealism, entitled “Intellectuals Take Control of Their Base: The German University Revolution” (p. 618–87), has been particularly influential for my understanding of events in Leipzig. 30. Collins, Sociology of Philosophies, 379–83. On the relationship of Collins’ work to that of Pierre Bourdieu, Collins says the following: “There are some similarities between my approach and Bourdieu’s. Both of our works derive from empirical studies of education’s effects on stratification and of the inflationary market for educational credentials. . . . I disagree with Bourdieu’s principle that the intellectual field is homologous to the social space of nonintellectuals, however; the dynamics of struggle over the intellectual space is shaped in a distinctive way by the law of small numbers; and the cultural capital specific to the forefront of intellectual competition is not the cultural capital of educated persons generally, and it is not directly transposable with economic capital, in either direction.” Ibid., 948. 31. Nikolaus Pevsner, Academies of Art, Past and Present (Cambridge, 1940). 32. Franke, “Adam Freidrich Oeser,” 146–48. Johann Heinrich Jugler, a student at Leipzig University in the late 1770s, describes the academy’s collection along with several private collections belonging to wealthy businessmen, a few of which were open to the public. See Jugler, Leipzig und seine Universität im 18. Jahrhundert: Aufzeichnungen des Leipziger Studenten Johann Heinrich Jugler aus dem Jahre 1779, ed. Friedrich Zarncke (Leipzig, 1909), 29–31, 70–72. Karl Heinrich Heydenreich complained as late as 1794, however, of the paucity of suitable objects available for his lectures on aesthetics at the university: “Ich kann hier einen Wunsch nicht zurück halten, der sich mir eben so oft aufdringt, als man ästhetische Vorlesungen verlangt. Sollte nicht auf jeder wohleingerichteten Universität eine öffentliche Sammlung von Zeichnungen, Kupferstichen, Gemählden, Statuen seyn, eine Sammlung, die wenigstens vollständig genug wäre, um die Grundsätze für die Hauptpartieen der bildenden Kunst durch Beyspiele zu erläutern?” Heydenreich, “Ueber die Möglichkeit einer Philosophie der schönen Künste, in Rücksicht der Einwürfe, welche Herr Kant in der Kritik der Urtheilskraft dagegen erhoben hat,” in Originalideen über die interessantesten Gegenstände der Philosophie, (Leipzig, 1794), 2:35n-36n. 33. Goethe arrived at the university in 1762 and began his studies with Oeser at the end of 1765. His early interest in gardens is usually associated with the strong impressions from his visit to Wörlitz in 1778, two years after he had purchased land for a garden in what was to become Ilm Park, Weimar. Some scholars, however, have emphasized Goethe’s earlier experiences

246

34. 35.

36.

37. 38.

39.

40. 41.

Notes to Chapter Two under Oeser in Leipzig as being formative in this regard. Both Koch (1910) and Gothein (1914), for example, cite Goethe’s description of the entrance to Apel’s garden, on the western edge of Leipzig, in December 1765. Koch, Sächsische Gartenkunst, 82; Gothein, Geschichte der Gartenkunst, 2:257–58. Winckelmann’s seminal Gedanken ueber die Nachahmung der griechischen Werke in der Malerey und Bildhauer-Kunst was published in 1755. Koch, Sächsische Gartenkunst, 311; Jugler, Leipzig und seine Universität, 11. Jugler states that the monument was placed in a walled cemetery known as the Gottesacker, located just east of the city. Christian Fürchtegott Gellert (1715–69) was educated at Leipzig University, lectured there from 1744, and received a professorship in 1751. He was widely known for the eloquence of his lectures on moral themes and was part of the broad movement known as Popularphilosophie. In addition to Oeser’s monument, Gellert is also commemorated through a bust located in the labyrinth at Wörlitz. Hirschfeld’s interest in the monument was personal as well as artistic. During his brief matriculation at Leipzig University in 1768–69, Hirschfeld was deeply moved by Gellert’s lectures and sought to emulate his style of teaching during his years at Kiel University. See Kehn, C. C. L. Hirschfeld, 48–50. Timo John, “Adam Friedrich Oeser (1717–1799): ein unbekannter Gartenkünstler,” Die Gartenkunst 11, Heft 2 (1999): 285–307. “Im selben Geiste wirkte die Zwanganstalt der Akademie in Leipzig unter Oeser und Dauthe.” Koch, Sächsische Gartenkunst, 311. Later in his text, Koch summarizes the influence of the two academies as follows: “Der englische Stil findet in Sachsen Eingang zur Zeit des Krubsacius und in der Hauptsache durch ihn, der die Lehren an der Akademie verbreitete. Es sind die Grundsätze Chambers, kleine gegensatzreiche Einzelszenerien zu schaffen, die Aufnahme finden. Zunächst wird nur ein kleiner Teil dem neuen Geschmack eingeräumt, er bildet ein in sich abgeschlossenes Ganze. Erst mit Giesel und den Leipziger Künstlern tritt er mit dem französischen Garten in Verbindung und verdrängt diesen schließlich ganz.” Ibid., 399. Götz Pochat, “Gartenkunst und Landschaftsgarten vor Wörlitz,” in Weltbild Wörlitz: Entwurf einer Kulturlandschaft, ed. Frank-Andreas Bechtoldt and Thomas Weiss (Wörlitz, 1996), 42–43. The extent to which Laugier’s ideas had permeated Leipzig’s academic circles through Oeser’s influence can be seen as late as 1794, when Johann Gottfried Grohmann gave two courses at the university based on texts by Laugier. See Universität Leipzig, Verzeichnis der auf der Univ. Leipzig zu haltende Vorlesungen, S1777—W1797, Univ. 899. Koch, Sächsische Gartenkunst, 80. Ibid., 70. The term is still in current use, appearing in such standard works as The Oxford Companion to Gardens (Oxford, 1986), s.v. “Netherlands: the Dutch classical garden.” The early persistence of the term

Notes to Chapter Two

42.

43. 44.

45.

247

holländisch-französisch in German scholarship, as well as its bürgerlich associations, can be seen in Wilhelm Traugott Krug, Geschmackslehre, oder Aesthetik (Vienna, 1818), 444–45. Krug maintains that only the English style is suitable for gardens conceived as works of fine art, but he allows the use of a “modified” form of the Dutch-French garden for smaller private residences. There are, of course, gardens in Germany other than the ones in Leipzig that have been described as Dutch-French. The nearest well-known example would be Oranienbaum, part of the Dessau-Wörlitz Gartenreich, which had a direct lineage to the House of Orange through Henriette Catharina of Anhalt-Dessau (1637–1708), daughter of Prince Friedrich Heinrich of Oranien. A sculpture depicting a cluster of oranges, emblematic of the family, still stands in the town square. In his discussion of Dutch gardens within the history of garden styles, Hirschfeld also searches for a way to distinguish them from French gardens, but finds little to make the differences clear. Unlike Koch, he sees the Dutch as overusing ornament to the same degree as the French, although reduced in scale and concentrated into a smaller area: “Dutch gardens are, by the way, in the old French style with straight lines and an excess of order and regularity. Even if one were inclined to posit a particularly Dutch garden style, the boundaries that might distinguish it from the French are very hard to draw. Symmetry and gratuitous ornamentation are common to both, or rather make one and the same thing of both styles. If there is any detectable difference it is in the more confined spaces, the abundance of small decorative elements, and the deep water, stagnant or flowing languorously by, that are more typically found in Dutch gardens.” Hirschfeld, Theory of Garden Art, 95. Perceptions of Dutch gardens among Germans, when not informed by first-hand experience, seem to have been formed primarily by their representation in Jan van der Groen, Den Nederlandtsen Hovenier (1669) published simultaneously in German and French, and Pieter de la Court van der Voort, Aenmerkingen over het aenleggen van pragtige en gemeene Landhuizen, Lusthoven, Plantagiën en aenklevende Cieraden, (1737, 1763, 1766), translated into German as Anmüthigkeiten des Landlebens (1758). One important exception to this characterization, of course, was the immense pride Louis XIV took in his potager at Versailles. Hirschfeld, Theory of Garden Art, 397–98. Hirschfeld goes on to say that these gardens, because of their limited size, should confine themselves to one character, using prospects onto surrounding properties to fulfill the need for variety. They should also make good use of fruit trees, combining the useful with the beautiful, but arrange them in groups rather than in rows in order to achieve a natural effect. Many Dutch stereotypes, rooted in theories of national character, were perpetuated in academic literature such as Kant’s pre-critical Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime (1764). Here, we find comments such

248

46.

47.

48.

49. 50. 51.

Notes to Chapter Two as the following: “Holland can be considered as that land where the finer taste becomes largely unnoticeable. . . . The taste of the Dutch nation for a painful order and a grace that stirs one to solicitude and embarrassment causes one to expect little feeling also in regard to the inartificial and free movements of the genius, whose beauty would only be deformed by the anxious prevention of faults. . . . The Dutchman is of an orderly and diligent disposition and, as he looks solely to the useful, he has little feeling for what in the finer understanding is beautiful or sublime. A great man signifies exactly the same to him as a rich man, by a friend he means his correspondent, and a visit that makes him no profit is very boring to him. He contrasts as much with a Frenchman as with an Englishman, and in a way he is a German become very phlegmatic.” Immanuel Kant, Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime, trans. John T. Goldthwait (Berkeley, 1981), 97, 99, 105. Koch, Sächsische Gartenkunst, 70, 311. Typical of the situation were the Großbosesch and Apel gardens, two of Leipzig’s best known, which fell into disrepair during the war. See Birthe Rüdiger, “Der Großbosesche Garten—’etwas Merckwürdiges von Leipzig,’” in Ullmann,—die ganze Welt im kleinen—, 102n17; and Thomas Trajkovitz, “Der Leipziger Kaufmann und Manufakturist Andreas Dietrich Apel und sein Garten,” in Ullmann,—die ganze Welt im kleinen—, 113. Jugler also describes the Großbosesch garden as being poorly maintained. Jugler, Leipzig und seine Universität, 88. Ortlef Brüning, “Das Schloß in Eythra—Bauideen zwischen Weimarer Musenhof und Leipziger Bürgerkultur,” in Ullmann,—die ganze Welt im kleinen—. The Leipzig banker Heinrich Eberhard Löhr (d. 1798) purchased the land, previously known as “Barthels Garten,” in 1765. He employed Johann Carl Friedrich Dauthe (1749–1816) to create the gardens in 1770–71 as well as a new residence, executed in the so-called “Zopfstil,” in 1777. See Christian Forster, “Carl Friedrich Dauthe: Löhrs Garten und Löhrs Haus in Leipzig. Ein früher Landschaftsgarten und ein Palais im Zopfstil,” in Leipzig um 1800: Beiträge zur Sozial- und Kulturgeschichte, ed. Thomas Topfstedt and Hartmut Zwahr (Beucha, 1998), 143–62. Koch, Sächsische Gartenkunst, 314. “ . . . zeigt deutlich die Vereinigung beider Stilarten in schöne fortgeschrittener Weise.” Ibid., 317. Leipzig was not unique, of course, in its use of demolished fortifications as a public green space. For studies of similar situations in other German cities, see Aloys Bernatzky, Von der mittelalterlichen Stadtbefestigung zu den Wallgrünflächen von heute: ein Beitrag zum Grünflächenproblem deutscher Städte (Berlin, 1960); and B. Clausmeyer, Die Wallanlagen in Frankfurt am Main: Entwicklung von der mittelalterlichen Stadtbefestigung zu den heutigen Wallgrünflächen (Frankfurt am Main, 1988).

Notes to Chapter Two

249

52. Johann Karl Wezel, Hermann und Ulrike, ein komischer Roman, 4 Bde. (1780), 3:294–95. Quoted in Jugler, Leipzig und seine Universität, 83–84. A similar contemporary description, which likewise lists the various types of persons populating the Leipzig Promenade, can be found in Vertrauten Briefen über Leipzig, quoted in Pit Lehmann, “Vom Verteidigungsgelände zum Promenadenring,” in Topfstedt and Zwahr, Leipzig um 1800, 13–14. 53. Jugler says that the ornaments in the garden were in a state of disrepair; nevertheless, its avenues were still popular for strolling: “Schöne Alleen und Ruheplätze sind jetzt noch fast das Einzige, weswegen dieser Garten so stark besucht wird; vorzüglich ist die Allee, in die man gerade von der Entree hinauf sieht, ihrer Länge und Dicke wegen schön, und ein stark besuchter Spatziergang, auch von Frauenzimmern. In den Häusern, die zu diesem Garten gehören, werden auf den Sommer (wenn sie nicht ganz vermiethet werden) einzelne Stuben vermiethet, die aber zum theil theuer sind, und nur mit unter von Studirenden bewohnt werden.” Jugler, Leipzig und seine Universität, 88–89. 54. “Der Coffetier Richter gab im Winter in seinem Coffeehause, im Sommer auf seinem Coffeegarten, auch ein Concert, wöchentlich einmal.” Ibid., 80. Several coffee gardens offered billiards. Ibid., 107–8. 55. Jugler lists what he considers to be the six best coffee gardens in Leipzig. With the exception of Treiber’s, located in the Groß-Bosesch garden, they were all located just outside the main city gates. The only physical description Jugler gives is for Rudolph’s (sometimes refered to as Rudorf ’s), which was partially enclosed by “lauter schöne, hohe Lauben, wie Cabineter.” Jugler also relates that during an especially cold winter, the owner of Rudolph’s flooded the main lawn and opened it for ice skating. Ibid., 106–8. 56. Jürgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society (Cambridge, 1991), 31–43. 57. For more on the history of coffeehouses and the coffee trade in Leipzig, see Stadtgeschichtliches Museum Leipzig, Sammlung Eduscho Bermen, Süsse muss der Coffee sein! drei Jahrhunderte europäische Kaffeekultur und die Kaffeesachsen (Leipzig, 1994), especially the essay by Karl Czok, “Kaffee- und Gasthäuser im messestädtischen Leipzig des 18. Jahrhunderts,” 47–68. 58. An excellent overview can be found in Lehmann, “Vom Verteidigungsgelände zum Promenadenring,” 6–16. 59. Markus Fauser, “Die Promenade als Kunstwerk: Karl Gottlob Schelles Theorie des Spaziergangs,” afterword to Die Spatziergänge, oder die Kunst spatzierenzugehen, by Karl Gottlob Schelle (Leipzig, 1802; repr., Hildesheim, 1990), 292. 60. Reproduced in Ullmann,—die ganze Welt im kleinen—. 61. Brüning, “Das Schloß in Eythra,” 179. 62. Jugler, Leipzig und seine Universität, 4n. Jugler relates a story concerning the recovery of a cornerstone from a church that had been demolished in 1545

250

63.

64. 65. 66. 67. 68.

69. 70.

71.

72.

73.

Notes to Chapter Two and used to construct part of the bastion. The cornerstone contained a flask which according to legend had been used by a monk to trap the devil. Both the cornerstone and the flask were re-discovered in 1778 or 1779 within the rubble of the just razed bastion. “Die berühmte Lindenallee geht rund um die Stadt und ihre innern Thore herum, und wird, theils durch Maulbeerhecken, theils durch Geländer von Holz eingeschlossen. . . . Der grüne Rasenplatz in der Promenade, zu den Seiten des Barfüsser Pfortchens, heißt vorzugsweise ‘der Muhmenplatz,’ weil sich da im Sommer immer eine Menge Kindermuhmen mit ihren Kindern gleichsam lagert: dergleichen sieht man auch vor dem Grimmischen, und Peters-Thore in der Allee u.s.w. . . . Im Sommer 1779 ward vor dem Petersthore gerade aus eine neue Esplanade angelegt, die vorher nicht da gewesen war. Sie besteht aus verschiednen Alleen, und ist mit Geländern eingeschlossen. Die Statüe des jetzigen Churfürsten, die vorher vor das Jablonowskysche Palais kommen sollte, kaufte der Rath dieser Fürstin ab, und will sie in der Mitte dieser Esplanade aufrichten lassen.” Ibid., 83–85. Ibid., 3–4. Paul Benndorf, Hundert Bilder zur Geschichte Leipzigs (Leipzig, 1910), 40. Jugler, Leipzig und seine Universität, 4. Reproduced in Jugler, Leipzig und seine Universität, [129]; map identified on p. 118. The following note appears along with the map’s key: “Die Festungswerke um die Stadt sind auf dem Plane nicht detaillirt, weil man damals an mehrern Stellen beim Ausfüllen des Grabens und Abtragen der Basteien beschäftigt war.” Ibid., [129]. Koch, Sächsische Gartenkunst, 316. Dauthe was a professor at the academy from 1776 to 1781, but he was already teaching there as early as 1770. Kristina Gräfe, “Adam Friedrich Oeser und die Gründung der Kunstakademie in Leipzig,” in Topfstedt and Zwahr, Leipzig um 1800, 138. For the contributions of Müller, Dauthe, and Oeser to the Englische Anlage, see Koch, Sächsische Gartenkunst, 314–317; Brüning, “Das Schloß in Eythra,” 179, and Lehmann, “Vom Verteidigungsgelände zum Promenadenring,” 10–11. Hirschfeld, Theorie, II:36. Also quoted in Fauser, “Promenade als Kunstwerk,” 303. I have provided my own translation because the passage is not included in the Parshall edition. Jugler does note, however, that during the summer months the Rosenthal tended to be almost as crowded as the Promenade during the afternoon hours when most people went strolling. Its wood and meadow remained, however, the closest approximation to a piece of “countryside” near the city, with simple paths and occasional benches its only embellishments. See Jugler, Leipzig und seine Universität, 85–86.

Notes to Chapter Two

251

74. The definitive study of strolling as a cultural form in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Germany is Gudrun M. König, Eine Kulturgeschichte des Spazierganges: Spuren einer bürgerlichen Praktik 1780–1850 (Vienna, 1996). König traces the general shift in strolling from a representational practice of the nobility to a recreational pasttime of the bourgeoisie, including issues of dress, comportment, gender, and setting. She draws heavily upon Schelle for her analysis of the late eighteenth century, but passes over Leipzig in favor of other case studies. 75. Schelle’s many publications included a critical edition of Horace, Ars Poetica (Leipzig, 1806) that was highly praised by Goethe. After completing his university studies, Schelle took his first teaching post in 1800 at the royal Pädagogium in Halle, where he was an instructor in ancient languages. He returned to Leipzig in 1801 as a private tutor, but then left again in 1805 for a position at the Lyceum in Freiburg. Fauser, “Promenade als Kunstwerk,” 286–88. 76. Heydenreich’s importance for Schelle’s intellectual development is evident from one of his early works, the lengthy biography Karl Heinrich Heydenreichs Charakteristik als Mensch und Schriftsteller (Leipzig, 1802). Schelle first encountered Heydenreich during the summer term of 1792, when he attended Heydenreich’s lectures on aesthetics. Ibid., 165. 77. Heydenreich, Originalideen, 1:208. 78. It is not until the last paragraph of Die Spatziergänge that Schelle comments on the relation of his treatise to Heydenreich’s thought: “Schlüßlich bemerke ich noch, daß auch der verewigte Professor Heydenreich einst die Idee hatte, Etwas über das Spatzierengehn zu schreiben. Allein er hatte mehr die Entwickelung gelegentlicher Ideenspiele, als Stoff zur angenehmen Unterhaltung auf Spatziergängen, als der Bedingungen und Eindrücke des Spatzierengehns selbst im Sinn. Hierüber denke ich mit him, wie die Ausführung der dem Ganzen zum Grunde liegenden Idee zeigt, nicht gleich, der zu Folge auch die Ideenspiele eines Spatziergängers, wenn dessen Spatziergang einen heitern und gemüthlichen Eindruck machen soll, von den umgebenden Gegenständen selbst nie ganz abgezogen, wenn auch nicht ganz aus dem Kreise des Lustwandelns, doch immer aus dem eigenen Geiste des Lustwandlers entspringen müssen. Was da nicht aus der ganzen Stimmung, den Neigungen, Verhältnissen, dem Ideen- und Gefühlskreise des Individuums entspringt (und der Schriftsteller spricht nur zur Gattung) ersetzt für angenehme Unterhaltung kein fremdartiges Sürrogat.” Die Spatziergänge, oder die Kunst spatzierenzugehen (Leipzig, 1802; repr., Hildesheim, 1990), 282–83. 79. Markus Fauser states (“Promenade als Kunstwerk,” 287–88) that Schelle probably spent most, if not all, of his life in Saxony. Because he did not travel widely, Schelle supplemented his observations of strolling in Leipzig with accounts of other promenades that he found in travel literature. In the

252

80.

81.

82. 83. 84.

85.

Notes to Chapter Two endnotes to Die Spatziergänge, Schelle includes extensive quotations from several of these sources. These include descriptions of numerous Parisian promenades and gardens from Friedrich Schulz, Ueber Paris und Pariser (1791). Italy is also well represented, with Charles Maguerite Dupathy’s account of the Poggi gardens in Genoa from his Briefen über Italien vom Jahre 1785, Bd. 1 (Schelle uses the German translation by Georg Forster, Mainz 1789–90), and short excerpts describing several villas in Rome from Friedrich Johann Lorenz Meyer, Darstellungen aus Italien (Berlin 1792). Schelle says that he also consulted Friedrich Schulz’s Reisen eines jungen Lief länders. . . . (Berlin 1795–96) for information on the public promenades in Warsaw, Berlin, and Vienna, but he does not include quotations for these sites. Die Spatziergänge, 228–49. “In dem Kreise des Lustwandelns muß die Aufmerksamkeit des Geistes nicht gespannt; sie muß mehr ein angenehmes Spiel als Ernst seyn. Sie muß über den Gegenständen nur gleichsam leicht schweben, muß von den äußern Gegenständen mehr angeregt, als von dem Geiste ihnen aufgedrungen werden.” Schelle, Die Spatziergänge, 43. “Eigentlich müßte das Interesse des Lustwandlers an der Natur das ästhetische seyn. Nur bey der ästhetischen Ansicht der Natur findet ein freyes Spiel der Gemüthskräfte Statt: nur sie kann für die Bekanntschaft mit der Natur, mit der Mannigfaltigkeit ihrer Erscheinungen auf ihrer reizenden Oberfläche wuchern.” Ibid., 52. Ibid., 108. Schelle concludes the chapter with unqualified praise for the garden at Wörlitz. His regard for this garden must have been deeply felt, for he dedicated Die Spatziergänge to its creator, Prince Franz of Anhalt-Dessau. Ibid., 100n. “Man darf nur in Erinnerung bringen, daß jetzt in Schriften nur noch von Gärten nach freyern englischen Anlagen die Rede seyn kann.” Ibid., 100–1. Schelle states several times in the text that both types of strolling, the promenade and the solitary walk, are equally necessary for balanced mental health. He recommends that one participate alternately in both forms, but he does not indicate the possibility of their union, or mediation, until he discusses the characteristics of public parks laid out in the English style. For example: “Natur und Menschheit, erstere in ihren mannigfaltigsten Scenen, letztere in ihrere heitersten Gestalt, sind der Schauplatz und die Gegenstände des Lustwandlers.” Ibid., 46. “Beyde Arten von Lustwandeln, im Freyen der Natur und auf öffentlichen Spatziergängen einer Stadt, erfüllen den Zweck des Lustwandelns; nur erfüllt ihn jede nicht ganz. Es müssen beyde mit einander verbunden werden, wenn das Lustwandeln alle die Vortheile gewähren soll, welche sich davon für unsere geistige Existenz versprechen lassen.” Ibid., 64. In the main text I have discussed only the case of the promenade, but Schelle discovers, quite unwittingly, a similar dialectic within the experience of walks in the country. Although he discusses these walks primarily

Notes to Chapter Two

86. 87. 88.

89.

253

in terms of nature (landscape types, vegetation, and topography), Schelle is eventually forced by his material to consider the problem of how the viewing of the countryside’s inhabitants—and their difficult livelihoods— affects the pleasure of the (urban-dwelling) stroller. At first he notes that the visible signs of rural subsistence (Lebensweise des Landmanns) lie outside the charms of nature (Reitzende der Natur) that form the basis of the stroller’s enjoyment. If, however, upon reflection the stroller adopts the proper, i.e., aesthetic, stance toward these otherwise unpleasant images of implements (Werkzeuge) and labor (ländliche Arbeiten), he can learn to recognize their peculiar, rustic charms. In doing so, he can incorporate their associations into an idyllic perception of rural life as “close to nature.” This is possible because even the inhabited countryside can appear as “nature” when the stroller contrasts this image with his own stress-filled life in the city: “Es ist eigentlich nicht das Landleben für sich (denn kein Städter würde seinen Stand mit dem Stande des Landmanns vertauschen wollen), sondern der Zusammenhang desselben mit der bloßen Natur und der in ihm sich darstellende Abstich von den Verhältnissen der Stadt, was dem Leben und den Spatziergängen des Städters auf dem Lande so große Annehmlichkeiten verleiht.” Ibid., 105–6. Elsewhere in the text, Schelle identifies these urban stresses with the ever-increasing intrusion of others’ presence, and even thoughts, into one’s own being. These intrusions have resulted from the constant buzz of activity in public spaces and from the need to keep up with an exploding publishing industry: “Zur zu selten kommt der Geist bey unserer so sehr verwickelten Kultur, unserer so sehr erweiterten Literatur und Geselligkeit zu sich selbst; wäre es auch nur, die fremden Eindrücke durch innere ruhige Selbstbearbeitung in sein Eigenthum zu verwandeln!” Ibid., 72–73. Ibid., 90–91. Ibid., 91–92. Richard Sennett has explored a similar theme in The Conscience of the Eye: The Design and Social Life of Cities (New York, 1990). See especially chapter 2, “The Neutral City” and chapter 3, “The Open Window of the Eighteenth Century.” These chapters trace a form of unifying vision— reflected in both Enlightenment urban design and in the English landscape garden—that leads simultaneously to the neutralization of visible social differences within the city and to the illusion of an organic union with nature (modelled after the ha-ha) on the city’s periphery. Members of polite society would have been familiar with this conceit through a common parlor game in which guests would re-create well-known paintings. At the appropriate cue they would select suitable props for the “painting” and then arrange themselves as its figures. Goethe describes such a diversion in chapter 5 of his novel Die Wahlverwandtschaften (1809). Goethe, Selected Works (New York, 2000), 281ff.

254

Notes to Chapter Two

90. Schelle’s principle bears a striking resemblance to Kant’s notion of a consensus of taste, or a sensus communis, that obtains when we abstract from the private aspects of our aesthetic judgments (i.e., those representations and feelings that derive from the charms of the senses) and attend only to the formal state of our representations vis a vis cognition. Aesthetic judgments based on the latter are in principle valid for all other persons, regardless of how these persons may actually judge. See Critique of Judgment, §40. Many of Kant’s recent interpreters have emphasized the relativizing role of social class in the formation of these “universal” judgments of taste, seizing upon Kant’s own admission that aesthetic judgments made in real situations will never, in fact, exhibit complete unanimity even though they “should.” Two of the better known versions of this argument can be found in Terry Eagleton, The Ideology of the Aesthetic (Oxford, 1990); and Luc Ferry, Homo Aestheticus: The Invention of Taste in the Democratic Age (Chicago, 1993). 91. For a discussion of reading groups, learned societies, and other forms of small-group sociability in Leipzig, see Katrin Löffler, “Aufklärerische Kommunikationsformen in der Stadt Leipzig,” in Topfstedt and Zwahr, Leipzig um 1800, 17–42. On the relationship between aesthetic sensibility and the social world of German salons, see Martin L. Davies, Identity or History? Marcus Herz and the End of the Enlightenment (Detroit, 1995), esp. the section, “;B amboo with Sugar and Spice’: Herz’s Philosophy of Taste and the Aesthetics of Salon Culture in the 1790s.” In a related vein, intimate friendships were increasingly visible in late eighteenth-century Germany through their frequent representation in literature. This tendency is traditionally traced to a moonlit woodland walk on September 12, 1772, when the “cult of friendship” known as the Göttinger Hainbund was famously born. Associated with both Sturm und Drang and Empfindsamkeit literature, the Hainbund is emblematic of several related strains of German culture that emphasized the sharing of personal feelings through conversation as well as epistolary writing. For a thorough study of conversation and its literary representation in eighteenth-century Germany, see Markus Fauser, Das Gespräch im 18. Jahrhundert: Rhetorik und Geselligkeit in Deutschland (Stuttgart, 1991). 92. Schelle was certainly not alone in recognizing a connection between English gardens and polite society. His understanding, although rooted in the German context, admits of a broad comparison with the themes explored in Tom Williamson, Polite Landscapes: Gardens and Society in Eighteenth-Century England (Baltimore, 1995). 93. One can see this understanding at work in Heydenreich’s essay, “Bemerkungen über den Zusammenhang des Aesthetisch-Edlen mit dem Moralisch-Edlen,” in Originalideen, 3:181–210. At one point in the essay, he rehearses the classic observation that the term “noble” was being transformed in his time from a social title inherited through the accident of

Notes to Chapter Two

94.

95.

96.

97.

255

birth (Adel) into a moral concept denoting certain qualities of character that inhere independent of rank (Edel). See especially p. 198–200. Wezel’s colorful description of the Leipzig Promenade (see Ch. 2, n52) bears out this inference, for in contrast to Schelle, he delights in enumerating the various classes of persons, from the powerful to the lowly, who mingled there together. The recognition of a person’s class (Stand) for Schelle, however, constitutes one of several possible distractions that can dispel the atmosphere of aesthetic distance (Die Spatziergänge, 57). When he later describes the visual qualities that facilitate the disinterested contemplation of fellow strollers, Schelle tellingly includes in his list several markers of polite society, such as tasteful clothing and graceful carriage of the body (ibid., 93). One can make useful comparisons with two other situations in Germany from the same period. The Berlin Tiergarten accommodated a similar class division when it was developed for public use during the course of several projects spanning the years 1760–1840. Hirschfeld (1785) gives a detailed description of the northeast quadrant of the park, which was dominated by public amusements and concession stands (Zelten) and appealed to a broad spectrum of the public. The long allées in the rest of the park, in contrast, served primarily as promenades for the well heeled. Peter Joseph Lenné’s projects for the Tiergarten between 1818 and 1848 acknowledged this customary distinction in use. While making few changes to the popular northeast quadrant, his proposals for the southern half of the park were more dramatic. Executed in the English style, the reconfigured spaces between the old allées included extensive new strolling grounds and carriage drives specifically intended for the middle and upper classes. Gudrun König discusses a slightly different situation in Stuttgart where a gated public promenade, done partially in the English style, was constructed in 1808. Those who were improperly dressed—not to mention those pushing carts, carrying baskets, or hauling sacks of goods—were not permitted to pass through the gates. Even those who could enter were immediately confronted by placards enumerating a long list of behavioral rules. Any infractions, such as walking on the grass, driving a carriage on a pedestrian path, or simply making too much noise, were subject to fines. Enforcement of these rules, however, was somewhat lax. König, Kulturgeschichte des Spazierganges. There is no indication from biographical sources that the two Grohmanns were related. Given the similarity of their names, it is quite understandable that they are often confused with one another in the secondary literature. Occasionally they are even conflated as one person. See, for example, Bechtoldt and Weiss, Weltbild Wörlitz, 357, 359, 382. Even though they were born twenty-two years apart, I include Sulzer and Hirschfeld in the same generation because their intellectual horizons

256

98.

99.

100.

101.

102.

103.

Notes to Chapter Two were typical of most German philosophers working in the period between Wolff ’s death and Kant’s first Critique (1754–81). Moreover, their major publications on garden theory spanned a relatively short period (1771– 85). Alfred Hoffmann places Sulzer in Leipzig around 1770, just before the publication of his Allgemeine Theorie der schönen Künste (Leipzig, 1771–74), but I have not been able to confirm Hoffmann’s assertion through other sources. Hoffmann, Der Landschaftsgarten, 43. For Hirschfeld’s experiences in Leipzig, see Kehn, C. C. L. Hirschfeld, 48–54. Weidmann & Reich was jointly owned by M. G. Weidmann and Philipp Erasmus Reich. Both Sulzer’s Allgemeine Theorie der schönen Künste and Hirschfeld’s Theorie der Gartenkunst were published by this firm. After Sulzer’s death, Reich erected a commemorative stone in Sulzer’s honor in the garden of his country house in Sellerhausen. Johan van der Zande, “Orpheus in Berlin: a reappraisal of Johann Georg Sulzer’s theory of the polite arts,” Central European History 28, no. 2 (1995): 178. Carl Lebrecht Crusius (1740–1779) was one of Oeser’s original students at the Academy in 1764, where he also served as an assistant instructor for drawing and copper engraving. Poor health forced him to give up his post at the Academy in 1765, but he remained employed as an artist, specializing in vignette engravings for the book industry. See Gräfe, “Adam Friedrich Oeser,” 132, 136. The publisher of these editions was Siegfried Lebrecht Crusius (1737– 1824). See Kehn, C. C. L. Hirschfeld, 128n201, 133n249. It is noteworthy that Crusius would soon have a connection to the Dessau-Wörlitz “Gartenreich” through a business arrangement with the publishing arm of the Philanthropin, the innovative school founded by Prince Franz in 1774. Crusius’s Leipzig firm remained closely associated with the “Buchhandlung des Dessauischen Philanthropinums” from its inception in 1776 until it was superseded by the “Gelehrtenbuchhandlung” in 1781. See Michael Niedermeier, “Aufklärung im Gartenreich Dessau-Wörlitz,” in Bechtoldt and Weiss, Weltbild Wörlitz, 60. Matthias Donath, in his study of the 1809 Jubilee celebration of Leipzig University, emphasizes the role of the Seven Years War as a generational watershed when he notes that the professiorate was divided into two camps with distinct sensibilities: those born before the war (the “Zopf ” group) and those after. See Matthias Donath, “Zwischen ‘Augiasstall’ und ‘Universitas litterarum’: die Universität Leipzig um 1800,” in Topfstedt and Zwahr, Leipzig um 1800, 49. “To demand unity of form and content, or of the material and the spiritual, is to affirm the unity of two contraries. This requirement is fully accepted by the romantics, and it goes a great deal further than the simple postulation of the coherence of the work. . . . Syntheticism, or the fusion of contraries, is

Notes to Chapter Two

104.

105. 106.

107. 108.

109.

257

a constituent feature of the romantic aesthetic.” Tzvetan Todorov, Theories of the Symbol (Ithaca, 1982), 184. Biographical information for J. C. A. Grohmann can be found in August Schmidt and Bernhard Friedrich Voigt, eds., Neuer Nekrolog der Deutschen, 30 Bde. (Ilmenau, 1824–56), 1847:2:491–501; Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, 56 Bde. (Leipzig, 1875–1912), 9:709–11. Biographical information for J. G. Grohmann can be found in Gottlieb Friedrich Otto, Lexikon der seit dem 15. Jahrhunderte verstorbenen und jetzt-lebenden Oberlausizischen Schriftsteller und Künstler, 3 Bde. u. Suppl. (Görlitz, 1800–21), I:2:552–54; Ulrich Thieme and Fred. C. Willis, eds., Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, 37 Bde. (Leipzig, 1907–50), 15:76. Biographical information for Semler can be found in Schmidt and Voigt, Neuer Nekrolog der Deutschen, 1825:2:1222–37; Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, 33:694. After leaving Leipzig in September 1785, Schiller was Körner’s guest in Dresden until July 1787, at which point he moved to Weimar. Reinhart had become one of Oeser’s students at the academy after abandoning his theology studies at the university. Reinhart and Schiller met in Richter’s coffeehouse and maintained a close friendship until 1789, when Reinhart moved to Rome. A concise account of Schiller’s relationship to Leipzig can be found in Volker Rodekamp, ed., Das Schillerhaus in Leipzig-Gohlis (Leipzig, 1998). Schiller did, however, correspond with Heydenreich beginning in 1792. After Heydenreich published a poem in the second volume of Neue Thalia, the journal’s publisher, Georg Joachim Göschen, put them in touch with each other. In his letters Heydenreich expresses his desire to publish more of his poetry through Schiller’s literary journal, and he also shares with Schiller some of his views on Kant’s aesthetics. Heydenreich to Schiller, Leipzig, 25 October 1792, in Schillers Werke, Nationalausgabe, ed. Julius Petersen and Hermann Schneider (Weimar, 1958), 34:1:192–93; Heydenreich to Schiller, Leipzig, 12 December 1792, 34:1:206–7. Schiller, in turn, expresses to Göschen his interest in publishing Heydenreich’s poetry and requests a copy of System der Ästhetik. Schiller to Göschen, Rudolstadt, 21 May 1791, 26:85; Schiller to Göschen, Jena, 5 October 1792, 26:156. In addition, after Karl Leonhard Reinhold left his post at Jena University for another at Kiel, Schiller wrote to Göschen about his desire to see Heydenreich fill the open position. Shortly thereafter, Heydenreich wrote to Schiller asking for news about Reinhold’s departure. Both Schiller’s and Heydenreich’s hopes went unfulfilled, however, for the position went to Fichte. Schiller to Göschen, Jena, 18 July 1793, 26:272–73; Heydenreich to Schiller, Leipzig, 28 July 1793, 34:1:294–95. When Heydenreich first entered the university, his area of concentration was philology. His most influential teacher in that field was C. D. Beck,

258

110.

111.

112.

113. 114.

115.

116.

117. 118.

Notes to Chapter Two who in addition to offering courses in classical literature also lectured on ancient art. Schelle, Karl Heinrich Heydenreichs Charakteristik, 126–27. From 1777 to 1785, Grohmann studied drawing and painting with an artist named Schneider while attending secondary school in Budisinn. Otto, Lexikon, I:2:552–54. Both men read French and English well enough to publish translations of works from those languages, but their affinity for each varied. For Heydenreich’s knowledge of French, see Schelle, Karl Heinrich Heydenreichs Charakteristik, 473–74. The Italian philosopher Appiano Buonafede (1716–1793) published under the pseudonym Agatopisto Cromaziano. The original text is Storia della restaurazione di ogni filosophia ne’ secoli XVI, XVII e XVIII (Venice, 1785–89). The German edition is Kritische Geschichte der Revolutionen der Philosophie in den drey letzten Jahrhunderten. Aus dem Italienischen mit prüfenden Anmerkungen und einem Anhange über die Kantische Revolution versehen von K. H. Heydenreich, 2 Bde. (Leipzig, 1791). The full title of Heydenreich’s essay is “Einige Ideen über die Revolution in der Philosophie, bewirkt durch Immanuel Kant, und besonders über den Einfluss derselben auf die Behandlung der Geschichte der Philosophie.” Schelle, Karl Heinrich Heydenreichs Charakteristik, 376. The thesis that there was an intimate connection between the French Revolution and German Idealism has a long history among interpreters of Kant and his followers. Dieter Henrich gives an especially lucid discussion of these issues in “The French Revolution and Classical German Philosophy: Toward a Determination of Their Relation,” in his Aesthetic Judgment and the Moral Image of the World: Studies in Kant (Stanford, 1992), 85–99. Concurrent with this encyclopedia project, Heydenreich also helped produce a German edition of Watelet and Levesque’s dictionary of aesthetics, Aesthetisches Wörterbuch über die bildenden Künste nach Watelet und Levesque. Mit nöthigen Abkürzungen und Zusätzen fehlender Artikel kritisch bearbeitet, 4 Bde. (Leipzig, 1793–95). Although Heydenreich is credited with this work, Schelle maintains that he actually contributed very little to the project. Schelle, Karl Heinrich Heydenreichs Charakteristik, 422. Ibid., 421–22; Georg Christoph Hamberger and Johann Georg Meusel, eds., Das gelehrte Teutschland, oder Lexikon der jetzt lebenden teutschen Schriftsteller, 5. Ausg., 23 Bde. (1796–1834), 2:671–72. Collins, Sociology of Philosophies, 4. Hamberger and Meusel, Das gelehrte Teutschland, 2:671; Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, 2:229. Not only was Oeser a connecting thread for Goethe, Schiller, J. G. Grohmann, and Becker, but it is also likely that he influenced J. C. A. Grohmann as well. There is no mention in J. C. A. Grohmann’s biographical entries that he studied under Oeser, but Grohmann did publish a commentary on Oeser’s religious paintings early in his career: Ueber

Notes to Chapter Two

119.

120.

121.

122.

123.

124.

125.

126.

259

Christusgemählde, oder über die Behandlung dieses Stoffs in der Mahlerey; nebst Beschreibung einiger Gemählde vom Herrn Prof. Oeser und Herrn Ramberg (Leipzig, 1794). René-Louis, Marquis de Girardin, Von Verschönerung der Natur um Landwohnungen, trans. Wilhelm Gottlieb Becker (1778). The approach to education at the Philanthropin was derived in part from Rousseau’s Emile (1760); the gardens drew upon the description of Julie’s garden in La Nouvelle Héloïse (1761). The Isle of Rousseau at Wörlitz, constructed only a few years later in 1782, is a copy of the original Isle of Poplars (and site of Rousseau’s tomb) at Girardin’s estate, Ermenonville. Charles Joseph de Ligne, Der Garten zu Beloeil, nebst einer kritischen Uebersicht der meisten Gärten Europens, trans. Wilhelm Gottlieb Becker (Dresden, 1799). De Ligne’s original text was published in 1781. Becker clearly states this relationship to Hirschfeld’s journals in the preface to the inaugural 1795 edition. The frontispiece of this volume also depicts a garden monument with the inscription, “Hirschfeld gewidmet” by Johann Gottfried Klinsky (1765–1828), an artist and architect who had studied at the Dresden Academy. These include reviews of Semler’s anonymously published Würdigung und Veredlung der regelmäßigen Gärten, oder Versuch die nach dem französischen Geschmack angelegten Gärten nach den Grundsätzen der englischen Gartenkunst zu verbessern (Leipzig, 1794) in Taschenbuch für Gartenfreunde, ed. W. G. Becker, 1796:356; Cotta’s Taschenkalender (1796, 1797) in Taschenbuch 1797:407–14, 1798:336–44; J. G. Grohmann’s Ideenmagazin in Taschenbuch 1797:441; J. C. A. Grohmann’s Neue Theorie der schönen Gartenkunst, 2 Bde. (Leipzig, 1797) in Taschenbuch 1798:344–46; and Magazin für Freunden des guten Geschmacks in Taschenbuch 1798:348–49. The most comprehensive study of garden periodical literature in Germany is Uwe Drewen, Die Entwicklung der deutsch-sprächigen GartenkunstZeitschriften: von den Anfangen bis zum Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts (Hannover, 1989). Drewen notes (p. 21) that there was an unusually large number of articles devoted to theory in the years 1795–1804. Becker was also the editor of two journals of this type: Taschenbuch zum geselligen Vergnügen. Mit Kupfern, Landkarten, Musik und Tänzen (Leipzig, 1791–1814) and Monatschrift für Damen (Leipzig, 1794 ff.). Other garden journals published in Leipzig during this era include C. G. Rössig’s Handbuch für Liebhaber Englischer pflanzungen und für Gärtner and C. L. Stieglitz’s Gemählde von Gärten im neuern Geschmacke dargestellt. The full title is Ideenmagazin für Liebhaber von Gärten, Englischen Anlagen und für Besitzer von Landgütern um Gärten und ländliche Gegenden, sowohl mit geringem als auch grossem Geldaufwand, nach den originellsten Englischen, Gothischen, Sinesischen Geschmacksmanieren zu verschönern und zu veredeln. The publisher was Friedrich Gotthelf Baumgärtner of Leipzig.

260

Notes to Chapter Two

127. The full title is Magazin für Freunde des guten Geschmacks der bildenden und mechanischen Künste, Manufacturen und Gewerbe. A collected French edition was published in 1800 as Magazins pour les Gens de Goût. For an analysis of the Magazin and its readership, see Sarah Richards, “A Magazine for the Friends of Good Taste: Sensibility and Rationality in Garden Design in Late Eighteenth-Century Germany,” Studies in the History of Gardens and Designed Landscapes 20, no. 3 (Autumn 2000): 229–48. Klaus Jan Philipp includes a substantial discussion of Grohmann’s Ideenmagazin, Leo’s Magazin, and Becker’s architectural writings in his Um 1800: Architekturtheorie und Architekturkritik in Deutschland zwischen 1790 und 1810 (Stuttgart, 1997), 106–34. 128. The title page of the first volume of the Magazin was illustrated by Johann Eleazar Schenau (1737–1806), professor at the Dresden Academy since 1774 and one of its alternating directors from 1795 to 1806. See Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Zweihundert Jahre Hochschule für Bildende Künste Dresden, 1764–1964: Ausstellung vom 7. September 1964 bis 28. Februar 1965 im Albertinum Dresden, 66–67. Two of the more prominent artists who regularly contributed to the Magazin, Johann Gottfried Klinsky (1765–1828) and Gottlob Friedrich Thormayer (1775–1842), were graduates of the Dresden Academy’s architecture program. Richards, “Magazine,” 231. 129. Richards, “Magazine,” 241, 245n10. 130. Schiller to Christian Gottfried Körner, Dresden, 16 April 1786, in Schillers Werke, Nationalausgabe, ed. Julius Petersen and Hermann Schneider (Weimar, 1958), 24:45; Schiller to Körner, Dresden, 20 April 1786, 24:48; Schiller to W. G. Becker, Dresden, 17 May 1786, 24:55; Schiller to Körner, 29 or 30 December 1786, 24:79; Schiller to Körner, 5 January 1787, 24:80. On Schiller’s positive assessment of Becker’s Das Seifersdorfer Thal, see Schiller to Goethe, Jena, 23 December 1795, 28:141. 131. The lexicographer Johann Christoph Adelung (1732–1806) was also instrumental in helping Grohmann secure the appointment. Schmidt and Voigt, Neuer Nekrolog der Deutschen, 1847:2:492. 132. Charles E. McClelland, State, Society, and University in Germany, 1700–1914 (Cambridge, 1980). 133. Collins, Sociology of Philosophies, 634–36. Some of the more famous cases of hypochondria and mental breakdown during this era include Novalis (1772– 1801), Friedrich Hölderlin (1770–1843), Karl Philipp Moritz (1756–1793), and Johann Karl Wezel (1747–1819). One may recall that in Wezel’s previously quoted description of the Leipzig Promdenade, he includes a “pale hypochondriac” (himself perhaps?) among the strollers. 134. “Entkräftung” and “Nervenschlag,”as diagnosed by Heydenreich’s doctor. Schelle, Karl Heinrich Heydenreichs Charakteristik, 192. 135. Ibid., 130–31, 143–44. Schelle’s account can be compared with recent studies of student life at Leipzig University that emphasize the role of elite societies and clubs in the demarcation of student social hierarchies. For example:

Notes to Chapter Two

136. 137. 138.

139.

140.

141. 142. 143.

144.

145.

146.

261

“Tatsächlich hatte das weltstädtische Leben im ‘Klein-Paris’ dazu geführt, daß die Mehrzahl der Studenten—meist aus privilegierten Familien—den Lebensstil der Adligen und reichen Kaufleute nachahmte. Das äußerte sich in bester Kleidung und feinem Lebensstil. . . . Gewisse Zwänge führten dazu, daß sich auch ärmere oder mittellose Studenten—soweit es ihnen möglich war—am feinen Lebensstil orientierten.” Donath, “Zwischen ‘Augiasstall’ und ‘Universitas litterarum,’” 50–51. Fauser, “Promenade als Kunstwerk,” 287. Schelle, Karl Heinrich Heydenreichs Charakteristik, 144–48. Christian August Semler, Ideen zu einer Gartenlogik, oder Versuch über die Kunst in englischen Gartenanlagen alles Unverständliche und Widersinnige zu vermeiden (Leipzig, 1803), xi-xvii, xxi-xxiii. Gottsched had been one of the leading figures in literature and philology at Leipzig University since his appointment there in 1730. He championed the development of a uniform learned German language and a literary aesthetics based on French models. Semler’s biographical entries name, however, only one of these friends, Heinrich Kurt Irhosen. See Schmidt and Voigt, Das gelehrte Teutschland, 1825:2:1225. Van der Zande, “Orpheus in Berlin,” 181–88. Kehn, C. C. L. Hirschfeld, 17–47, 62, 79–83, 90–91. Ritterakademien were finishing schools for young noblemen and had a reputation for low academic standards. Given their clientele, these academies tended to stress such skills as horsemanship, martial arts, and manners rather than academic subjects. Although in both Untersuchungen über die höchste Vollkommenheit in der Landschaftsmalerei (1799–1800) and Gartenlogik (1803) Semler refers somewhat favorably to passages from the Critique of Judgment, his use of Kant’s principles is quite limited and always qualified. By the time he generalizes his thoughts on design in Versuch über die combinatorische Methode: ein Beytrag zur angewandten Logik und allgemeinen Methodik (1811), Semler presents his work as a continuation of pre-Kantian philosophical projects, which he maintains have suffered neglect because of German intellectuals’ overwhelming pre-occupation with the Kantian system. Versuch, p. 13 and §18. See also Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Dissertatio de arte combinatoria,. . . . (Leipzig, 1666); re-published as Ars combinatoria,. . . . (Frankfurt, 1690). In employing these two terms, I am following the usage of Frederick C. Beiser in his The Fate of Reason: German Philosophy from Kant to Fichte (Cambridge, MA, 1987). See, for example, Moritz Brasch, Leipziger Philosophen. Portraits und Studien aus dem wissenschaftlichen Leben der Gegenwart. Mit einer historischen Einleitung: Die Philosophie an der Leipziger Universität vom 15.-19. Jahrhundert (Leipzig, 1894), xvii-xxi.

262

Notes to Chapter Two

147. Jugler, Leipzig und seine Universität, 57–58. 148. Platner also passed on his interest in aesthetics to his son, who bore the same name as his father. The younger Platner attended the Leipzig Academy during the mid-1790s, then left for Rome in 1797, where he devoted himself to the further study of classical art and aesthetics. Platner eventually returned to Saxony, but the date is not recorded. Gräfe, “Adam Friedrich Oeser,” 135. 149. For a concise discussion of Platner’s relationship to Kant, see Beiser, Fate of Reason, 214–17. 150. These include translations of Adam Ferguson, Institutes of Moral Philosophy (German trans., 1772); Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (German trans., 1773); and Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations (German trans., 1794–96). Garve’s many influences from the previous generation of popular philosophers included Sulzer. See van der Zande, “Orpheus in Berlin,” 186. 151. Immanuel Kant, Prolegomena zu einer jeden künftigen Metaphysik die als Wissenschaft wird auftreten können (Riga, 1783). 152. The authorship of the Göttingen review has been a subject of much debate ever since the piece first appeared. Although Garve submitted the review, it is clear that the editor of the Zugaben zu den Göttinger gelehrte Anzeigen, Johann Georg Heinrich Feder (1740–1821), made substantial changes to the text before it was published. Most scholars agree that Feder was, in fact, responsible for about one-third of the final version. For a summary of the controversy and its philosophical significance, see Beiser, Fate of Reason, 172–77. 153. A short discussion of Garve’s influence on Schelle can be found in Fauser, “Promenade als Kunstwerk,” 287–89. 154. Cf. Immanuel Kant, “Von einem neuerdings erhobenen vornehmen Ton in der Philosophie” (1796). 155. Kant. Critique of Pure Reason, A94, among other passages. Hent de Vries makes a different point concerning Kant’s negative assessment of Popularphilosophie when he highlights an offhand remark by Kant equating philosophical “strolling” with hypochondria: “In one note [from “The Conflict of the Faculties” (1798)] Kant writes: ‘The purpose of walking in the open air is precisely to keep one’s attention moving from one object to another and so to keep it from becoming fixed on any one object.’ Of course, for Kant this distraction and relaxation only serves as preparation for more adequately fixing the object of thought. For him, walking, despite its association with the peripatetic ideal of the ancients, does not describe the nature of thinking as such. Yet a little earlier in this curious text Kant proposes a way to counterbalance the pathological states of mind known as hypochondria and melanchholia, which are affections, not of the intelligible character, but of the psyche and, most importantly, of the scholarly psyche.” Hent de Vries,

Notes to Chapter Three

156.

157.

158. 159.

160.

161. 162. 163. 164.

263

Religion and Violence: Philosophical Perspectives from Kant to Derrida (Baltimore, 2002), 118–19. Garve’s essay, “Einige Beobachtungen über die Kunst zu denken” (1796) argues that the thinking style of the “strolling philosopher” is superior to that of the systematic philosopher when dealing with fields of knowledge relying heavily on empirical observation. Schelle would have been familiar with this essay. For Garve’s role in the Popularphilosophie movement, see Johan van der Zande, “In the Image of Cicero: German Philosophy between Wolff and Kant,” Journal of the History of Ideas 56, no. 3 (July 1995): 424–30. Beiser, Fate of Reason, 45. Born is perhaps best known for his Latin translations of Kant’s three critiques (1796–98). Brasch credits these translations with the propagation of Kant’s philosophy in Catholic seminaries and monasteries. Brasch, Leipziger Philosophen, xviii. Beiser, Fate of Reason, 215. Zwanziger, unfortunately, paid a price for his views, for the powerful Platner used his position at the university to block Zwanziger’s bid to advance from lecturer to professor. He died in 1807 without having received the promotion. Brasch, Leipziger Philosophen, xviii-xix. For extensive documentation of the early reception of Kant at Jena University, see Norbert Hinske, Erhard Lange, and Horst Schröpfer, eds, Der Aufbruch in den Kantianismus: der Frühkantianismus an der Universität Jena von 1785– 1800 und seine Vorgeschichte (Stuttgart, 1995). Beiser, Fate of Reason, 215. Ibid., 193, 219, 357n2. “Grundriss. . . .” appeared in Bd. 1, St. 1 (1789); “Entstehung der Aesthetik. . . .” appeared in Bd. 1., St. 2 (1789). Heydenreich also later published in the Philosophisches Journal (Erlangen, 1794), which Abicht edited alone: K. H. Heydenreich, “Versuch einige Einwürfe gegen die Kantische Moralphilosophie zu heben,” Philosophisches Journal 2 (1794): 141–53.

NOTES TO CHAPTER THREE 1. Note: A printer’s error in the 1793 “Philosophische Grundsätze” essay gives pp. 209–30 as 109–30. I have silently corrected the misprint in all citations. For all translations of Heydenreich’s text, I have chosen to render the term landschaftliche Natur as “natural landscape” rather than “scenic nature.” The latter, although more correct from a grammatical standpoint, loses the important connotations of the word “landscape.” 2. Sur la nature champêtre (1787) was translated by Heydenreich’s colleague on the Leipzig philosophy faculty, Johann Gottfried Grohmann. Ländliche Natur, along with the 1792 version of Heydenreich’s essay, was republished in 1798 as Schöne Gartenkunst.

264

Notes to Chapter Three

3. Schelle, Karl Heinrich Heydenreichs Charakteristik, 108. 4. Karl Heinrich Heydenreich, “Philosophische Grundsätze über die Nachahmung der landschaftlichen Natur in Gärten,” in his Originalideen über die interessantesten Gegenstände der Philosophie (Leipzig, 1793), 1:196. 5. Karl Heinrich Heydenreich, “Einige Ideen über den Charakter des Gartens, als eines Werks schöner Kunst,” in Lézay-Marnézia, Ländliche Natur (Leipzig, 1792), 403–4; reprinted in Lézay-Marnézia, Schöne Gartenkunst (Leipzig, 1798), 403–4. Although Heydenreich sees this particular Mittelweg approach as ultimately inadequate, he is not entirely dismissive of its general spirit, for elsewhere he praises Lezay-Marnezia on almost the same grounds. 6. Originalideen, 1:202. 7. It is possible that Heydenreich borrowed the principle from other sources as well, most notably Karl Philipp Moritz, who figures prominently as an antagonist in System der Ästhetik. But since the tri-partite division does not appear in this 1790 work, even in the passages dealing directly with Moritz, it is more likely that Heydenreich lifted the principle from the Critique of Judgment, published shortly after he had finished the draft for System. 8. KU, §44. 9. Originalideen, 1:197–98. 10. Heydenreich includes a long footnote regarding his “kleine Theorie” of architecture in the 1793 version of the essay which does not appear in the 1792 text. On architecture’s status as a mechanical art, he says the following: “Unmittelbare Wohlgefälligkeit der Form, (welcher sich aber eine reiche Mannigfaltigkeit des mittelbar Vergnügenden beygesellen ;) ist der eigenthümliche Zweck der schönen Kunst, sie allein auch der erste und höchste Bestimmungsgrund ihrer Form. Der eigenthümliche Zweck der Baukunst ist jederzeit möglichst bequeme Schützung des Menschen, und des dem Menschen Angehörigen vor dem nachtheiligen oder unangenehmen Einflusse gewisser Kräfte und Wirkungen der äussern Natur; bey jedem Werke der Baukunst, als blosser Baukunst, ist dieser Zweck der erste und höchste Bestimmungsgrund der Form ihrer Werke. In dieser Hinsicht gehört die Baukunst zu den Künsten des physischen Bedürfnisses, oder zu den mechanischen.” Originalideen, 1:204n. 11. By 1798, Heydenreich had changed his position somewhat, allowing that works of architecture devoted to public institutions and other higher purposes of society could qualify as a mixed form of fine art. See Heydenreich, “Neuer Begrif der Baukunst als schönen Kunst,” Deutsche Monatsschrift (Oct. 1798): 160–64. For a discussion of Heydenreich’s theory of architecture see Philipp, Um 1800, 186–89. 12. These are examples given by Kant. 13. Heydenreich already makes this distinction in System, where he says that schöne Gartenkunst is “diejenige Gartenkunst, deren Endzweck es

Notes to Chapter Three

14.

15. 16.

17.

18. 19. 20. 21.

22. 23. 24. 25.

265

ist, Empfindung zu erregen. Baum- und Küchengärten sind mancherley Verschönerungen, wodurch sie Empfindung erregen können, fähig, aber diese sind hier nur Nebensache” (175n). “Allein so wenig sich mönschische Reimgasänge des Mittelalters als rohe Aeusserungen wahren Dichtergenies ansehen lassen, und so wenig man nach ihnen jemals die Möglichkeit einer Klopstockischen Ode ahnden konnte, so wenig kann man die verzierten Fruchtgärten des rohen Menschen als erste nur unvollkommene Werke der schönen Gartenkunst ansehen.” Originalideen, 1:200. Ibid., 1:200–1. Almost at the same moment that Heydenreich was writing these words, his colleague Johann Georg Grohmann was delivering lectures on Laugier at Leipzig University. See Universität Leipzig, Verzeichnis der auf der Univ. Leipzig zu haltende Vorlesungen, S1777—W1797, Univ. 899. Two years later, Schiller will make the similar point that gardening has in his day for the first time reached the level of fine art, but his attitude toward what this means for the historical relationship to the origins of gardening in general will take a radically different shape. Georg Lukács, Ästhetik Teil I, Bd. 12, Werke (Neuwied am Rhein and Berlin-Spandau, 1963), 473. Originalideen, 1:201. Ibid., 1:197–99. Ibid., 1:202. Heydenreich’s striking choice of words bears a strong resemblance to a passage from Friedrich Wilhelm Basilius Ramdohr’s “Theorie der Gartenkunst,” where he similarly argues that if garden design is to be elevated to the status of fine art, it must be directed to the “Ansicht, Umsicht, Umhersicht, des Umherwandelns und öfteren Verweilens.” In Becker, Taschenbuch für Gartenfreunde, 1798:2. Ramdohr’s essay was originally published as part of his Studien zur Kenntniss der schönen Natur, der schönen Künste, der Sitten und der Staatsverfassung, auf einer Reise nach Dänemark (Hannover, 1792), the same year that Heydenreich published the first version of his garden essay. I have not been able to determine which text was written first. KU, §51. KU, §14. See, for example, his “Fragmente über den Zusammenhang der Empfindung und Phantasie,” in Originalideen, 2:99–178. The most immediate influence for Heydenreich would have been Archibald Alison (1790), himself indebted to the work of Lord Kames. The German line, beginning with Sulzer and Hirschfeld, was not only heavily influenced by these British theorists but also by the empirical psychology and aesthetics of Georg Friedrich Meier, one of Hirschfeld’s teachers at the University of Halle.

266

Notes to Chapter Three

26. For example, see Robert Stern, Hegel, Kant and the Structure of the Object (London, 1990). 27. Originalideen, 1:204–7. 28. For example: “Endlich finden sich auch in der landschaftlichen Natur ganz unleugbar Szenen, bey deren Anschauung wir in wohlgefällige moralische Stimmungen versetzt werden;” Originalideen, 1:213. 29. Several contemporary reviewers took issue with Heydenreich’s assessment of these theories. 30. Karl Heinrich Heydenreich, System der Ästhetik (Leipzig, 1790), 150–51. 31. For more information on the Heydenreich-Moritz debate, see the essay by Volker Deubel included at the end of the facsimile edition of System der Ästhetik (Leipzig, 1790, repr., Hildesheim, 1978). Paul Guyer also discusses this debate briefly in his Kant and the Experience of Freedom: Essays on Aesthetics and Morality (Cambridge, 1996), 145–47. 32. It is also noteworthy that the one great figure who is absent from his polemical list is Lessing, whom, according to Schelle, he admired. According to Tzvetan Todorov, Lessing had developed the most advanced semiotic theory of art up to that time. Not only did Heydenreich not criticize Lessing, but he also seems to have incorporated many of his ideas without mentioning him by name. 33. “For traditional rhetoric, there exists a nonfigurative way of speaking, in which one merely communicates thought; and then figures, which add to this thought some heterogeneous material—feelings, images, ornaments.” Tzvetan Todorov, Theories of the Symbol (Ithaca, 1982), 95. 34. It is important to bear in mind that Cicero’s work had enjoyed a resurgence of influence through the Popularphilosophie movement, especially during the 1750s and 1760s. In addition, German aesthetics already had deep roots in rhetoric, given that Baumgarten’s Aesthetica was essentially an extension of his earlier work on the topic. See, for example, his dissertation Meditationes philosophicae de nonnullis ad poema pertinentibus (Halle, 1735). 35. Todorov, Theories of the Symbol, 65 ff. Todorov also includes an interesting quote in this context from the Roman poet Aper, who admonishes his fellow poets to leave the city for the solitude of meadows and groves if they wish to produce anything useful. Aper’s notion is that natural scenery will produce “true” speech in the poet, while too much time in the city will distort the poet’s language through the decadent influence of politically motivated rhetoric. 36. Ibid., 78–79. 37. Ibid., 111 ff. 38. Friedrich Justus Riedel, Theorie der schönen Künste und Wissenschaften (Jena, 1767), 146. Quoted in Todorov, 113. 39. System, 187–88. 40. Originalideen, 1:214–15.

Notes to Chapter Three

267

41. I include poetry here because of long passages from Lézay-Marnézia’s Sur la nature champêtre that he includes in both System and the 1792 version of the garden essay. 42. System, 246. 43. Originalideen, 1:219–20. 44. Todorov, Theories of the Symbol, 119–20. 45. Originalideen, 1:230. 46. Ibid., 1:217. 47. System, 158. “Um das Gefühl oder eine Leidenschaft zu mahlen, muß ich ein Zeichen haben.” 48. Ibid., 158–61. 49. Ibid., 161. 50. “Ich nannte unter den lyrischen Gedichten noch die Allegorie, und muß den Vorwurf befürchten, daß bey Werken dieser Art das Bewußtseyn des Dichters mehr auf den Gegenstand der Betrachtung denn auf die Bewegung und das Gefühl des Gemüthes gerichtet sey.” System, 274. It is true, however, that Heydenreich in a later essay (“Aesthetische Grundsätze über die Allegorie der schönen Kunst, vorzüglich der bildenden und der Dichtkunst”) states that gardens are capable of employing allegory successfully. Originalideen, 2:47. 51. System, 161–66. Heydenreich is listed in some lexicons as a music theorist. 52. Originalideen, 1:214. “Diese Szene, Formen und Gestalten nun sind gleichsam die Materialien, welche die Natur dem Genie für die Gartenkunst zur Bearbeitung darbietet.” 53. In this emphasis, Heydenreich foreshadows much of the debate surrounding the Naturgarten that took place over the next three or four years in the two most important garden journals in Germany, Becker’s Taschenbuch and Cotta’s Taschenkalendar. 54. Heydenreich had already made similar points in System. The following quote indicates that his thinking on this issue was consistent. “Der einzige philosophische Eintheilungsgrund für die Werke dieser Kunst [Gartenkunst] ist die Verschiedenheit der Hauptempfindung, auf deren Erregung das Ganze abzweckt, und der Arten, wie in demselben eine Mannigfaltigkeit von empfindungwirkenden Scenen und Ansichten zu jenem Zwecke angelegt und verbunden ist. Alle andre Eintheilungen der Gärten, hergenommen von der Verschiedenheit der besondern Lage, dem Charakter der Gegend, dem Unterschiede der Jahres- und Tageszeiten u. a. müssen auf jene zurückgeführt werden können.” System, 294–95. The passage appears to be a direct response to Hirschfeld, who, in addition to distinguishing garden types on the basis of their emotive qualities, also created taxonomies based on the categories listed by Heydenreich as unphilosophic. 55. The first category is from Kant, and Heydenreich quotes a passage from the Critique of Judgment to support his point. The second category is a direct

268

56. 57. 58.

59.

60.

61. 62. 63. 64. 65.

66. 67. 68.

69. 70.

71.

Notes to Chapter Three contradiction of the views of Whately, who had argued that coming across such unexpected regularities in nature aroused feelings of displeasure. He lists tones for music, words for poetry, movements for dancers, and colors for painters. System, 294. Lukács, Werke, 12:476. Other examples could be included here, such as the copying of the ramped stairs of Praeneste at the Belvedere Court, and their subsequent reproduction and adaptation in gardens throughout Europe. Rousseau’s essay on the origin of language had framed much of the discussion on this point in the late eighteenth century. With regard to natural language, Rousseau placed simple music and gesture as its precursors, functioning in the same role that artifacts do for the fine arts. Heydenreich’s approach to this issue differs markedly from much of the contemporary practice and opinion of the 1780s and 1790s. At DessauWörlitz, for example, the cultural landscape was celebrated, both in its German and foreign forms, by incorporating working fields into the gardens, embellishing the local agricultural landscape (Landesverschönerung), and representing sites visited on the Grand Tour. System, 175–77. Ibid., 294. Ibid., 242–44. See Todorov for a detailed history. In addition to the content of Lessing’s work, there are additional reasons for considering him here. According to Heydenreich’s biographer, Schelle, he held Lessing in high regard and seems to have been influenced greatly by Laokoon. Also, Heydenreich’s division of the arts in System into those of simultaneity and temporal succession is certainly indebted to this work. The following discussion is based primarily on Todorov’s analysis of Lessing’s view of painting. See Theories of the Symbol, 143–45. Ibid., 144–45. A famous contemporary example of this device being used in a garden is at Hohenheim. In this garden, all the temples and other follies were constructed at one quarter scale. Quoted in Todorov, Theories of the Symbol, 144. It is curious that Schelle considers Heydenreich’s garden semiotics of the 1790 System as his primary contribution in garden theory rather than the “moving stroller” or “succession of scenes” principle of his 1792–93 texts. Andreas Käuser, “Körperzeichentheorie und Körperausdruckstheorie,” in Theater im Kulturwandel des 18. Jahrhunderts: Inszenierung und

Notes to Chapter Three

72. 73.

74. 75.

76. 77.

78. 79. 80.

81.

82.

83.

269

Wahrnehmung von Körper—Musik—Sprache, ed. Erika Fischer-Lichte and Jörg Schönert (Göttingen, 1999), 39–51. Lukács, Werke, 12:483. Alison gives this example in Essays on the Nature and Principles of Taste (Edinburgh, 1790). Heydenreich would have been familiar with the principle, having translated this work into German. Lukács, Werke, 12:474. Compare with Hilmar Frank’s discussion of eighteenth-century German gardens in “Schauspiel der Natur—Inszenierung der Natur,” in Theater im Kulturwandel des 18. Jahrhunderts, 385–402. Originalideen, 1:230. In another passage (ibid., 1:223) Heydenreich demurs that the details of composition are the creative work of the Genie and cannot be explained further by rules or principles. Ibid., 1:207–9. System, 294. Certainly, Heydenreich was not the first German theorist to grapple with this ambiguity. A similar problem arises if we analyze Hirschfeld’s classification scheme, also based on a determinate relationship between landscapes of a particular character and the feelings they arouse in the viewer. One potential difference, though, is offered by the proponents of the “New Aesthetics.” They propose that Hirschfeld’s theory is best understood as one of “atmospheres,” whereby the immersion in the environment is the central feature of the communication of feeling. See, for example, Gernot Böhme, Atmosphäre: Essays zur neuen Ästhetik (Frankfurt am Main, 1995). Heydenreich’s version seems to be in tension with the immersion aspect of garden theory because while it introduces the moving stroller, this person remains at a distance from the phenomena. The three-dimensional atmosphere is reduced to a series of two-dimensional pictures, as if the viewer (not “experiencer”) were walking in a vacuum. Legibility in this version seems to require a flattening onto “paper” which removes the immediacy of the atmosphere. If this is true, then the flattening of the topography is an essential moment in rendering a certain kind of legibility. “So viel von denen Künsten, deren Darstellungen successiv sind. Ich gehe zu dene über deren Werke simultanee Ganze im Raume sind, den bildenden Künste, und der Gartenkunst.” System, 289. “Der Gesichtssinn hat in seiner Art von Gegenständen mehr Empfänglichkeit für simultanee Reihen, weit weniger deutliche Fassungskraft für Successionen, als der Gehörsinn.” Ibid., 168. “Der Beharrlichkeit sind Töne fähig: 1) durch Einheit der Melodie, 2) durch Einheit der Tonleiter, in welcher ein Stück gesetzt ist, 3) durch

270

84.

85. 86.

87. 88. 89.

90.

Notes to Chapter Three Einheit im Takte und Rythmus, 4) durch Einheit im Zeitmaase, 5) auch unstreitig durch Einheit in der Manier des Vortrages.” Ibid., 163. “Der Stetigkeit, 1) durch die Verwandschaft jedes melodischen Satzes mit andern, 2) durch die Verwandschaften der Tonleitern, 3) die der Zeit selbst eigene Stetigkeit.” System, 163–64. Ibid., 164. “Man kann in dieser Rücksicht die Mannigfaltigkeit in einem Tonwerke in 1) die successive und 2) die simultanee, theilen.” “Nach Spinoza ist alle Trennung und Theilung, die in der Natur erscheint, nur Folge der Einschränkung unserer Sinne und Vorstellungskraft. Aus dem Gesichtspunkte der Substanz betrachtet, existirt weder Theil, noch Individuum, noch Reyhe.” Karl Heinrich Heydenreich, Natur und Gott nach Spinoza (Leipzig, 1789), 177–78n. Ibid., 142–43. The word sahest is misprinted in the text as sagest. Ibid., 143. It is useful to compare this observation with one of Heydenreich’s comments found in System that also identifies an important difference in the way that landscapes and “objects” behave. In the context of arguing against theories that define beauty as a sensibly perceived perfection (sinnlich erkannte Vollkommenheit), he states that landscape provides a good counterexample: “[Die Erfahrung] sagt uns, daß viele Gegenstände allgemein für schön gehalten werden, ohne daß wir uns bewußt sind, Vollkommenheit an ihnen erkannt zu haben. Was für Vollkommenheit mögen wir wohl an einzelnen Farben auch nur verworren entdecken? An wie vielen Landschaften mögen wir wohl iene Einheit erkennen, welche in der Mannigfaltigkeit die Vollkommenheit bestimmen soll?” System, 135–36. The reason that landscape works as a counterexample is that unlike a circumscribed object, it does not exhibit a perfection according to what it is meant to be, either with regard to a concept or to a purpose. Objects, because they can be grasped (begriffen) in perception, are amenable to determinate concepts (Begriffe); as artifacts, they are fashioned according to definite purposes. See System, 130–35. “Es mag wahr seyn, daß alle die Abschnitte des Raums und der Zeit, in welchen uns die Außendinge erscheinen, nur so viel Fächer sind, worin unsre eingeschränkte Vorstellkraft das ganze große All der Dinge zertheilen muß, um nicht unter der Menge von Ideen zu erliegen, welche von außen auf sie zuströmen, und Ordnung und Klarheit in ihren Vorstellungen zu erhalten.” Natur und Gott, 135–36. It is striking that a modern scholar, Ludwig Trauzettel, uses the same term (Fächer) to describe the way the viewing corridors at Wörlitz are composed: “Der Betrachter erfährt das Gartenkunstwerk nicht mehr aus der . . . Änderung seines Standpunktes, sondern aus der Drehung seines Kopfes oder Körpers. Er ist plötzlich Mitwirkender im Geschehen einer Gartenszene, die er als Rundsicht oder Sichtenfächer erleben kann.” Ludwig Trauzettel, “Gartenkünstler und Gartenkunst in Wörlitz,” in Weltbild Wörlitz, 96.

Notes to Chapter Three

271

91. Spinoza’s position on this point differs radically from much of the philosophical tradition. Typical of those who would see real divisions in nature is Plato, who has Socrates describe them as joints inherent in the material itself: “This [i.e., the faculty of analysis], in turn, is to be able to cut up each kind according to its species along the natural joints, and to try not to splinter any part, as a bad butcher might do.” Plato, Phaedrus, trans. Alexander Nehamas and Paul Woodruff (Indianapolis, 1995), 265E. 92. A rather interesting comparison can be made between Heydenreich’s illustration and Pliny’s cryptoporticus gallery, where landscape paintings alternate with windows through which once can see the countryside. The openings look out onto one landscape, yet are only rendered as “landscape,” and as landscapes, by being framed as multiple views. Each opening allows us to see a different “expression” or configuration of the underlying phenomenon—the actual countryside—yet it remains one in its essence. 93. Originalideen, 1:208–9. Heydenreich elaborates elsewhere in the text on these two strategies. With regard to softer transitions, he thinks that they lead to the most noble aesthetic pleasures: “Die sanftere kann man, wie bey andern Künsten, für sich unterhalten, wenn man es nur versteht, seine Seelenkräfte zu regieren, und sich ienem für allen Kunstgenuss nöthigen Zustande der Offenheit und Hingegebenheit für den gegenwärtigen Eindruck zu überlassen” (ibid., 1:222). Like many other contemporary theorists, he considered highly contrastive compositions to be “romantic”: “Die sogenannten romantischen Gegenden sind die, in welchen sich die grösste Mannigfaltigkeit findet, und man würde ihnen allen Charakter absprechen müssen, wenn nicht alle Theile derselben, selbst die, welche in dem stärksten Konstraste stehen, zusammenwirkten, um unserem Gemüthe eine gewisse Stimmung zu geben. . . . Bey der romantischen Landschaft vereinigen sich wunderbare, schauervolle, ia wohl fürchterliche Szenen mit sanften und lieblichen, in kühner überraschender Verknüpfung und scharfen Konstrasten zu einem harmonischen Totalbilde” (ibid., 1:217–18). 94. This was the case at Wörlitz, for example. “Aussichtspunkte im Garten sind durch Sitzgelegenheiten markiert. Man benötigt Ruhe, um die Szenen und deren beabsichtigte Wirkung in sich aufnehmen zu können. Bänke als ‘Möbel’ sind nur im Schloßbereich aufgestellt; in den Anlagen sind es Steingruppen oder Felsensitze, um die Kunst nicht zu zeigen, alles der Natur anzupassen.” Trauzettel. “Gartenkünstler und Gartenkunst in Wörlitz,” 96. 95. Two noteworty examples are Wilhelm Gottlieb Becker’s Das Seifersdorfer Thal (1792) and a series of articles by Gottlob Heinrich Rapp describing the gardens at Hohenheim in Cotta’s Taschenkalender für Natur- und Gartenfreunde (1796–99). In both publications, each section of text is accompanied by an illustration of the scene it describes. 96. I use the term “choreography” quite deliberately, for Heydenreich’s thoughts on the subject are well developed. Not only does he devote substantial

272

97. 98.

99. 100.

101. 102. 103.

Notes to Chapter Three attention to music and dance in Systerm, but in addition, Schelle notes that as a young man Heydenreich showed a keen personal interest in dance. Schelle, Karl Heinrich Heydenreichs Charakteristik, 88–89. The Marquis de Girardin describes such a working method in his De la composition des paysages. . . . (1777). The introduction to his discussion of Heydenreich begins as follows: “Man hat mit Unrecht die Aufgabe des Gartenkünstlers nicht selten lediglich darin erblickt, möglichst viele anmuthige Ansicthen an einander zu reihen und damit zu unterhalten, ähnlich wie es eine Bildergallerie mit ihren Gemälden thut; aber man hat zugleich zu fordern vergessen, dass alle einzelnen Ansichten in der Phantasie des Umherwandelnden sich zu einem wohlgefälligen Totalbilde vereinigen sollen. . . . Wenn diese Hauptstimmung, erklärt Heydenreich, lebendiges Interesse für sittliche Harmonie ist, geweckt durch den Genuss der ästhetischen, so erst scheint der Künstler in Betreff der Erfindung und Anordnung auf dem Vollendunspunkte seiner Kunst zu sein.—Wie ist nun aber diese Einheit in den Eindrücken und Gefühlen wohl anders herzustellen, als durch die Reflexion des Umherwandelnden, dass alle diese Mannigfaltigkeit durch die Natur selber erzeugt sei, und wie anders kann dieses Urtheil wohl gewonnen werden, als durch den Zusammenhang und die Beziehung jedes Einzelnen auf eine kenntliche, das Ganze durchdringende formgebende Hauptursache, auf welche wir so eben hingewiesen.” Gustav Meyer, Lehrbuch der schönen Gartenkunst, mit besonderer Rücksicht auf die praktische Ausführung von Gärten, Parkanlagen u.s.w. (Berlin, 1860), 86–87. Ibid., 87. Ibid. See p. 86 for a longer discussion of the effects of water flow on landform and vegetation patterns. Meyer is not the first to make this point in the garden theory literature. One can find the same argument as far back as Jean-Marie Morel, Théorie des jardins (1776), who seems to have borrowed the notion himself from the natural history writings of Buffon. Yet Meyer presents the principle as his own, dismissing the work of Morel earlier in the treatise as “adding nothing essential to the topic [of garden theory]” (Lehrbuch, 67). I am grateful to Joseph Disponzio for bringing this aspect of Morel’s work to my attention. Johann Heinrich Lambert, Anlage zur Architektonic, 2 Bde., (Riga, 1771), §650, 2:278. Ibid., §660, 2:286. It appears in the second volume of Originalideen. In the foreward to the essay, Heydenreich states that it was based on an even earlier work composed in 1784 or 1785 while he was still a student: “Ich bin aus mehreren Gründen entschlossen, die Verfassung eines Werkes über den Zusammenhang der Empfindung und Phantasie nach dem in meiner Disputation de nexu sensus & phantasiae entworfenem Plane aufzugeben. Ohne Beschämung darf ich

Notes to Chapter Three

104. 105.

106.

107.

108.

109.

110. 111. 112.

273

gestehen, dass Unzufriedenheit mit dieser bereits vor zehn Jahren gefassten Idee den Hauptantheil an der Veränderung meines Entschlusses hat.” Originalideen 2:[101]. Ibid., 2:133. “Die Phantasie musste aus Vergangenheit, Gegenwart und Zukunt ein zusammenhängendes Ganzes machen, und ihm bey dem allaugenblicklichen Zudringen einer neuen Gegenwart den Rückblick in die Vergangenheit und die Hinsicht in die Zukunft eröffnen. Eine so wunderbare zauberische Kraft, die durch ihre Selbstthätigkeit das im Kleinen verrichtet, was die ganze umliegende Welt durch künstlich gebaute Organe vollbrachte, muss dem Menschen vor allen andern wichtig seyn, muss vor allen andern Schöpferinn des Vergnügens und des Missvergnügens für ihn werden.” Ibid., 2:104. Ibid., 1:222–23. Heydenreich also uses the phrase wohlgefälliges Totalbild elsewhere (1:220–21) as well as the related phrase harmonisches Totalbild (1:215, 218) and the word Totalübersicht (1:219). “Zu dem Bilde eines in sich vollendeten Ganzen, dessen Form, so wie sie der Phantasie vorschwebt, an sich und ohne weitere Beziehung wohlgefällt.” Ibid., 1:221. As we have noted, the primary aim of System had been to found a theory of fine art on the principle of the expression or presentation of a determinate state of feeling. In that work, Gartenkunst is classified among those arts that, rather than directly expressing a feeling, present an object that arouses a particular feeling in the viewer. System, 244–46. Originalideen 2:157–58. In another passage in the essay, he states that this principle is based on the laws of association: “Die sinnlichen Rührungen selbst, die einzigen originalen Empfindnisse müssen natürlich mit den sinnlichen Bildern und Eindrücken der Phantasie am genauesten zusammenhängen; Sinnlichkeit und Phantasie wirken gleichsam Hand in Hand; ohne die Beyhülfe der Phantasie kann uns kein Sinnesorgan einen vollständigen Eindruck liefern; mithin wird mit Erregung der Sinnlichkeit die Phantasie zugleich ins Spiel gesetzt, und bloss nach den Gesetzen der Association ergiebt es sich, dass der Seele, wenn sie sinnlich empfindet, sinnliche Phantasiebilder ercheinen. Bey denen Empfindnissen, die aus dem Stoffe anderer Kräfte entstehn, ist die Erklärung wenigstens eben so leicht. Diese können kein Vergnügen, keinen Schmerz wirken, als dadurch, dass sie sinnliche Eindrücke der Phantasie hervorrufen” (ibid., 2:136). Ibid., 1:215–16. Ibid., 1:215. “So wie sich also in dem schönen Garten alle einzelne Ansichten zu einem wohlgefälligen Totalbilde für die Phantasie vereinigen müssen, so müssen die einzelnen durch sie erregten Gefühlseindrücke in einander übergehn, zu Hervorbringung einer angenehmen Hauptempfindung, einer wohlgefälligen

274

113.

114. 115. 116.

117. 118.

119. 120. 121. 122.

Notes to Chapter Three Hauptstimmung des Gemüths, zu einem gewissen Ideenspiele, gewissen Bestrebungen und Gefühlen, in welcher Einheit herrscht;” Ibid., 1:226. Heydenreich also uses the terms Hauptgefühl (1:218) and bestimmter Gefühlszustand (1:217) interchangeably with Hauptempfindung and Hauptstimmung. The German title is Über den Geschmack, dessen Natur und Grundsätze. Verdeutscht und mit Anmerkungen und Abhandlungen begleitet. I have been unable to find a copy of this text, so my remarks are made without the benefit of reading Heydenreich’s introduction, footnotes, and choice of terminology. Heydenreich’s translation is mentioned in Clemens Alexander Wimmer, Geschichte der Gartentheorie (Darmstadt, 1989) and in Georg Christoph Hamberger and Johann Georg Meusel, eds., Das gelehrte Teutschland, oder Lexikon der jetzt lebenden teutschen Schriftsteller, 5. Ausg., 23 Bde. (1796–1834), 3:296. Archibald Alison, Essays on the Nature and Principles of Taste (Edinburgh, 1790), 88. Ibid., 54. One comparison that could be explored here is the similarity of Heydenreich’s approach to certain forms of traditional Christian iconography, namely the pictorial narratives of the stages of the cross and the prescribed itineraries of pilgrimage. Heydenreich was a defender of orthodox Christianity throughout most of his career, so he would certainly have had an interest in these ideas and practices. However, I have no direct textual evidence to suggest that he made this connection in any conscious way. Alison, Essays, 82, 91. “And the great source of the superiority of its [gardening’s] productions to the original scenes in nature, consists in the purity and harmony of its composition [by selection and removal] . . . to awaken an emotion more full, more simple, and more harmonious than any we can receive from the scenes of Nature itself.” Ibid., 85. Ibid., 87–88. Originalideen, 1:221. Ibid., 1:222. An example of these rules is given by August Rode in his Beschreibung des Fürstlichen Anhalt-Dessauischen Landhauses und Englischen Gartens zu Wörlitz (Dessau, 1798), 10. “Es ist verboten: 1) Mit eisenbeschlagenen Stiefeln und Stöcken in Schloß und Garten zu gehen. 2) In dem Garten über den Rasen zu gehen. 3) Im Schlosse oder Garten Thee oder Kaffe zu trinken, und Collationen oder Malzeiten zu halten.

Notes to Chapter Four

123. 124.

125. 126.

127. 128.

129.

275

4) An Wände oder Statüen u. a. Namen oder Einfälle an zu schreiben.” Many contemporary images, however, depict well-dressed men and women strolling across the grass or reclining on it. For further discussion of the culture of strolling at Wörlitz, see Monika Lengelsen, “Spaziergänger in Wörlitz,” in Park und Garten im 18. Jahrhundert: Colloquium der Arbeitsstelle 18. Jahrhundert Gesamthochschule Wuppertal (Heidelberg, 1978), 119–24. “Im Landschaftsgarten geht das Auge anders als der Fuß.” Harri Günther, quoted in Trauzettel, “Gartenkünstler und Gartenkunst in Wörlitz,” 96. It should also be noted that these observations refer only to a limited series of moments—they do not begin to take into account the instability of the garden’s forms as they pass through the seasons and mature over the years. Natur und Gott, 134–35. KU, §22. Rather than being beautiful objects, he thinks that they are better described as beautiful views of objects, for their lack of definite form precludes a normal judgment of taste. For an excellent commentary on this passage, see Claudia Brodsky, The Imposition of Form: Studies in Narrative Representation and Knowledge (Princeton, 1987), 62–65. Originalideen, 1:210–11. “Gestalten . . . welche der Form und bestimmten Umrisses ermangeln, (als z.B. Lichter und Schatten, in verworrener Mischung, Farben an sich, und in verworrener Mischung, regellose sich verworren kreutzende Linien.)” Ibid., 1:210. Ibid., 1:211.

NOTES TO CHAPTER FOUR 1. “Thus we think a triangle as an object, in that we are conscious of the combination of three straight lines according to a rule by which such an intuition can always be represented. This unity of rule determines all the manifold, and limits it to conditions which make unity of apperception possible. The concept of this unity is the representation of the object=x, which I think through the predicates, above mentioned, of a triangle. All knowledge demands a concept, though that concept may, indeed, be quite imperfect or obscure. But a concept is always, as regards its form, something universal which serves as a rule.” KrV, A105–6. 2. KrV, A51/B75. 3. KU, §43. 4. KU, §64. 5. KU, §64. The story occurs in Vitruvius de Architectura vi. Preface. “Aristippus philosophus Socraticus, naufragio cum ejectus ad Rhodiensium litus animadvertisset geometrica schemata descripta, exclamavisse ad comites ita dicitur, Bene speremus, hominum enim vestigia video.” Clarence

276

Notes to Chapter Four

6. 7.

8.

9.

10.

11. 12. 13.

14.

J. Glacken has made this episode familiar to modern students of natural philosophy through his well-known Traces on the Rhodian Shore (Berkeley, 1967). KU, §64. In the case of organisms, this property of self-organization manifests itself in three ways: (1) the creation of new individuals through propagation, (2) the growth of individual organisms, and (3) the self-maintenance of organisms that results from the reciprocal nourishment of the parts by each other. See KU, §64. My interpretation of Kant’s views on mechanism and discursive understanding closely follows that of Peter McLaughlin in his Kant’s Critique of Teleology in Biological Explanation: Antinomy and Teleology (Lewiston, 1990), 163–76. Although Kant denies that we possess an intuitive understanding, it is well known that the repudiation of Kant’s limitation of our understanding to discursivity is the starting point of much of post-Kantian philosophy, including that of Fichte, Schelling, and the early Hegel. For a concise presentation of this theme, see Walter Cerf ’s introduction to Hegel’s Faith & Knowledge (Albany, 1977), xi-xxxvi, entitled “Speculative Philosophy and Intellectual Intuition: An Introduction to Hegel’s Essays.” Kant terms it “intuitive” by analogy with the transcendental aesthetic of the first Critique in that the nearest resemblance we have to such an understanding is the conditioning of our sensible intuitions by the form of space in general. See McLaughlin, Kant’s Critique of Teleology, 170. Originalideen, 2:15. KU, §35. “In a product of beautiful art, we must become conscious that it is art and not nature; but yet the purposiveness in its form must seem to be as free from all constraint of arbitrary rules as if it were a product of mere nature. On this feeling of freedom in the play of our cognitive faculties, which must at the same time be purposive, rests that pleasure which alone is universally communicable, without being based on concepts. Nature is beautiful because it looks like art, and art can only be called beautiful if we are conscious of it as art while yet it looks like nature.” KU, §45. KU, §42. Kant saw this sort of deception in negative terms with regard to our ability to take pleasure in natural beauty as an immediate interest. Twice in §42 he provides examples that could easily have been taken from aristocratic amusements in contemporary gardens: “But it is noteworthy that if we secretly deceived this lover of the beautiful by planting in the ground artificial flowers (which can be manufactured exactly like natural ones) or by placing artificially carved birds on the boughs of trees, and he discovered the deceit, the immediate interest that he previously took in them would disappear at once, though perhaps a different interest, viz.

Notes to Chapter Four

15.

16.

17. 18.

277

the interest of vanity in adorning his chamber with them for the eyes of others, would take its place.” And again: “What is more highly praised by poets than the bewitching and beautiful note of the nightingale in a lonely copse on a still summer evening by the soft light of the moon? And yet we have instances of a merry host, where no such songster was to be found, deceiving to their great contentment the guests who were staying with him to enjoy the country air by hiding in a bush a mischievous boy who knew how to produce this sound exactly like nature (by means of a reed or a tube in his mouth). But as soon as we are aware that it is a cheat, no one will remain long listening to the song which before was counted so charming.” These are a sward surrounded by a circle of trees in a forest (KU, §15), a rowed pepper garden in the Sumatran wilderness (KU, §22) and an enclosed garden with regularly spaced trees, flower beds, and walks (KU, §62). “Hence the purposiveness in the product of beautiful art, although it is designed, must not seem to be designed, i.e. beautiful art must look like nature, although we are conscious of it as art. But a product of art appears like nature when, although its agreement with the rules, according to which alone the product can become what it ought to be, is punctiliously observed, yet this is not painfully apparent; [the form of the schools does not obtrude itself ]—it shows no trace of the rule having been before the eyes of the artist and having fettered his mental powers.” KU, §45. This observation about the originality of genius also bears a strong resemblance to a passage in the “Architectonic” of the Critique of Pure Reason where Kant contrasts the abilities of those who can philosophize on the basis of their own reason with those who merely parrot the dogmas of philosophical systems they have learned in the schools. See KrV, B864. See KU, §15, §22, and §62. My interpretation also draws on two other passages in the Critique of Judgment. In §51, where Kant gives his most extensive discussion of gardening, it is clear that he considers landscape gardening to be its only legitimate form as a fine art. This form of gardening is carried out in accordance with concepts, but they only minimally add to the primary experience of visual contemplation: “Landscape gardening] gives [corporeal extension] in accordance with truth, but only the appearance of utility and availableness for other purposes than the mere play of the imagination in the contemplation of its forms.” And in the footnote: “Since [landscape gardening] also has no concept of the object and its purpose (as in architecture) conditioning its arrangements, but involves merely the free play of the imagination in contemplation, it so far agrees with mere aesthetical painting which has no definite theme.” In §17 Kant says that gardens (unspecified as to style) are designed according to an indeterminate purpose: “But neither can an ideal be represented of a beauty dependent on definite purposes, e.g. of a

278

19.

20.

21.

22. 23. 24.

Notes to Chapter Four beautiful dwelling house, a beautiful tree, a beautiful garden, etc.; presumably because their purpose is not sufficiently determined and fixed by the concept, and thus the purposiveness is nearly as free as in the case of vague beauty.” The odd inclusion of a beautiful tree in this list is explicable only in terms of Kant’s definition of natural purposes. This is also Kant’s view, although he warns, like Heydenreich, that the abandonment of geometrical principles has led to certain excesses in English gardening: “But where only a free play of the representative powers . . . is to be kept up, in pleasure gardens, room decorations, all kinds of tasteful furniture, etc., regularity that shows constraint is avoided as much as possible. Thus in the English taste in gardens or in bizarre taste in furniture, the freedom of the imagination is pushed almost near to the grotesque.” KU, §22. In §17 Kant says that a beautiful garden is constructed according to a definite purpose, even though this purpose is not sufficiently determined and fixed by the concept to render it susceptible to an ideal. He even says the same thing about a beautiful tree, presumably because it is an individual object that can be judged as having been created by nature according to a purpose. This is not the case, however, with beautiful views. Here, he maintains that there is no possible judgment of what a view ought to be, and hence no concept of a purpose; it is classed with his archetypal example of free beauty, a flower. Kant seems to imply in this passage that beautiful views, in light of this distinction, are even more qualified for free aesthetic judgments of natural beauty than their major constituent parts. My interpretation of this rather puzzling claim is that the difference is based on the ease with which we can resolve the respective perceptual manifolds into discrete “objects.” If this is true, then the complexity of a natural scene accounts for its suitability as the core element, or level of organization, in creating a garden that most consistently evokes a free aesthetic judgment. “Der Geschmack kann die Theile der wirklichen Natur nicht als zunächst für das durch ihn mögliche Vergnügen gebildet betrachten; allein jedes Werk schöner bildender Kunst kann und muss er aus diesem Gesichtspunkte ansehen. Er fordert also von dem Genie mehr als von der Natur, und aus dieser gerechten Forderung des Geschmacks entspringt der oberste Grundsatz für alle schöne bildende Kunst. . . . Bildung von sichtbaren Formen, wie sie die Natur selbst hätte bilden müssen, wenn Befriedigung des Geschmacks des Menschen durch ihre Gestalten ihr ausschliesslicher Zweck gewesen wäre.” Originalideen, 3:136–37. KrV, B860–63. KrV, B502. “Allgemeine Uebersicht der Fortschritte der theoretischen Philosophie im achtzehnten Jahrhunderte,” in Originalideen, 3:45.

Notes to Chapter Four

279

25. “Ist wirklich, so schloss er [Kant], in aller Menschen Bewusstseyn ein nach gleichen Formen, Gesetzen und Prinzipien gebildetes System verknüpfter Anschauungen, Gedanken, Erkenntnisse und Ideen enthaltan, so muss sich durch scharfe Zergliederung dieses Systems, durch Scheidung des Allgemeinen vom Besondern, des Nothwendigen vom Zufälligen, die Natur des menschlichen Erkenntnissvermögens vollkommen ergründen lassen.” Ibid., 3:42. 26. System, xvii-xxv. 27. KrV, B860. 28. Ibid. 29. A system based on an empirical idea, in contrast, would yield only technical unity and provide no guarantee of completeness. It would be have to characterized as an aggregate fashioned toward an external end rather than as a system. See KrV, B861. 30. “Hume takes exception to those who find it requisite to assume for all such natural purposes a teleological principle of judgment, i.e. an architectonic understanding.” KU, §80. Typical of this line of argument in Hume is the following passage spoken by the character Philo in Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1779): “To say, that the different ideas, which compose the reason of the supreme being, fall into order, of themselves, and by their own nature, is really to talk without any precise meaning. If it has a meaning, I would fain know, why it is not as good sense to say, that the parts of the material world fall into order, of themselves, and by their own nature? . . . We have, indeed, experience of ideas, which fall into order, of themselves, and without any known cause: But, I am sure, we have a much larger experience of matter, which does the same; as in all instances of generation and vegetation, where the accurate analysis of the cause exceeds all human comprehension. We have also experience of particular systems of thought and of matter, which have no order; of the first, in madness, of the second, in corruption. Why then should we think, that order is more essential to one than the other?” David Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, ed. Martin Bell (London, 1990), 72–73. 31. KU, §85. 32. Betrachtungen über die Philosophie der natürlichen Religion, 2 Bde. (Leipzig, 1790), 1:158. That Heydenreich had Kant’s system in mind when he wrote this passage is evident from his footnote, which contains a lengthy quotation from the Critique of Pure Reason (B717–19). 33. In this characterization of arborescence, I have in mind two texts. The first is Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari’s “Introduction: Rhizome,” in their A Thousand Pleateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, trans. Brian Massumi (Minneapolis, 1988), 3–25. The other is Christopher Alexander’s seminal “A City is not a Tree,” Architectural Forum 122, no. 1 (April 1965): 58–62 and 122, no. 2 (May 1965): 58–61.

280

Notes to Chapter Four

34. The example of “the watch in the forest,” ubiquitous in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century texts dealing with physico-theological proofs of God, i.e., the argument from design, illustrates this confusion quite clearly. Let us say that in walking through a forest we come across a watch lying among the fallen leaves. Because of its peculiar relation of parts, it stands out to us against the background of vegetation, rocks, and soil. We examine the ordering of the springs, gears, casings, etc. and conclude that these elements could not have been formed and brought together in such a manner by mechanical laws alone. We conclude that it must have been designed by an understanding working according to purposes. From this chain of reasoning, we are then supposed to draw the same conclusion regarding nature as a whole. Because of the ordered relationship of its parts, both in their individual forms and in their harmonious interactions, we conclude by analogy that nature, too, must have an intelligent designer as its source. The fallacy in this illustration is easy to detect. Our judgments about the watch require that its order stand in stark contrast to that of the forest, which for the first part of the illustration is considered a chaotic, disordered background. Yet, in the second half of the narrative this chaotic background becomes the very thing that we are trying to prove as ordered, as something analogous to the contingent order of the watch. The illustration must equivocate on the type of “order” or “disorder” ascribed to the forest in order to provide the illusion of analogy. 35. Certainly, Kant can be accused of cheating when he compares architectonics to an organism: “The whole is thus an organised unity (articulatio), and not an aggregate (coacervatio). It may grow from within (per intussusceptionem), but not by external addition (per appositionem). It is thus like an animal body, the growth of which is not by the addition of a new member, but by the rendering of each member, without change of proportion, stronger and more effective for its purposes.” KrV, B861. 36. Natur und Gott, 56–57. Spinoza himself deals with this issue at length in the Appendix to Part I of his Ethics (1677). He begins his discussion with the following statement: “Now all the prejudices which I intend to mention here turn on this one point, the widespread belief among men that all things in Nature are like themselves in acting with an end in view.” Baruch Spinoza, The Ethics and Selected Letters, ed. Seymour Feldman, trans. Samuel Shirley, (Indianapolis, 1982), 57. 37. Spinoza’s theory of human freedom is certainly too complex to explore here. The qualification lies primarily in the different manners in which this visualization is understood to take place. Kant basically holds that in the case of a free action, the will is conditioned solely by reason through the form of the moral law. This “form” would constitute the conditions under which a purpose is “envisioned.” Spinoza, on the other hand, denies the existence of a transcendent will. Our sense of freedom is essentially the power to recog-

Notes to Chapter Four

38.

39.

40.

41. 42. 43.

44.

45.

281

nize, i.e. envision, the true causes of our actions so that we may order them toward virtue. In fact, the use of the term “purpose” has no meaning in this context for Spinoza because he holds that nature does not work according to ends, even analogously for our judgment. On this account Kant must misrepresent Spinoza in §72–73 of the Critique of Judgment as trying to solve the problem of natural purposes in order to fault him for failing to do so. Natural purposes are meaningful as a problem only within a system based on transcendent agency, such as Kantianism; for Spinozism, the concept is incoherent. One might also make a useful comparison here with Leibniz’s monadology, which like Kant’s architectonics also relies upon a notion of vision in order to achieve unity as a system. Leibniz’s monads are themselves “windowless” but nevertheless reflect various “viewpoints” on the universe. It is only by means of the transcendent God’s-eye view that the pre-established harmony of the universe is secured. Consider, for example, the following passages from “The Principles of Philosophy, or, the Monadology” (1714): “The monads have no windows through which something can enter or leave.” Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Philosophical Essays, ed. and trans. Roger Ariew and Daniel Garber (Indianapolis, 1989) 214. “Just as the same city viewed from different directions appears entirely different and, as it were, multiplied perspectively, in just the same way it happens that, because of the infinite multitude of simple substances, there are, as it were, just as many different universes, which are, nevertheless, only perspectives on a single one, corresponding to the different points of view of each monad” (ibid., 220). “Ueber die Möglichkeit einer Philosophie der schönen Künste, in Rücksicht der Einwürfe, welche Herr Kant in der Kritik der Urtheilskraft dagegen erhoben hat,” in Originalideen, 2:22. KU, §46. Originalideen, 2:22–23. Kant himself is forced in this direction when he considers natural purposes. In at least one instance, he finds himself describing nature in terms of agency, as organizing itself: “Only a product of such a kind [where the parts reciprocally produce one another] can be called a natural purpose, and this because it is an organized and self-organizing being.” KU, §65. That is, to recognize the actual conditioning of the parts by the whole, which is judged only analogously as “ends” by the discursive understanding. A union of forces would in this case be the Genie forming “adequate ideas” of the laws of nature, i.e. forming a concept of their real causes. These laws, working unconsciously in nature unassisted, become conscious in the person of the Genie. The contribution made by consciousness is not to add wholly novel laws of combination but to intensify and concentrate existing

282

46. 47.

48.

49. 50. 51.

52.

53.

Notes to Chapter Four ones, to make them more “expressive.” Parallelism in Spinoza’s philosophy is essentially the notion that causality is but one species of a much larger class of non-causal correspondences. Chains of causality unfold in parallel, but no chain is considered eminent with respect to others. Thus, for example, there is no hierarchy of mind over body such that mind is eminent, or “causes” changes in the body. Instead, Spinozism maintains that each is characterized by a separate causal chain, running in parallel, whose unity derives from the fact that they both express the same essence. The garden Genie, in this scenario, would initiate an independent causal series that “corresponds” to the one(s) being generated by nature unabsichtlich. Its consonance with the existing series found on the site would depend on the level to which the Genie comprehends the actual causes at work there. For a detailed discussion of adequate ideas and parallelism in Spinoza, see Gilles Deleuze, Expressionism in Philosophy: Spinoza (New York, 1990). KU, §51. “Aesthetische Grundsätze über die Allegorie der schönen Kunst, vorzüglich der bildenden und der Dichtkunst,” in Originalideen, 2:46–47n. In the same passage, Heydenreich also includes gardening among the arts he considers capable of allegory. “Von ihnen [das Gedächtniss] unterscheide ich das Dichtungsvermögen, vermittelst welches die Seele aus dem Stoffe der Phantasie neue Ganzen bildet.” Originalideen, 2:133. KU, §49. KU, §49. See KU, Introduction, viii. We have already noted that the rule in art is an original one, expressed through the genius but given by nature itself. But it has also been said that a concept is none other than the rule of synthesis for the sense manifold, a definition that suggests a possible contradiction. The difficulty is reduced, however, if we recall Heydenreich’s own objections to Kant’s use of the word Regel. It would seem that in this instance Kant has in mind one of the variant meanings: the principle of reflective judgment, by which reason prescribes that we judge according to the concept of purposiveness. This is not to say that Heydenreich recognized this result himself, but that the logic of his argument demands it. The tension between these two principles in Heydenreich’s thought is discernible, however, even in the title of the 1793 garden essay. The term Nachahmung signals that he is thinking primarily in terms of imitation, but the qualification landschaftlich already forces him in the direction of expression. The topographical contribution to the uniqueness of the garden Genie’s faculty is more apparent when it is considered in contrast with another art form such as music. Here, instead of instantiating the multiplicity of the Theilvorstellungen by repositioning a stroller around fixed, individual elements, the

Notes to Chapter Five

283

composer multiplies the basic elements themselves. This is achieved either through repetition and variation of the themes or by “repositioning” them among the groups of instruments. In music, the elements “move around” while the listeners (and musicians) remain stationary. 54. This terminology is introduced by Heydenreich in “Über die Möglichkeit,” Originalideen, 2:30. In the garden essay, this division is formulated in exactly the same way although he does not use the words Naturkunde and Teleologie. See Originalideen, 1:209. 55. Originalideen, 2:30. 56. It is not that he believes that he can derive the rules of taste from moral reason. Instead, he simply wishes to harmonize the two spheres in order to preserve unity in his philosophical system: “Kurz vor Erscheinung dieses Werkes hatte ich den ersten Theil eines Systems der Aesthetik herausgegeben, mit welchem ich nichts anders beabsichtigte . . . diejenigen Regeln, welche man für die Vollkommenheit ihrer Werke aus anerkannten Thatsachen der menschlichen Seele herleiten kann, den höchsten Prinzipien der moralischen Vernunft unterzuordnen, und in systematischer Form auszuführen: nicht als ob ich geglaubt hätte, man könne aus den höchsten Prinzipien der moralischen Vernunft den Inhalt der Geschmacksregeln für Werke der schönen Kunst analytisch entwickeln, sondern weil ich überzeugt war, dass die Regeln für die Kultur des Genies . . . mit den Prinzipien der moralischen Vernunft in Verknüpfung gebracht werden können. . . .” Originalideen, 2:3–4.

NOTES TO CHAPTER FIVE 1. Friedrich Schiller, “Über den Gartenkalender auf das Jahr 1795,” in Schillers Werke, Nationalausgabe, ed. Julius Petersen and Hermann Schneider (Weimar, 1958), 22:285. 2. Ibid., 22:286. 3. This argument is identical to one presented by Karl Heinrich Heydenreich in his essay “Philosophische Grundsätze über die Nachahmung der landschaftlichen Natur in Gärten.” Although Schiller’s library included a copy of Heydenreich’s System der Aesthetik, I have no documentation that he read the 1793 essay. See Schillers Werke, Nationalausgabe, ed. Julius Petersen and Hermann Schneider (Weimar, 1958), 26:625n156,2. 4. Schiller, as is well known, spent the years 1790–93 in an intense study of Kant’s critical philosophy. He is here alluding to a distinction Kant makes in the Kritik der Urteilskraft between free and dependent beauty (§16). In Kant’s system, judgments of dependent beauty employ empirical concepts of the understanding and thus are not pure. 5. The same point is made by Heydenreich in his System der Aesthetik, 175–77, 294.

284

Notes to Chapter Five

6. “Gartenkalender,” 22:287. 7. But it remains the product, at least in part, of human intentions and is not wilderness. Schiller’s view here is consistent with the traditional sentiments expressed by many in the eighteenth century who equated “nature” with cultural, cultivated landscapes. The touchstone for most German writers of this period was the rural landscape of Switzerland, especially as seen through the poetic works of Salomon Geßner. 8. The introduction of these terms also allows him to employ Kant’s distinction between natural and artificial beauty (KU, §42) in the context of the garden. 9. Hirschfeld’s influence was probably felt most keenly. His five-volume Theorie der Gartenkunst (1779–85) continually draws a distinction between the French and English styles, usually chastising the French and praising the English. 10. Hirschfeld, Theorie, I:144. For Hirschfeld’s comments on the representation of German patriotism in gardens, see Theorie, III:132. 11. “Gartenkalender,” 22:288. 12. By extension, this also refers to Kant’s critical philosophy as a mediation between rationalism and empiricism. 13. Friedrich Schiller, On the Aesthetic Education of Man in a Series of Letters, ed. and trans. Elizabeth M. Wilkinson and L. A. Willoughby (Oxford, 1967), Letter XVIII. 14. Ibid., XIII.1. 15. Ibid., XX.3–4. 16. Ibid., XIII.3. 17. Ibid., XX.3–4. 18. Ibid., XXIV.1. 19. The widespread fascination with Greece, including Schiller’s own, can be traced at least in part to Johann Joachim Winckelmann’s popular 1755 text, Gedanken ueber die Nachahmung der Griechischen Werke in der Mahlerey und Bildhauer-Kunst. 20. “Gartenkalender,” 22:290–91. 21. Aesthetic Letters, V.5. 22. Siegmar Gerndt, Idealisierte Natur: die literarische Kontroverse um den Landschaftsgarten des 18. und frühen 19. Jahrhunderts in Deutschland (Stuttgart, 1981). See esp. the section “Garten der Freiheit: die formalästhetischen und sozialpolitischen Hintergründe des Landschaftsgartens,” 106–28. 23. Aesthetic Letters, IV.4. 24. “Gartenkalender,” 22:288. 25. Aesthetic Letters, VI. 26. Ibid., XV.5.

Notes to Chapter Five

285

27. That is, the operation whereby two opposing terms are annulled and subsumed into a higher synthetic term. The term was later appropriated by Hegel as one of the major concepts of his mature philosophy, but it was first used in this sense by Schiller. I also find it significant that Schiller’s development of this idea was closely tied to his meditations on the garden. 28. KU, ix. 29. Hirschfeld, for example, had a negative assessment of Hohenheim. Theorie, V:349–55. 30. Gerndt finds Schiller’s positive assessment of Hohenheim difficult to defend. For the most part, this is also true of Sheila Benn’s reading. See Benn, “Friedrich Schiller and the English Garden: Über den Gartenkalender auf das Jahr 1795,” Garden History 19, no. 1 (Spring 1991): 28– 46. 31. Aesthetic Letters, XXIV.2. 32. Schiller’s terminology is taken from Kant’s account of the transcendental aesthetic in his Kritik der reinen Vernunft. 33. Aesthetic Letters, XXV.1. 34. Ibid., XI.6. 35. Ibid., XV.4. 36. Ibid., IX.9. 37. Ibid., IV.2. 38. Ibid., XI.1. 39. Ibid., XIV.2. 40. Ibid., XIX.11. 41. “Gartenkalender,” 22:285. Schiller’s terminology here is “ . . . sein [the plant’s] schönen selbständiges Leben. . . .” 42. Aesthetic Letters, XXVI.4. 43. Ibid., XXVI.5. The English landscape gardener Humphry Repton also spoke of deceit in relation to landscape design. Unlike Schiller, he believed that it was a requirement of the landscape garden to deceive the eye, especially in its ability to make an estate look larger than it actually was or to hide “undesirable” social conditions, such as the presence of labor. Repton’s source was Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (London, 1757), Part II, Section X: “A true artist should put a generous deceit on the spectators, and effect the noblest designs by easy methods. Designs that are vast only by their dimensions, are always the sign of a common and low imagination. No work of art can be great, but as it deceives; to be otherwise is the prerogative of nature only.” Repton’s first treatise expounding this principle, Sketches and Hints on Landscape Gardening (London, 1795), was published the same year as Schilller’s Aesthetic Letters.

286

Notes to Chapter Six

44. This comparison is quite natural given the social history of gardens in Europe. These gardens have a long history of being used, and even designed, as outdoor settings for theater productions. 45. Dieter Henrich has given a detailed account of the cognitive structure of this play in Aesthetic Judgment and the Moral Image of the World: Studies in Kant (Stanford, 1992), 29–58. 46. Aesthetic Letters, XIX.1–3. 47. Ibid., XIX.4. 48. See Ulrich Fellmeth, “Die Gärten von Hohenheim,” in Gartenführer Universität Hohenheim (Stuttgart, 1993), 5–15; and Michael Wenger, “Schillers Herzog: Zum Wandel der Festkultur unter Herzog Carl Eugen von Württemberg,” in GeistesSpuren: Friedrich Schiller in der Württembergischen Landesbibliothek, ed. Jörg Ennen and Vera Trost (Stuttgart, 2005). 49. “Gartenkalender,” 22:289–90. 50. Ibid., 22:290.

NOTES TO CHAPTER SIX 1. Karl Ludwig Pörschke, Gedanken über einige Gegenstände der Philosophie des Schönen, Erste Sammlung (Libau, 1794). Pörschke’s discussion of gardens is found on pp. 36–38. For the comparison of a Staatsverfassung with a Kunstverfassung, see p. 54. On the general definition of art, Pörschke writes, “Ein Kunstwerk sey ein Vernunftsystem, nach unwandelbaren Gesetzen gemacht. Schönheit soll wie die Wahrheit und das Gute für alle Oerter und Zeiten seyn” (ibid., 106). 2. The classic work is Johann Heinrich Lambert, Anlage zur Architectonic, 2 Bde. (Riga, 1771). 3. This term is J. C. A. Grohmann’s. At one point he describes Kant’s critical philosophy as the “mechanischen Zerlegungen dieser kristallischen Producte [concepts derived from the rationalist tradition of Descartes and Leibniz].” J. C. A. Grohmann, Dem Andenken Kants (Berlin, 1804), 24–25. 4. “By an architectonic I understand the art of constructing systems. . . . By a system I understand the unity of the manifold modes of knowledge under one idea. This idea is the concept provided by reason—of the form of a whole—in so far as the concept determines a priori not only the scope of its manifold content, but also the positions which the parts occupy relatively to one another.” KrV, B860. See also KrV, B27, B89–90. For the metaphors of buildings and foundations, see KrV, B375, B502, and B735 among others. 5. KrV, B860–79. 6. Claudia Brodsky Lacour, Lines of Thought: Discourse, Architectonics, and the Origin of Modern Philosophy (Durham, 1996); The Imposition of Form: Studies in Narrative Representation and Knowledge (Princeton, 1987), 21–87; “Architecture and Architectonics: ‘The Art of Reason’ in Kant’s Critique,”

Notes to Chapter Six

7. 8. 9.

10. 11.

12.

13. 14.

15. 16.

287

The Princeton Journal: Thematic Studies in Architecture 3 (1988): 103– 17; “Architecture in the Discourse of Modern Philosophy: Descartes to Nietzsche,” in Nietzsche and “An Architecture of Our Minds,” ed. Alexandre Kostka and Irving Wohlfarth, (Los Angeles, 1999), 19–34. Brodsky Lacour, Lines of Thought, 3. Ibid., 8. For example, Young Ahn Kang, in his Schema and Symbol: A Study in Kant’s Doctrine of Schematism (Amsterdam, 1985), discusses Kant’s use of the terms “horizon,” “island of truth,” and “geographical orientation,” but does not thematize the notion of the topographic as such. See p. 28–31, 121–26. Brodsky, in The Imposition of Form (55) and “Architecture and Architectonics” (109), introduces Kant’s notion of the “great chasm” (grosse Kluft) between the first two Critiques, but then focuses primarily on either the “overpass” (Übergang) that Kant must construct to traverse it or on his notion of freedom as a “keystone” (Schlußstein). She is careful to demonstrate, however, that neither of these notions is truly “architectural” in the sense of denoting a fixed structure or object. Dieter Henrich, Aesthetic Judgment and the Moral Image of the World: Studies in Kant (Stanford, 1992), 23–24. A few pages earlier, Henrich writes of a transitional stage in Kant’s progress from the earlier conception to the latter: “This puts Kant’s concern with the moral image of the world in yet another perspective. By understanding this image, he could hope to understand in greater depth the way in which the various usages of reason cooperate. They eventually arrive at conceptions by means of which what appears to be, and indeed is, divergent at the beginning reveals itself as belonging to an architectonic design—a design within which the rationality (and the conditions for the reality) of the moral life functions as the keystone.” Ibid., 18. The characterization of Henrich’s insight as “topographic” is my own. Despite the implications of his language, Henrich consistently reads Kant’s notion of an ascent in architectural terms. See, for example, ibid., viii, 7–8. J. C. A. Grohmann, “Ansicht vom Luisium bei Dessau,” in Becker, Taschenbuch für Gartenfreunde, 1796:74–75. “ . . . und in eine Vergessenheit aller unserer Gefühle, daß wir stumm auf die Auen hinblicken, aber desto inniger im Herzen die Ruhe empfinden.” Ibid., 54–55. Ibid., 49. Grohmann does recognize, however, that a sufficient degree of generality can be secured through physical distance. The effect dissipates, however, when we venture too close: “In der Entfernung, wie schön ist diese Ruine, ehe wir noch die symbolischen Zeichen in den römischen Köpfen sehen! Wie schön! denken wir; kommen wir aber näher, so weichet sogleich unser

288

17. 18. 19. 20. 21.

22.

23.

24. 25. 26.

27.

28.

Notes to Chapter Six ganzes Gefühl, das wir beim fernen Anblick dieser Ruine bekamen, durch diese individuellere schwächere Idee, die einen Bezug auf etwas Bestimmtes, das da gewesen ist, fühlen lassen will.” Ibid., 77. Ibid., 77–78. KU, §3. Parallel linkages are, of course, also established for the triads deportmentintuition-outline and tone-feeling-background. KU, §51. Cf.: “Poetry [is] the art of conducting a free play of the imagination as if it were a serious business of the understanding” (ibid.). Kant touches briefly on this distinction in his discussion of symbols in §59, where he uses the terms “characterization” and “designation” to define what contemporaries usually referred to as arbitrary signs. In one of his clearer formulations, Kant says that poetry expresses aesthetic ideas “by representations of mere imagination that are aroused by words.” KU, §51. Even though the essay was not published until 1800, it was widely circulated among philosophers. Both Beiser (1987) and Bowie (1991) include substantial discussions of Hamann. Ulrike Oudée Dünkelsbühler, Reframing the Frame of Reason: “Translation”in and beyond Kant and Derrida (Amherst, 2002), 66–67. Horace Walpole, The History of the Modern Taste in Gardening, (London, 1771), 264. There were no private English gardens in Königsberg during Kant’s time, and the urban gardens of the elite remained for the most part in the old style. However, the mayor, Theodor Gottlieb von Hippel, oversaw construction within the city walls of a public promenade in the English manner, termed the “Philosophendamm,” which Kant frequented during his daily strolls. Hippel also purchased an estate just outside Königsberg in 1779, the Pojentershof, where he laid out an English park. See Fritz Gause, Die Geschichte der Stadt Königsberg in Preussen, 2 Bde. (Köln, 1968), 2:223–25, 259; Ursula Gräfin zu Dohna, Gärten und Parke in Ostpreußen: 400 Jahre Gartenkunst (Busse Seewald, 1993), 90–96. “In painting, sculpture, and in all the formative arts—in architecture and horticulture [sic] [Gartenkunst], so far as they are beautiful arts—the delineation [Zeichnung] is the essential thing; and here it is not what gratifies in sensation but what pleases by means of its form that is fundamental for taste. The colors which light up the sketch [Abriß] belong to the charm; they may indeed enliven the object for sensation, but they cannot make it worthy of contemplation and beautiful.” KU, §14. In underscoring the placelessness of the “strange” in Kant, I have in mind both Derrida’s and Dünkelsbühler’s interpretation of the Heideggerian unheimlich (uncanny) as atopological. See Dünkelsbühler, Reframing the Frame of Reason, 36, 126.

Notes to Chapter Six

289

29. It is possible that Kant might also be borrowing from David Hume, who provides a similar account of the “appearance of utility” in his own aesthetics. See Guyer, Kant and the Experience of Freedom, 65–70. 30. The Irish-born orientalist William Marsden (1754–1836) served in Sumatra during the 1770s first as a sub-secretary and afterward as principal secretary to the government. He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1783. 31. Paul Guyer includes an analysis of the Sumatran pepper garden in his Kant and the Experience of Freedom. See p. 249, 287. 32. “Objective purposiveness can only be cognized by means of the reference of the manifold to a definite purpose, and therefore only through a concept. . . . Objective purposiveness is either external, i.e. the utility, or internal, i.e. the perfection of the object.” KU, §15. 33. Gause, Geschichte der Stadt Königsberg, 2:192, 224–25. 34. Semler, Gartenlogik, 9. “ . . . darin frühstücken und Thee trinken, Pläne und Projekte machen, von Stadtneuigkeiten, Familiengeschichten und Zeitungsnachrichten plaudern, Kegel schieben, nach der Scheibe schießen und so gar Whist spielen, kurz daß sie hundert Dinge vornehmen werden, wobey sie gar nicht daran denken, daß sie in einem Garten sind,—” 35. J. G. Grohmann, Sammlung von gesellschaftlichen Gartenspielen und ländlichen Vergnügungen die mit Leibesbewegung verbunden, Personen, deren Beruf ist, viel zu sitzen, vorzüglich zu empfehlen, und dem Hufelandischen System, die Gesundheit durch Bewegung und frohen Muth zu. . . . (Leipzig, [1799]). The list of garden games includes “das Spickelierspiel, das Scheibenkollern, die sehende Blindekuh, das Hahnschlagen, das Spiel Kurzschub, das Fröschenstreichen, das Amorspiel, das Faulenballschlagen, Kaisers, das Spiel Swayka, das Sacklaufen, [und] der Strohmann.” 36. See, for example, Robin May Schott, Cognition and Eros: A Critique of the Kantian Paradigm (Boston, 1988). 37. The negative assessment of garden design as an art of ornamentation or embellishment (Verschönerung), as opposed to a fully realized fine art, persists in German thought at least through the end of the nineteenth century. The primary examples are Krug (1802), Bouterwek (1806), Hegel (1823–29), and Schneider (1890). The recent establishment of an advanced program in garden studies at the Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the Decorative Arts, Design, and Culture both recalls this historical association and suggests how far current sensibilities have come in re-assigning it a positive value. 38. “Ein Strom von Empfindungen gehet da über in unsere Herzen durch die ungekünstelten Melodien, die da in einander tönen, und die diesen Hain zum Hain der Musik machen.” J. C. A. Grohmann, “Ansicht vom Luisium,” 66. 39. Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Pleateaus, 301. See also p. 172–73, 319.

290

Notes to Chapter Six

40. But we do know that his complaint in the footnote, of neighbors loudly singing hymns during their family prayer devotions, was drawn from his own experience. “Kant suffered himself from such annoyances, which may account for the asperity of this note. At one period he was disturbed by the devotional exercises of the prisoners in the adjoining jail. In a letter to the burgomaster he suggested the advantage of closing the windows during these hymn-singings, and added that the warders of the prison might probably be directed to accept less sonorous and neighbor-annoying chants as evidence of the penitent spirit of their captives.” William Wallace, Kant (Edinburgh, 1882), 42. Quoted in an editorial note (p. 175) by J. H. Bernard in his translation of the Critique of Judgment. 41. Earlier in the paragraph, Kant gives a further hint that by “urbanity” in the arts, he means their worldliness, or conversance with the ways and manners of polite society: “The formative arts are far before it [music] in this point of view, for in putting the imagination in a free play, which is also accordant with the understanding, they at the same time carry on a serious business. This they do by producing a product that serves for concepts as a permanent self-commendatory vehicle for promoting their union with sensibility and thus, as it were, the urbanity of the higher cognitive powers.” KU, §53. 42. It is also conceivable to read the dandy’s faux pas in terms of the improper feminization of both himself and other men. In addition to the ambiguous gender appropriateness of the perfumed handkerchief, both the emission of the scent as an uncontrolled flow, as well as the scent’s feminization of other men’s bodies through forcible penetration, are archetypal images of femininity connected with male fear. On the pervasiveness of this primal imagery in German thought, see Klaus Theweleit, Male Fantasies, trans. Stephen Conway, 2 vols. (Cambridge, 1987). Kant’s language in this passage is not sufficiently specific to press the point, but such a reading would be consistent with the previous observation that he implicitly genders the background arts as feminine. 43. Cf. KU, §4: “Flowers, free delineations, outlines intertwined with one another without design and called [conventional] foliage, have no meaning, depend on no definite concept, and yet they please.” 44. On Kant’s similar use of the term Phantasie elsewhere (KU, §22) in the Critique of Judgment, see Brodsky, Imposition of Form, 63–68. 45. The analogy between the picturesque garden and music, especially as it was applied in contemporary music theory to the instrumental phantasies of C. P. E. Bach, Haydn, and Beethoven, has been explored in detail by Annette Richards in The Free Fantasia and the Musical Picturesque (Cambridge, 2001). See especially Chapter 3, “The Picturesque Sketch and the Interpretation of Instrumental Music.” 46. “Zu den freien Kunstschönheiten gehört alles Laubwerk, Muschelwerk, Schnörkel, einzelne Linien, Gitterwerk, und ähnliche Zeichnungen, die

Notes to Chapter Six

47.

48. 49. 50. 51.

52.

53. 54.

291

bloß als Zeichnungen betrachtet und beurtheilt werden. Ich setze dieses darum hinzu, weil diese Zeichnungen zuweilen nicht bloß als Zeichnungen, sondern gemeiniglich als Risse, nach denen etwas verfertiget werden soll, angesehen werden. Eine Arabesken-Zeichnung z. B. soll das Muster zu einer Wandverzierung, die Zeichnung eines Gitterwerks soll der Riß seyn, nach welchem ein Treppengeländer an ein neuerbautes Haus verfertiget wird. In diesem Falle wird die Zeichnung nicht bloß als Zeichnung betrachtet, sondern man sieht auch darauf, ob das, dessen Muster sie seyn soll, sich zu dem Ganzen schicken werde oder nicht.” Johann H. G. Heusinger, Handbuch der Aesthetik, oder Grundsätze zur Bearbeitung und Beurtheilung der Werke einer jeden schönen Kunst, als der Poesie, Malerei, Bildhauerkunst, Musik, Mimik, Baukunst, Gartenkunst u.s.w. für Künstler und Kunstliebhaber (Gotha, 1797), 101–2. Ibid., 219. The passage continues as follows: “Sie wirken aufs kräftigste, daß sich der Lustwandelnde sammle, und in die Gemüthssituation komme, in welche er kommen soll. Diese Rücksicht bestimmt daher selbst die Wahl der vorzustellenden Süjets, selbst die Art und die Form der aufzuführenden Gebäude. Eine melancholische Gegend wird durch ein Grabmal, mit welchem sie versehen ist, noch mehr an Rührung gewinnen. Eine freie und offene Parthie aber wird durch einen Tanzsaal verschönert und in ihrer Wirkung bestimmter gemacht werden können. Bloß belustigende und frappirende Gebäude aber, Hütten, die den Einsturz drohen, und innwendig herrliche Zimmer enthalten, sind nicht nach dem zu beurtheilen, was sie an sich sind, sondern nur nach dem Eindruck, welchen ihr Aeußeres macht.” Dünkelsbühler presents one of the best summaries in her Reframing the Frame. Dünkelsbühler, Reframing the Frame, 67. KU, §49, §59. On Kant’s generally positive view of Plato, especially his fundamental distinction of archetype and ectype, see KrV, B370–75. Kant’s worry about the employment of illusion and deception in works of art is also clearly Platonic in character. “But the interest which we here take in beauty has only to do with the beauty of nature; it vanishes altogether as soon as we notice that we are deceived and that it is only art—vanishes so completely that taste can no longer find the thing beautiful or sight find it charming.” KU, §42. We have already examined the full text of the nightingale example in our discussion of Heydenreich. Kant also mentions it again briefly in §22. Kant presents the “antinomy of taste” in KU, §55-§57 and the “antinomy of teleological judgment” in §69-§78. The exception is in §14, where Gartenkunst occurs in a list with Malerei, Bildhauerkunst, and Baukunst. To my knowledge, Kant is also the only German theorist to use Gartenzeichner in place of the standard Gartenkünstler.

292

55.

56. 57. 58. 59.

60.

61. 62.

Notes to Chapter Six The term is found in his pre-critical “Reflexionen zur Ästhetik” (ca. 1780), in Immanuel Kant: Schriften zur Ästhetik und Naturphilosophie, ed. Manfred Frank and Véronique Zanetti (Frankfurt am Main, 1996), 124. Gottlob Heinrich Rapp, “Fragmentarische Beiträge zu ästhetischer Ausbildung des deutschen Gartengeschmacks,” in Cotta, Taschenkalender für Natur- und Gartenfreunde, 1796:84–85. Rapp argues that Kant’s use of the term Lustgärtnerei is inappropriate, but he attributes Kant’s terminological choice to his supposed lack of acquaintance with gardens that would qualify as art. I have noted elsewhere (Ch. 6, n26) that Kant had first-hand knowledge of English-style gardens in the vicinity of Königsberg, so it is difficult to concur with Rapp’s explanation. Dünkelsbühler, Reframing the Frame, 72, 81–82. The story of Zeuxis, a late 5th century B.C. Greek painter, is related by Pliny the Elder in his Natural History, Book XXXV, Section 36. I have given a more complete analysis of Kant’s notion of a sensus communis in the section dealing with Schelle. Many garden theorists, pace Kant, saw the deceptive possibilities of this comparison in more positive terms. W. G. Becker, for example, maintains that the cultivation of taste enables one to enjoy equally a garden’s “charming deception” and “beautiful nature itself ”: “So wird der Zweck einer geschmackvollen Verschönerung der Natur erreicht, wenn sie auf den gebildeten Menschen eben so lebhaft wirkt, wie die schöne Natur selbst; und so gewährt sie durch liebliche Täuschung einen eben so angenehemen Genuß, wie diese, indem auch der Zustand einer vorübergehenden Schwärmerei, so lang’ er dauert, für den unbefangenen Schwärmer eben so beglückend, als der Zustand der Wirklichkeit ist.” Taschenbuch, 1798:67. This essay was also published in Becker, Der Plauische Grund bei Dresden: mit Hinsicht auf Naturgeschichte und schöne Gartenkunst (Nürnberg, 1799). The theorists who contributed to Becker’s Taschenbuch often appealed to this principle when seeking to justify their various taxonomies of garden types on historical grounds. A. F. Krauß, for example, gives a detailed etymology of the word Garten that traces its origins to the enclosure and protection of parcels of land. (Taschenbuch, 1795:61) Ramdohr makes a similar argument that the notion of the garden as a “geschmückte Erdtafel” evolved from the embellishment of enclosed fields. (Taschenbuch, 1798:29–30; essay first published in 1792). Kant takes this approach, in effect, just a few pages later when he relates the story of the “traces on the Rhodian shore” in §64. The translating procedure by which the garden wall stands in for, i.e. replaces, the difference between the formal “purity” of geometrical schemata (purposiveness) and the empirical “impurity” of geometrical objects (purpose) is itself parergonal.

Notes to Chapter Six

293

63. J. C. A. Grohmann, Neue Theorie der schönen Gartenkunst, 2 Bde. (Leipzig, 1797), 1:223. 64. Kant, an assiduous reader of Rousseau, would have been as influenced by this imaginary garden as by any real one he knew. Hirschfeld includes a long quotation from La Nouvelle Héloïse in his Theorie der Gartenkunst (I:130– 32). In addition, Rousseau’s writings were a major inspiration for the early phases of garden design at Wörlitz. On the early reception of Rousseau in Germany, see Karl Guthke, “Zur Frühgeschichte des Rousseauismus in Deutschland,” Zeitschrift für deutsche Philologie 77, Heft 4 (1958): 384–96. 65. Illustrations of ha-has were included in many garden journals, including the Magazin für Freunden des guten Geschmacks and J. G. Grohmann’s Ideenmagazin. 66. J. C. A. Grohmann, “Ueber deutsche Gärten, nebst einer Beschreibung des Silitzer Berges bei Dessau,” in Becker, Taschenbuch für Gartenfreunde, 1799:54–55. “Da um den deutschen Garten herum frohe Aussicht auf Anger und Wiese, auf weidende Herden, auf Felder voll Korn, auf einsame Gebüsche, auf ein einsames Dorf—das ist es, was den Charakter des deutschen Gartens am besten malen.” 67. J. C. A. Grohmann, “Ansicht vom Luisium,” 53–55. 68. August Rode, Beschreibung des Fürstlichen Anhalt-Dessauischen Landhauses und Englischen Gartens zu Wörlitz (Dessau, 1798), 175. “Scheidungslinie zwischen der contrastirenden Natur und Kunst.” 69. Hunt, Greater Perfections, 32–34, 58–62. 70. J. C. A. Grohmann, “Ueber deutsche Gärten,” 21–22. 71. “Sie [die neue Anlagen] ist nicht sowohl Garten, als vielmehr verschönerte Landschaft; denn das mehreste Land zwischen den angezeigten Grenzen ist Feld.” Rode, Beschreibung, 188. This last major phase of construction at Wörlitz was carried out during the 1790s. 72. Kant also uses the tulip as an example of the beautiful in KU, §33. 73. Kant does, in fact, refer to a wildflower (wilde Blume) later in §42, but it is in the context of explaining “the intellectual interest in the beautiful.” In that passage, Kant emphasizes the moral interest we take in the existence of objects produced by nature, which is additional to the pure aesthetic judgment based on form alone. 74. Rudolf Borchardt, Der leidenschaftliche Gärtner (Frankfurt am Main, 1992), 50. “Die Tulpe . . . war keine Feldblume der Nordbalkanländer gewesen, sondern eine bereits hochentwickelte persische Kulturform.” 75. EE, 420–21, 424–25. 76. “Besonders bei relativ kleineren inneren Gärten, z.B. bei mit Pflanzen geschmückten Höfen sind solche Vereinigungen der antinomischen Prinzipien zu glücklichen Lösungen durchaus möglich; ein alleinstehender alter Baum inmitten der Kreuzgänge eines Klosterhofes z.B. kann, ohne

294

77.

78.

79.

80.

Notes to Chapter Six sein organisch-pflanzliches Wesen aufzugeben, durchaus als Moment der Gesamtarchitektur erscheinen; ein schönes Beispiel einer solchen Lösung ist etwa der Myrtenhof in der Alhambra (Granada).” Lukács, Werke, 12:480. As “an example of an example,” Lukács’s reference to the Alhambra’s Court of the Myrtles bears a striking resemblance to the doubled rhetorical structure of Kant’s tulip passage. It also engenders similar problems in that the Court of the Myrtles does not illustrate Lukács’s point in the way he thinks it does. The myrtles are, in fact, clipped into hedges that echo the enclosure of the walls, and there is no crossing. The adjacent Court of the Lions has such a crossing, but it is marked by a fountain, not a tree. Lukács equates architecture’s inorganic structure with the totalizing subsumption of elements. The morphology of plants appears to him in oppositional terms as a resistance to this universalizing tendency. “Die anorganische Struktur der Architektur erleichtert die bedingungslose Herrschaft der Allgemeinheit, so daß jede Einzelheit in ihr nur durch deren Funktion im Gesamtzusammenhang ästhetisch vorhanden ist und keinen Anspruch selbst auf eine widerspruchsvolle, aufgehobene Sonderexistenz erheben darf.” Ibid., 12:476. In addition to the alteration of its form through selection, Kant’s tulip presupposes a cultivated supplement for the simple reason that one never imagines a tulip growing in an untended field; it inevitably appears before the mind’s eye enclosed within a garden. Even the naturalizing of bulbs in the Naturgarten, a marked departure in planting design from their previous use in formal beds, assumes a cultivated setting, often adjacent to a pavilion. An example of this practice, the embellishment of the Luisium’s Sitz with Dutch hyacinths, is described by F. W. von Krußer in his “Beschreibung des Fürstlichen Gartens bei Dessau Luisium genannt,” in Becker, Taschenbuch für Gartenfreunde, 1796:36–47. “The lack of place, of the border, is supplemented by the construction of a frame, a fact that will require that this supplement be understood as the paradox of a replacement replacing, precisely, nothing.” Dünkelsbühler, Reframing the Frame, 45. For comparison, Borchardt also recognizes the orders of flower and garden as heterogeneous, but he emphasizes a different set of issues: “So alt und ursprünglich sind die ersten Anzeichen der bis auf den heutigen Tag sich gleichbleibenden, der ewigen Spannung zwischen der Blume und dem Garten. . . . Die Blume ist eine Ordnung, aber eine Ordnung ist auch, und zwar eine andere und selbständige, der Garten. Die Ordnung der Blume ist eine vormenschliche der Kreatur; die des Gartens eine menschliche des Meisters, Bemeisterers, Umgestalters Mensch. Mit der Blume ist er durch unvernünftige Sehnsucht verbunden, mit dem Garten durch den Willen; mit jener durch grenzenlose Möglichkeit, mit diesem durch die

Notes to Chapter Six

81.

82.

83.

84. 85.

86. 87. 88.

295

Bescheidung vor dem Endlichen, die fast schon entsagt.” Borchardt, Der leidenschaftliche Gärtner, 36–37. This phrase is borrowed from Brodsky’s characterization of Goethe’s Die Wahlverwandtschaften as a representation, in novel form, of the principles elaborated in his color theory. Its relevance in this context lies both in the prominent affective role give to garden imagery in the novel as well as in Goethe’s use of “color” as a polemical response to Kant’s narrative representation of knowledge in the three Critiques. Brodsky, Imposition of Form, 88ff. This facet of Kant’s paradoxical treatment of garden art can be seen in several of the aesthetic systems devised in the wake of the third Critique. One of the most notable attempts to reconcile the garden’s spatial character with its “flatness” can be found in Krug (1802): “[Gartenkunst] ist also offenbar eine Kunst des Raums, wenn man gleich nicht ihr Produkt auf einmal, sondern nur nach und nach auffassen kann; hat aber darin einen eigenthümlichen Charakter, dass sie als Bildnerkunst und Malerkunst zugleich erscheint. Denn ein schöner Garten ist eine Art von musivischer Malerey, nur mit dem Unterschiede, dass die Gegenstände, aus welchem das Garten-Tableau zusammengesetzt ist, nicht bloss in der Fläche (wie bey der eigentlichen Malerey) wahrgenommen werden, sondern einzeln als körperliche Massen (wie bey der eigentlichen Bildnerey) erscheinen.” Wilhelm Traugott Krug, Versuch einer systematischen Enzyklopädie der schönen Künste (Leipzig, 1802), 152. Krug also makes this argument in tabular form, when he classifies garden design as a “combined” (zusammengesetzt) art resulting from the union of the “simple” (einfach) arts of sculpture and painting. Curiously, its closest systemic analog is coin and medallion design (schöne Munzkunst), which Krug views as a combination of architecture and calligraphy (ibid., 52–53). Both the thought of free beauty as “vagabond” and the underscoring of Derrida’s translation originate with Dünkelsbühler, but she develops these insights in a direction different from the one I have taken here. See Dünkelsbühler, Reframing the Frame, 78. Ibid., 54. Dünkelsbühler’s point of departure is Pater’s treatment of Giorgione in his The Renaissance (1910; repr., Chicago, 1977). A relevant example is the Chalkographische Gesellschaft in Dessau, established in 1796 by Prince Franz primarily to produce and sell images of his gardens for the purpose of improving public taste. Many of these works were copper engravings made after paintings in the prince’s private collection. See Michael Niedermeier, “Aufklärung im Gartenreich Dessau-Wörlitz,” in Bechtoldt and Weiss, Weltbild Wörlitz, 60. Collins, Sociology of Philosophies, 646, 650. Dünkelsbühler, Reframing the Frame, 52. This characterization of the university is Derrida’s, taken from his reading of Kant’s “The Conflict of the Faculties” in Du droit à la philosophie (Paris,

296

89. 90.

91. 92.

93. 94. 95. 96.

97.

98.

Notes to Chapter Six 1990). Derrida’s notion is substantially developed by Hent de Vries in Religion and Violence: Philosophical Perspectives from Kant to Derrida (Baltimore, 2002), 22–26, 60, 65. Vries, Religion and Violence, 57–67. “Caught in a peculiar double bind, [philosophy] must simultaneously affirm and deny its autonomy. To preserve its integrity, it must speak the truth but not act upon it; it must speak for all, but not to all. In order to preserve its character as a formal and transcendental discourse, it must ultimately restrict its own diffusion, popularization, or even publication in the realm of the empirical. In order to serve the res publica, it must, so to speak, not go public and enter the diffuse, ambiguous realm of public opinion. Paradoxically, aporetically, it protects its universality only to the degree that it excludes or ignores its outside.” Ibid., 58. Ibid., 60. Friedrich Bouterwek, for example, was so troubled by this thought that he strongly doubted the possibility of developing a meaningful garden theory. “Aber auch diese [englische] Gartenkunst hat keinen eigenen ästhetischen Charakter. Sie ist gebunden an das Locale, sucht aus diesem so machen, was ohne Spielerei und Affectation möglich ist, und weiß selbst die ökonomischen Vortheile mit der ästhetischen Anmuth eines Landsitzes zu verknüpfen. . . . Die allgemeine Theorie der schönen Künste findet dabei allerdings eine sehr interessante Anwendung; aber der Aesthetiker kann im Allgemeinen wenig Lehrreiches darüber sagen.” Friedrich Bouterwek, Aesthetik, Erster Theil, Allgemeine Theorie des Schönen in der Natur und Kunst (Leipzig, 1806), 294–95. Vries, Religion and Violence, 118. Ibid., 115. Ibid., 59. This problem arises not only in Kant’s own use of examples, but in the Mittelweg garden theorists as well. Schiller’s theory is not well served by the garden at Hohenheim; J. C. A. Grohmann’s use of Wörlitz and the Luisium is problematic; and Heydenreich does not even attempt to cite specific gardens. For a fine analysis of the pedagogical aspects of the exemplary in Kant’s writings, see David Lloyd, “Kant’s Examples,” Representations 28 (Fall 1989): 34–54. See esp., KrV, Axviii-xix. Kant’s misgivings regarding the relation between the aesthetic and the pedagogic were, of course, famously ignored by Schiller. If Kant’s general theory of beauty, and his sensus communis in particular, is the moment of a resolute coming to terms with the thickened border around “pure” art, then Schiller’s program of “aesthetic education” is one of the more overt attempts to articulate the political possibilities of such an autonomous aesthetic sphere. “Only thus can [the interrogation of the conceptual opposition between the constative and the performative] illuminate how the foundation of the university—the act of its institution as well as the ground on which it is based—is

Notes to Chapter Seven

99.

100.

101. 102. 103. 104. 105.

106.

107.

108.

297

not in itself ‘already strictly’ philosophical (which is not to say that it is simply anti- or even unphilosophical).” Vries, Religion and Violence, 22. The essay was published anonymously in Philosophisches Journal 7, Heft 3 (1797): 187–212. (It appeared in May 1798.) The attribution can be found in Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Introductions to the Wissenschaftslehre and Other Writings (1797–1800), ed. and trans. Daniel Breazeale (Indianapolis, 1994), 130n. J. C. A. Grohmann, “Fichte und Kant, oder Versuch einer Ausgleichung der Fichteschen und Kantischen Philosophie,” Philosophisches Journal 7, Heft 3 (1797): 202–3. J. C. A. Grohmann, “Fichte und Kant,” 203–4. He makes a similar argument in the introduction of the essay (ibid., 189–90). Ibid., 189–90, 196–97. Ibid., 189. He uses the similar term ObjectenDarstellung on p. 211. For a more extensive analysis of Kant’s distinction between enclosures and frames, see Dünkelsbühler, Reframing the Frame, 63–67. Grohmann, in the last sentence of “Fichte und Kant,” seems to have had a similar thought in mind when he describes Kant as remaining inside this line: “Fichte steht an der ersten Gränze des Denkens, Kant innerhalb, an der Seite dieser Gränze” (212). Kant speaks, for example, of “shapeless mountain masses piled in wild disorder upon one another with their pyramids of ice” (KU, §26), “bold, overhanging, and as it were threatening rocks” (KU, §28), “mountain peaks rearing themselves to heaven, deep chasms and streams raging therein, [and] deep-shadowed solitudes [Einöden] that dispose one to melancholy meditations” (KU, §29). “The beautiful in nature is connected with the form of the object, which consists in having [definite] boundaries. The sublime, on the other hand, is to be found in a formless object, so far as in it or by occasion of it boundlessness is represented, and yet its totality is also present to thought.” KU, §23. While it is true that some German gardens included features meant to evoke the sublime (e.g. the working volcano called the “Stein,” or “Vesuv,” at Wörlitz) these miniaturizations were often dismissed by contemporary critics as frivolous exercises that could not replicate the experience of the original landscapes. See Axel Klausmeier, “Lernen vom ‘Stein’: ein Beitrag zur Bedeutungsvielfalt des ‘Steins’ in der Wörlitzer Anlagen,” Die Gartenkunst 9, Heft 2 (1997): 367–79; and Kulturstiftung DessauWörlitz, Der Vulkan im Wörlitzer Park (Berlin, 2005). Christine Pries, Übergänge ohne Brücken: Kants Erhabenes zwischen Kritik und Metaphysik (Berlin, 1995), 73, 78, 88, 177.

NOTES TO CHAPTER SEVEN 1. Heydenreich, Natur und Gott, 3–4. “Er verließ sein Zimmer, um seinem Geiste durch den Anblick der schönen Natur eine Erholung zu geben,

298

Notes to Chapter Seven

2.

3.

4.

5. 6.

7. 8. 9.

und zu versuchen, wie sich die abgezogenen Ideen, welche er aneinander gereiht hatte, gegen das Gefühl der Wirklichkeit und die lebendige Anschauung der Welt verhalten möchten.” “Sieh da! die ganze schöne Landschaft auf diesem Blatte! In der Vertiefung des Thals dort habe ich eine Schäferszene angebracht; und auf jenem öden Anger dort verschiedene Grabmäler, die eine gewisse Melancholie über die lachende Gegend verbreiten.—Die Zeichnung war hingeworfen, und ich war so voll von den Erscheinungen, die auf mich zugeströmt waren, daß der Zeichner noch zum Dichter ward; ich schloß mit dieser Hymne auf die Natur.” Ibid., 5. Schelle remarks upon Heydenreich’s early aspirations to write poetry and drama, and he even mentions that as a young man Heydenreich often composed poems while sitting beneath groves of trees (Karl Heinrich Heydenreichs Charakteristik, 25). Some of Heydenreich’s poems appeared as Gedichte (Leipzig, 1792), and a collected edition, assembled by his brother, was published posthumously in 1803. Heydenreich could possibly be using Xenophanes and Parmenides to personify his own dual identity as both philosopher and poet, thus having what amounts to a conversation within himself regarding his own conflicted feelings regarding Spinoza. More likely, however, is that the philosopher and the poet refer more broadly to the Enlightenment discourse pitting thinking against feeling, Verstand against Sinnlichkeit. Heydenreich is not entirely consistent as to whether the shepherds are real. Early in the text, Parmenides says he has added them to the drawing: “In der Vertiefung des Thales dort habe ich eine Schäferszene anbegracht” (Natur und Gott, 5), but later Heydenreich says that the two friends listen to shepherds sing just before returning home in late evening: “Zufriedenheit und Ruhe durchwallte ihre Herzen, da sie jetzt die Anhöhe herabstiegen, und ihr Gefühl gieng in eine sanftschauernde Andacht über, da sie unten im Thale die Hirten gelagert in einen Kreis ein frommes Abendlied singen hörten” (ibid., 73–74). See, for example, ibid., xi, xviii, 122. “Er eilte einer Anhöhe zu, von welcher er die ganze schöne Gegend übersehn konnte. . . .” Ibid., 4. “[S]o war es ihm dennoch am Abend eine Wollust, die Ideenreihen zu übersehn, die er durch seine Kräfte entwickelt, oder zusammengesetzt hatte” (ibid., 3). Ibid., xv. Ibid., 78. Gilles Deleuze also gives a topographical reading of Spinoza’s Ethics, although in a very different way, when he characterizes the text’s scholia as a “stratum” that runs through the book: “For in their own discontinuous way the scholia [form] a broken line which runs right through the work at a certain depth, but which rises to the surface only at particular points (of

Notes to Chapter Seven

10. 11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

16.

17.

299

fracture). . . . There are thus as it were two Ethics existing side by side, one constituted by the continuous line or tide of propositions, proofs and corollaries, and the other, discontinuous, constituted by the broken line or volcanic chain of the scholia.” Deleuze, Expressionism in Philosophy, 344– 45. See Ch. 6, n107. Béatrice Longuenesse has explored a similar contrast of “perspectives” in an essay analyzing Hegel’s interpretation of Kant, “Point of View of Man or Knowledge of God: Kant and Hegel on Concept, Judgment, and Reason,” in The Reception of Kant’s Critical Philosophy: Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel, ed. Sally Sedgwick (Cambridge, 2000), 253–82. In contrast with my interpretation, Heydenreich states that the form of his exposition is inconsequential to the content of the argument: “Ich verbitte das letztere ausdrücklich um desto mehr, da ich mich bey meiner Darstellung an keine feste Form binden, sondern bald dialogisch, bald erzählend, bald betrachtend abhandeln werde, welches ohne vorhergegangene Erinnerung vielleicht zu Mißverständnissen Anlaß geben könnte. Der redliche kluge Leser wird indessen auch ohne sie die Materie von der Form zu unterscheiden wissen.” Natur und Gott, xv. Kant’s theme of “orientation,” by which he believes that reason can justify these ideas in their practical rather than their theoretical use, is taken directly from a passage in Mendelssohn’s Morgenstunden. But it is also just as clearly a development of his own image of the ocean surrounding the “isle of truth,” as well as earlier geographical analogies in his pre-critical essay, “Von dem ersten Grunde des Unterschiedes der Gegenden im Raume” (1768). See Beiser, The Fate of Reason, 98–102. The previous quotations are taken from Immanuel Kant, “What is Orientation in Thinking?” in Critique of Practical Reason and Other Writings in Moral Philosophy, trans. and ed. Lewis White Beck (Chicago, 1949), 294–96. German terms are taken from “Was heißt: sich im Denken orientieren?” in Immanuel Kant, Werke in zehn Bänden, ed. Wilhelm Weischedel (Darmstadt, 1975), 5:267–83. “A pure rational belief is, therefore, the signpost [Wegweiser] or compass by which the speculative thinker can orient himself in his rational excursions in the field of supersensuous objects.” Kant, “Orientation,” 301. Bernard translates Kant’s term Gebiet as “realm,” but I have substituted the word “domain” throughout to maintain consistent usage with the rest of my text. There are difficulties in interpreting Kant’s two seemingly incompatible notions in this passage—on the one hand he insists that the two domains “overlap” in some sense by exercising their authority over a single territory, yet when he tries to visualize this abstract relation, he finds that he must place the domains side-by-side with a chasm between. My own position,

300

18.

19.

20.

21.

22.

Notes to Chapter Seven that the necessity of this side-by-side imagery is endemic to the problematic of critical distance, is similar to that of Christine Pries: “Man muß sich die von Kant entworfene Architektonik seines Systems also so vorstellen, daß zwei objektive Teile nebeneinander bestehen bleiben, wobei ein subjektives Element, das weder zum einen noch zum anderen Teil gehört (vgl. EE, 6) sondern eigenständig ist, dafür sorgt, daß der praktische Teil auf den theoretischen Einfluß nehmen kann.” Pries, Übergänge ohne Brücken, 78. Also for comparison: “We now propose to make a trial whether it be not possible to find for human reason safe conduct between these two rocks (Locke’s enthusiasm [Schwärmerei] and Hume’s skepticism), assigning to her determinate limits, and yet keeping open for her the whole field of her appropriate activities.” KrV, B128. “Scepticism is thus a resting-place for human reason, where it can reflect upon its dogmatic wanderings and make survey of the region in which it finds itself, so that for the future it may be able to choose its path with more certainty. But it is no dwelling-place for permanent settlement. Such can be obtained only through perfect certainty in our knowledge, alike of the objects themselves and of the limits within which all our knowledge of objects is enclosed.” KrV, B789. See also KrV, Bvii-viii, Bxiv, B121. Deleuze and Guattari see “nomadism” as the “outside” of sedentary, statecentered philosophy, and they are highly cognizant of its effects on spatial organization, especially with regard to territorial administration and mapping: “A ‘method’ [the reference is to Kant, Descartes, and Hegel] is the striated space of the cogitatio universalis and draws a path that must be followed from one point to another. But the form of exteriority situates thought in a smooth space [e.g., the ocean or a desert] that it must occupy without counting, and for which there is no possible method, no conceivable reproduction, but only relays, intermezzos, resurgences.” Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, 377. See also x-xii, 380–87. “In one note [from “The Conflict of the Faculties” (1798)] Kant writes: ‘The purpose of walking in the open air is precisely to keep one’s attention moving from one object to another and so to keep it from becoming fixed on any one object.’ Of course, for Kant this distraction and relaxation only serves as preparation for more adequately fixing the object of thought. For him, walking, despite its association with the peripatetic ideal of the ancients, does not describe the nature of thinking as such.” Vries, Religion and Violence, 118–19. Heydenreich uses this term in a similar way: “Vermessen kann man eine solche Vostellungsart weder in objecktiver noch in subjektiver Rücksicht nennen. Vermessen ist ein (vorgebliches) Wissen, womit ich alle Grenzen der Erkennbarkeit überfliege; Vermessen ist ein Glaube, bey welchem ich Sätze, als Bedingungen meiner Selbsteinigkeit annehme, welche es gar nicht sind.”

Notes to Chapter Seven

23.

24. 25.

26.

27. 28. 29.

30.

31. 32.

301

Heydenreich, “Ideen über den Einfluss der Philosophie auf die Beruhigung des Leidenden,” in Originalideen, 3:126. “If I represent the earth as it appears to my senses, as a flat surface, with a circular horizon, I cannot know how far it extends. But experience teaches me that wherever I may go, I always see a space around me in which I could proceed further; and thus I know the limits of my actual knowledge of the earth at any given time, but not the limits of all possible geography. But if I have got so far as to know that the earth is a sphere and that its surface is spherical, I am able even from a small part of it, for instance, from the magnitude of a degree, to know determinately, in accordance with principles a priori, the diameter, and through it the total superficial area of the earth; and although I am ignorant of the objects which this surface may contain, I yet have knowledge in respect of its circuit, magnitude, and limits.” KrV, B787. KrV, B715, B731, B858. For example: “But a complete review of all the power of reason—and the conviction thereby obtained of the certainty of its claims to a modest territory [Besitz], as also of the vanity of higher pretensions—puts an end to the conflict, and induces it to rest satisfied with a limited but undisputed patrimony [Eigentum].” KrV, B796. See also KrV, Bxv, Bxxii, B767–68, B771, B797, B806, among others. For example: “[Pure a priori concepts] must be in a position to show a certificate of birth quite other than that of descent from experiences.” KrV, B119. A few paragraphs earlier, Kant explicitly acknowledges that this terminology of “rights and claims” is taken directly from jurists (KrV, B116). James J. Sheehan, German History, 1770–1866 (Oxford, 1994), 101–4, 132. Manfred Brocker, Kants Besitzlehre: zur Problematik einer transzendentalphilosophischen Eigentumslehre (Würzburg, 1987). See, for example, Ann Bermingham, Landscape and Ideology: The English Rustic Tradition, 1740–1860 (Berkeley, 1986); and Stephen Daniels, Humphry Repton: Landscape Gardening and the Geography of Georgian England (New Haven, 1999). Hans Erich Bödeker, “On the Origins of the ‘Statistical Gaze’: Modes of Perception, Forms of Knowledge and Ways of Writing in the Early Social Sciences,” in Little Tools of Knowledge: Historical Essays on Academic and Bureaucratic Practices, ed. Peter Becker and William Clark (Ann Arbor, 2001). Robin May Schott, Cognition and Eros: A Critique of the Kantian Paradigm (Boston, 1988). Henry E. Lowood, “The Calculating Forester: Quantification, Cameral Science, and the Emergence of Scientific Forestry Management in Germany,” in The Quantifying Spirit in the 18th Century, ed. Tore Frängsmyr, J. L.

302

33.

34.

35.

36.

37.

38.

Notes to Chapter Seven Heilbron, and Robin E. Rider (Berkeley, 1990), 315–42. James C. Scott synthesizes Lowood’s findings with several other case studies to articulate a general theory of bureaucratic vision in his Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed (New Haven, 1998). See esp. p. 11–52. In the Critique of Judgment, Kant consistently phrases this idea in more general terms, as one’s having no interest in “the existence of the object” (§2). In his earlier aesthetic writings, however, he expresses the principle more specifically as the desire to possess the object, or as in the following case, a view: “Eine Aussicht auf eine schöne Gegend aus meinem Fenster halte ich vor schöner als die weit schönere Gegend, die ein anderer hat. Denn was meiner an Schönheit fehlet, ersetzt den Reiz, daß ich sie besitze. Beurtheile ich also das Schöne mit Reiz vermengt, so kann wohl das, was mir zugehöret, mir schöner als andere wirklich schönere Sachen vorkommen.” Kant, “Über ästhetische und logische Vollkommenheit” (1772), in Immanuel Kant. Schriften zur Ästhetik und Naturphilosophie, ed. Manfred Frank and Véronique Zanetti (Frankfurt am Main, 1996), 144. John Barrell, “The Public Prospect and the Private View: The Politics of Taste in Eighteenth-Century Britain,” in Landscape, Natural Beauty and the Arts, ed. Salim Kemal and Ivan Gaskell (Cambridge, 1993), 81–102. As Barrell points out, it was convenient for these landowners to cultivate a “disinterested” taste because they already owned the prospect. Schelle makes a strikingly similar connection between the ability to apprehend landscape prospects and the legitimacy of political rule in Karl Heinrich Heydenreichs Charakteristik, 64. “ . . . daß die erstere [bestimmende] nur schematisch, unter Gestzen eines andern Vermögens (des Verstandes), die zweite aber allein technisch (nach eigenen Gesetzen) verfahre und daß dem letztern Verfahren ein Prinzip der Technik der Natur, mithin der Begriff einer Zweckmäßigkeit, die man an ihr a priori voraussetzen muß, zum Grunde liege. . . .” EE, 474. Cf. EE, 433–34. “The hypothetical employment of reason has, therefore, as its aim the systematic unity of the knowledge of understanding, and this unity is the criterion of the truth of its rules. The systematic unity (as a mere idea) is, however, only a projected [projektierte] unity, to be regarded not as given in itself, but as a problem only.” KrV, B675. “Auf solche Weise sehen wir Erden, Steine, Mineralien u. d. g. ohne alle zweckmäßige Form, als bloße Aggregate, dennoch den innern Charaktern und Erkenntnisgründen ihrer Möglichkeit nach so verwandt, daß sie unter empirischen Gesetzen zur Klassifikation der Dinge in einem System der Natur tauglich sind, ohne doch eine Form des Systems an ihnen selbst zu zeigen.” EE, 438. Brodsky, “Architecture and Architectonics,” 112.

Bibliography

ABBREVIATIONS OF KANT’S WORKS EE KpV KrV KU Prol

“Erste Einleitung in die Kritik der Urteilskraft” Kritik der praktischen Vernunft Kritik der reinen Vernunft Kritik der Urteilskraft Prolegomena zu einer jeden künftigen Metaphysik

PRIMARY TEXTS Alison, Archibald. Essays on the Nature and Principles of Taste. Edinburgh, 1790. Becker, Wilhelm Gottlieb. Neue Garten- und Landschafts-Gebäude. Leipzig, 1798. ———. Der Plauische Grund bei Dresden: mit Hinsicht auf Naturgeschichte und schöne Gartenkunst. Nürnberg, 1799. ———. Das Seifersdorfer Thal. Leipzig, 1792. ———, ed. Taschenbuch für Gartenfreunde. Leipzig, 1795–99. ———, ed. Taschenbuch zum geselligen Vergnügen. Mit Kupfern, Landkarten, Musik und Tänzen. Leipzig, 1791–1814. Bouterwek, Friedrich. Aesthetik, Erster Theil, Allgemeine Theorie des Schönen in der Natur und Kunst. Leipzig, 1806. ———. Aesthetik. Göttingen, 1824. Cotta, Johann Friedrich, ed. Taschenkalender für Natur- und Gartenfreunde. Stuttgart, 1795–1806. Fichte, Johann Gottlieb. Introductions to the Wissenschaftslehre and Other Writings (1797– 1800). Translated and edited by Daniel Breazeale. Indianapolis, 1994. Girardin, René-Louis Marquis de. De la composition des paysages. Geneva and Paris, 1777. Translated by Wilhelm Gottlieb Becker as Von Verschönerung der Natur um Landwohnungen (1778). Grohmann, Johann Christian August. “Ansicht vom Luisium bei Dessau.” In Becker, Taschenbuch für Gartenfreunde, 1796:48–78.

303

304

Bibliography

———. “Beschreibung des Engländischen Gartens zu Wörlitz bei Dessau.” In Becker, Taschenbuch für Gartenfreunde, 1795:94–251. ———. Dem Andenken Kants, oder, die neuern philosophischen Systeme in ihrer Nichtigkeit. Berlin, 1804. ———. “Fichte und Kant, oder Versuch einer Ausgleichung der Fichteschen und Kantischen Philosophie.” Philosophisches Journal 7, no. 3 (1797; appeared in May 1798): 187–212. ———. Neue Theorie der schönen Gartenkunst. 2 Bde. Leipzig, 1797. ———. Ueber Christusgemählde, oder über die Behandlung dieses Stoffs in der Mahlerey; nebst Beschreibung einiger Gemählde vom Herrn Prof. Oeser und Herrn Ramberg. Leipzig, 1794. ———. “Ueber deutsche Gärten, nebst einer Beschreibung des Silitzer Berges bei Dessau.” In Becker, Taschenbuch für Gartenfreunde, 1799:5–58. Grohmann, Johann Gottfried. Ideenmagazin für Liebhaber von Gärten, Englischen Anlagen und für Besitzer von Landgütern um Gärten und ländliche Gegenden, sowohl mit geringem als auch grossem Geldaufwand, nach den originellsten Englischen, Gothischen, Sinesischen Geschmacksmanieren zu verschönern und zu veredeln. Leipzig, 1796–1806. ———. Sammlung von gesellschaftlichen Gartenspielen und ländlichen Vergnügungen die mit Leibesbewegung verbunden, Personen, deren Beruf ist, viel zu sitzen, vorzüglich zu empfehlen, und dem Hufelandischen System, die Gesundheit durch Bewegung und frohen Muth zu. . . . Leipzig, [1799]. Grohmann, Johann Gottfried, and Karl Heinrich Heydenreich, eds. Kurzgefasstes Handwörterbuch über die schönen Künste, von einer Gesellschaft von Gelehrten. Leipzig, 1794–95. Heusinger, Johann H. G. Handbuch der Aesthetik, oder Grundsätze zur Bearbeitung und Beurtheilung der Werke einer jeden schönen Kunst, als der Poesie, Malerei, Bildhauerkunst, Musik, Mimik, Baukunst, Gartenkunst u.s.w. für Künstler und Kunstliebhaber. Gotha, 1797. Heydenreich, Karl Heinrich. “Aesthetische Grundsätze über die Allegorie der schönen Kunst, vorzüglich der bildenden und der Dichtkunst.” In his Originalideen, 2:39–60. ———. “Bemerkungen über den Zusammenhang des Aesthetisch-Edlen mit dem Moralisch-Edlen.” In his Originalideen, 3:181–210. ———. Betrachtungen über die Philosophie der natürlichen Religion. 2 Bde. Leipzig, 1790. ———. “Einige Ideen über den Charakter des Gartens, als eines Werks schöner Kunst.” In Lézay-Marnézia, Ländliche Natur, 403–43. Leipzig, 1792. Reprinted in Lézay-Marnézia, Schöne Gartenkunst, 403–43. Leipzig, 1798. ———. “Fragmente über den Zusammenhang der Empfindung und Phantasie,” In his Originalideen, 2:99–178. ———. Natur und Gott nach Spinoza. Leipzig, 1789.

Bibliography

305

———. “Neuer Begrif der Baukunst als schönen Kunst,” Deutsche Monatsschrift (Oct. 1798): 160–64. ———. Originalideen über die interessantesten Gegenstände der Philosophie. 3 Bde. Leipzig, 1793–96. ———. “Philosophische Grundsätze über die Nachahmung der landschaftlichen Natur in Gärten.” In his Originalideen, 1:193–230. ———. System der Ästhetik. Leipzig, 1790. ———. “Ueber die Möglichkeit einer Philosophie der schönen Künste, in Rücksicht der Einwürfe, welche Herr Kant in der Kritik der Urtheilskraft dagegen erhoben hat.” In his Originalideen. 2:1–38. Hirschfeld, Christian Cay Lorenz. Anmerkungen über die Landhäuser und die Gartenkunst. Leipzig, 1773. ———. Gartenkalender auf das Jahr. . . . Kiel, 1782–89. ———. Kleine Gartenbibliothek. Kiel, 1790. ———. Theorie der Gartenkunst. Leipzig, 1775. ———. Theorie der Gartenkunst. 5 Bde. Leipzig, 1779–85. Translated and edited by Linda B. Parshall as Theory of Garden Art (Philadelphia, 2001). Hume, David. Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion. Edited by Martin Bell. London, 1990. [Jugler, Johann Heinrich]. Leipzig und seine Universität im 18. Jahrhundert: Aufzeichnungen des Leipziger Studenten Johann Heinrich Jugler aus dem Jahre 1779. Edited by Friedrich Zarncke. Leipzig, 1909. Kant, Immanuel. “Erste Einleitung in die Kritik der Urteilskraft.” In Immanuel Kant: Schriften zur Ästhetik und Naturphilosophie, edited by Manfred Frank and Véronique Zanetti, 415–78. Frankfurt am Main, 1996. ———. Immanuel Kant: Schriften zur Ästhetik und Naturphilosophie. Edited by Manfred Frank and Véronique Zanetti. Frankfurt am Main, 1996. ———. Kritik der praktischen Vernunft. Edited by Karl Vorländer. Hamburg, 1985. Translated and edited by Lewis White Beck as Critique of Practical Reason. 3rd ed. (New York, 1993). ———. Kritik der reinen Vernunft. Edited by Jens Timmermann. Hamburg, 1998. Translated by Norman Kemp Smith as Critique of Pure Reason (New York, 1965). ———. Kritik der Urteilskraft. Edited by Heiner F. Klemme. Hamburg, 2001. Translated by J. H. Bernard as Critique of Judgment (New York, 1951). ———. Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime. Translated by John T. Goldthwait. Berkeley, 1960. ———. Prolegomena zu einer jeden künftigen Metaphysik. Edited by Konstantin Pollok. Hamburg, 2001. Translated by Paul Carus and revised by James W. Ellington as Prolegomena to any Future Metaphysics (Indianapolis, 1977). ———.“Von dem ersten Grunde des Unterschiedes der Gegenden im Raume.” In Kant’s gesammelte Schriften, edited by the Königlich Preußischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Abt.1, Bd.2:377–83. Berlin, 1912.

306

Bibliography

———. “Was heißt: sich im Denken orientieren?” In Immanuel Kant, Werke in zehn Bänden, edited by Wilhelm Weischedel, 5:267–83. Darmstadt, 1975. Translated by Lewis White Beck as “What is Orientation in Thinking?” in his Critique of Practical Reason and Other Writings in Moral Philosophy (Chicago, 1949), 293–305. Krug, Wilhelm Traugott. Geschmackslehre, oder Aesthetik. Wien, 1818. ———. Versuch einer systematischen Enzyklopädie der schönen Künste. Leipzig, 1802. Lambert, Johann Heinrich. Anlage zur Architectonic. Riga, 1771. Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm. Philosophical Essays. Edited and translated by Roger Ariew and Daniel Garber. Indianapolis, 1989. Lézay-Marnézia, Claude-François-Adrien Marquis de. Sur la nature champêtre. Paris, 1787. Translated and edited by Johann Gottfried Grohmann as Ländliche Natur nach Marnezia (Leipzig, 1792); reprinted as Schöne Gartenkunst, Phantasien und Grundsätze über die ländlichen Natur nach Marnezia (Leipzig, 1798). Ligne, Charles Joseph de. Coup d’Œil sur Belœil et sur une grande partie des jardins de l’Europe. Belœil, 1786. Rev. ed. Vienna and Dresden, 1795. Translated and edited by Wilhelm Gottlieb Becker as Der Garten zu Beloeil, nebst einer kritischen Uebersicht der meisten Gärten Europens (Dresden, 1799). Translated and edited by Basil Guy as Coup d’Œil at Belœil and a Great Number of European Gardens (Berkeley, 1991). Magazin für Freunden des guten Geschmacks der bildenden und mechanischen Künste, Manufacturen und Gewerbe. Leipzig, 1794–1800. Morel, Jean-Marie. Théorie des jardins. Paris, 1776. Moritz, Karl Philipp. “Abwechselung und Einheit in der Landschaft. Bei einem Spaziergange in der Villa Borghese.” In his Schriften zur Ästhetik und Poetik, 217–18. ———. Schriften zur Ästhetik und Poetik: Kritische Ausgabe. Edited by Hans Joachim Schrimpf. Tübingen, 1962. ———. “Die Villa Borghese.” In his Schriften zur Ästhetik und Poetik, 249–54. Pörschke, Karl Ludwig. Gedanken über einige Gegenstände der Philosophie des Schönen. Erste Sammlung. Libau, 1794. Riedel, Friedrich Justus. Theorie der schönen Künste und Wissenschaften. Jena, 1767. Rode, August. Beschreibung des Fürstlichen Anhalt-Dessauischen Landhauses und Englischen Gartens zu Wörlitz. Dessau, 1798. Schelle, Karl Gottlob. Briefe über Garve’s Schriften und Philosophie. Leipzig, 1800. ———. Karl Heinrich Heydenreichs Charakteristik als Menschen und Schriftstellers. Leipzig, 1802. ———. Die Spatziergänge, oder die Kunst spatzieren zu gehen. Leipzig, 1802. Reprint, Hildesheim, 1990.

Bibliography

307

Schiller, Friedrich. On the Aesthetic Education of Man in a Series of Letters. Edited and translated by Elizabeth M. Wilkinson and L. A. Willoughby. Oxford, 1967. ———. Schillers Werke. Nationalausgabe. Edited by Julius Petersen and Hermann Schneider. Weimar, 1958. ———.“Über den Gartenkalender auf das Jahr 1795.” In Schillers Werke. Nationalausgabe. 22:285–92. Semler, Christian August. Ideen zu einer Gartenlogik, oder Versuch über die Kunst in englischen Gartenanlagen alles Unverständliche und Widersinnige zu vermeiden. Leipzig, 1803. ———. Untersuchungen über die höchste Vollkommenheit in der Landschaftsmalerei. 2 Bde. Leipzig, 1799–1800. ———. Versuch über die combinatorische Methode: ein Beytrag zur angewandten Logik und allgemeinen Methodik. Leipzig, 1811. ———. Würdigung und Veredlung der regelmäßigen Gärten, oder Versuch die nach dem französischen Geschmack angelegten Gärten nach den Grundsätzen der englischen Gartenkunst zu verbessern. Leipzig, 1794. Spinoza, Baruch. The Ethics and Selected Letters. Edited by Seymour Feldman. Translated by Samuel Shirley. Indianapolis, 1982. Universität Leipzig. Verzeichnis der auf der Univ. Leipzig zu haltende Vorlesungen, S1777—W1797. Univ. 899. Walpole, Horace. The History of the Modern Taste in Gardening. London, 1771. Watelet, Claude-Henri. Essai sur les jardins. Paris, 1774. Wezel, Johann Karl. Hermann und Ulrike, ein komischer Roman. 4 Bde. Leipzig, 1780. Whately, Thomas. Observations on Modern Gardening. London, 1770. Translated by Johann Ernst Zeiher as Betrachtungen über heutige Gartenwesen durch Beispiele erläutert (Leipzig, 1771). Winckelmann, Johann Joachim. Gedanken ueber die Nachahmung der griechischen Werke in der Malerey und Bildhauer-Kunst. 1755. Second, enlarged edition (Dresden, Leipzig, 1756) translated by Elfriede Heyer and Roger C. Norton as Reflections on the Imitation of Greek Works in Painting and Sculpture (La Salle, 1987).

SECONDARY LITERATURE Abel, Lothar. Aesthetik der Gartenkunst. Wien, 1877. Adickes, Erich. German Kantian Bibliography. Würzburg, 1970. Alex, Reinhard, and Hans-Dieter Kluge. Gärten um Wörlitz. Leipzig, 1994. Barrell, John. “The Public Prospect and the Private View: The Politics of Taste in Eighteenth-Century Britain.” In Landscape, Natural Beauty and the Arts, edited by Salim Kemal and Ivan Gaskell, 81–102. Cambridge, 1993. Bechtoldt, Frank-Andreas, and Thomas Weiss, eds. Weltbild Wörlitz: Entwurf einer Kulturlandschaft. Wörlitz, 1996. Beiser, Frederick C. The Fate of Reason: German Philosophy from Kant to Fichte. Cambridge, MA, 1987.

308

Bibliography

———. German Idealism: The Struggle against Subjectivism, 1781–1801. Cambridge, MA, 2002. Benn, Sheila M. Pre-Romantic Attitudes to Landscape in the Writings of Friedrich Schiller. Berlin, 1991. ———. “Friedrich Schiller and the English Garden: Über den Gartenkalender auf das Jahr 1795.” Garden History 19, no. 1 (Spring 1991): 28–46. Benndorf, Paul. Hundert Bilder zur Geschichte Leipzigs. Leipzig, 1910. Bentivoglio, Enzo, and Vincenzo Fontana, eds. Giardino romantico in Italia tra Settecento e Ottocento: negli scritti di Marulli, Pindemonte, Cesarotti, Mabil e nel Recueil de dessins di J. G. Grohmann. Rome, 2001. Bermingham, Ann. Landscape and Ideology: The English Rustic Tradition, 1740–1860. Berkeley, 1986. Bernatzky, Aloys. Von der mittelalterlichen Stadtbefestigung zu den Wallgrünflächen von heute: ein Beitrag zum Grünflächenproblem deutscher Städte. Berlin, 1960. Blackbourn, David, and Geoff Eley. The Peculiarities of German History: Bourgeois Society and Politics in Nineteenth-Century Germany. Oxford, 1984. Bödeker, Hans Erich. “On the Origins of the ‘Statistical Gaze’: Modes of Perception, Forms of Knowledge and Ways of Writing in the Early Social Sciences.” In Little Tools of Knowledge: Historical Essays on Academic and Bureaucratic Practices, edited by Peter Becker and William Clark. Ann Arbor, 2001. Borchardt, Rudolf. Der leidenschaftliche Gärtner. Frankfurt am Main, 1992. Bowie, Andrew. Aesthetics and Subjectivity: From Kant to Nietzsche. Manchester, 1993. Brasch, Moritz. Leipziger Philosophen. Portraits und Studien aus dem wissenschaftlichen Leben der Gegenwart. Mit einer historischen Einleitung: die Philosophie an der Leipziger Universität vom 15.-19. Jahrhundert. Leipzig, 1894. Breckwoldt, Michael. “Das Landleben” als Grundlage für eine Gartentheorie: eine literatur-historische Analyse der Schriften von Christian Cay Lorenz Hirschfeld. Munich, 1995. Brocker, Manfred. Kants Besitzlehre: Zur Problematik einer transzendental-philosophische Eigentumslehre. Würzburg, 1987. Brodsky, Claudia. “Architecture and Architectonics: ‘The Art of Reason’ in Kant’s Critique.” In Canon, vol. 3 of The Princeton Journal: Thematic Studies in Architecture, 103–17. New York, 1988. ———. The Imposition of Form: Studies in Narrative Representation and Knowledge. Princeton, 1987. Brodsky Lacour, Claudia. “Architecture in the Discourse of Modern Philosophy: Descartes to Nietzsche.” In Nietzsche and “An Architecture of Our Minds,” edited by Alexandre Kostka and Irving Wohlfarth, 19–34. Los Angeles, 1999. ———. Lines of Thought: Discourse, Architectonics, and the Origin of Modern Philosophy. Durham, 1996. Brüning, Ortlef. “Das Schloß in Eythra—Bauideen zwischen Weimarer Musenhof und Leipziger Bürgerkultur.” In Ullmann,—die ganze Welt im kleinen—.

Bibliography

309

Clausmeyer, B. Die Wallanlagen in Frankfurt am Main: Entwicklung von der mittelalterlichen Stadtbefestigung zu den heutigen Wallgrünflächen. Frankfurt am Main, 1988. Collins, Randall. The Sociology of Philosophies: A Global Theory of Intellectual Change. Cambridge, 1998. Daniels, Stephen. Humphry Repton: Landscape Gardening and the Geography of Georgian England. New Haven, 1999. Davies, Martin L. Identity or history? Marcus Herz and the End of the Enlightenment. Detroit, 1995. Deleuze, Gilles. Expressionism in Philosophy: Spinoza. New York, 1990. Deleuze, Gilles and Felix Guattari. A Thousand Pleateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Minneapolis, 1988. Dobai, Johannes. Die bildenden Künste in Johann Georg Sulzers Ästhetik. Winterthur, 1978. Dohna, Ursula Gräfin zu. Gärten und Parke in Ostpreußen: 400 Jahre Gartenkunst. Busse Seewald, 1993. Donath, Matthias. “Zwischen ‘Augiasstall’ und ‘Universitas litterarum’: die Universität Leipzig um 1800.” In Topfstedt and Zwahr, Leipzig um 1800, 43–59. Drayton, Richard. Nature’s Government: Science, Imperial Britain, and the ‘Improvement’ of the World. New Haven, 2000. Dresden: von der Königlichen Kunstakademie zur Hochschule für Bildende Künste (1764– 1989). Dresden, 1990. Drewen, Uwe. Die Entwicklung der deutsch-sprächigen Gartenkunst-Zeitschriften: von den Anfangen bis zum Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts. Hannover, 1989. Dünkelsbühler, Ulrike Oudée. Reframing the Frame of Reason: “Trans-lation”in and beyond Kant and Derrida. Amherst, 2002. Eagleton, Terry. The Ideology of the Aesthetic. Oxford, 1990. Fauser, Markus. “Die Promenade als Kunstwerk: Karl Gottlob Schelles Theorie des Spaziergangs.” Afterword to 1990 reprint of Schelle, Die Spatziergänge. ———. Das Gespräch im 18. Jahrhundert: Rhetorik und Geselligkeit in Deutschland. Stuttgart, 1991. Fellmeth, Ulrich. “Die Gärten von Hohenheim.” In Gartenführer Universität Hohenheim, 5–15. Stuttgart, 1993. Ferry, Luc. Homo Aestheticus: The Invention of Taste in the Democratic Age. Chicago, 1993. Fischer-Lichte, Erika, and Jörg Schönert, eds. Theater im Kulturwandel des 18. Jahrhunderts: Inszenierung und Wahrnehmung von Körper—Musik—Sprache. Göttingen, 1999. Forster, Christian. “Carl Friedrich Dauthe: Löhrs Garten und Löhrs Haus in Leipzig: ein früher Landschaftsgarten und ein Palais im Zopfstil.” In Topfstedt and Zwahr, Leipzig um 1800, 143–62. Frank, Hilmar. “Schauspiel der Natur—Inszenierung der Natur.” In Fischer-Lichte and Schönert, Theater im Kulturwandel, 385–402.

310

Bibliography

Franke, Martin. “Adam Friedrich Oeser und die Leipziger Akademie.” In Ullmann,—die ganze Welt im kleinen—, 144–54. Franz, Heinrich Gerhard. Zacharias Longuelune und die Baukunst des 18. Jahrhunderts in Dresden. Berlin, 1953. Gause, Fritz. Die Geschichte der Stadt Königsberg in Preussen. Bd. 2, Von der Königskrönung bis zum Ausbruch des ersten Weltkrieges. Köln, 1968. Gerndt, Siegmar. Idealisierte Natur: die literarische Kontroverse um den Landschaftsgarten des 18. und frühen 19. Jahrhunderts in Deutschland. Stuttgart, 1981. Gothein, Marie Luise. Geschichte der Gartenkunst. 2 Bde. Jena, 1914. Gräfe, Kristina. “Adam Friedrich Oeser und die Gründung der Kunstakademie in Leipzig.” In Topfstedt and Zwahr, Leipzig um 1800, 127–42. Grebing, Helga. Der “deutsche Sonderweg” in Europa 1806–1945: eine Kritik. Stuttgart, 1986. Günther, Harri, ed. Gärten der Goethezeit. Leipzig, 1992. Guthke, Karl. “Zur Frühgeschichte des Rousseauismus in Deutschland.” Zeitschrift für deutsche Philologie 77, Heft 4 (1958): 384–96. Guyer, Paul. Kant and the Experience of Freedom: Essays on Aesthetics and Morality. Cambridge, 1996. Habermas, Jürgen. The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society. Cambridge, 1991. Hallbaum, Franz. Der Landschaftsgarten: sein Entstehen und seine Einführung in Deutschland durch Friedrich Ludwig von Sckell, 1750–1823. München, 1927. Hebold, Kurt. “Karl Heinrich Heydenreichs Individual-Pädagogik dargestellt mit besonderer Berücksichtigung seiner Philosophie, Psychologie und Ästhetik.” Diss., Leipzig, 1909. Henrich, Dieter. Aesthetic Judgment and the Moral Image of the World: Studies in Kant. Stanford, 1992. Hinske, Norbert et al., eds. Der Aufbruch in den Kantianismus: der Frühkantianismus an der Universität Jena von 1785–1800 und seine Vorgeschichte. Stuttgart, 1995. Hoffmann, Alfred. Der Landschaftsgarten. Vol. 3 of D. Hennebo, A. Hoffmann, Geschichte der deutschen Gartenkunst. Hamburg, 1963. Hunt, John Dixon. Greater Perfections: The Practice of Garden Theory. Philadelphia, 2000. ———. The Picturesque Garden in Europe. London, 2002. Jäger, Hermann. Gartenkunst und Gärten sonst und jetzt: Handbuch für Gärtner, Architekten und Liebhaber. Berlin, 1888. John, Timo. “Adam Friedrich Oeser (1717–1799): ein unbekannter Gartenkünstler.” Die Gartenkunst 11, Heft 2 (1999): 285–307. Kang, Young Ahn. Schema and Symbol: A Study in Kant’s Doctrine of Schematism. Amsterdam, 1985. Käuser, Andreas. “Körperzeichentheorie und Körperausdruckstheorie.” In FischerLichte and Schönert, Theater im Kulturwandel, 39–51.

Bibliography

311

Kehn, Wolfgang. “Adel und Gartenkunst in Schleswig-Holstein in der zweiten Hälfte des 18. Jahrhunderts.” In Staatsdienst und Menschlichkeit, edited by Dieter Lohmeier and Christian Degn, 271–96. Neumünster, 1980. ———. Christian Cay Lorenz Hirschfeld, 1742–1792: eine Biographie. Worms, 1992. Klausmeier, Axel. “Lernen vom ‘Stein’: ein Beitrag zur Bedeutungsvielfalt des ‘Steins’ in der Wörlitzer Anlagen.” Die Gartenkunst 9, Heft 2 (1997): 367–79. Koch, Hugo. Sächsische Gartenkunst. Berlin, 1910. Kocka, Jürgen. “Bürgertum und Sonderweg.” In Sozial- und Kulturgeschichte des Bürgertums: eine Bilanz des Bielefelder Sonderforschungsbereichs (1986–1997), edited by Peter Lundgreen, 93–110. Göttingen, 2000. König, Gudrun M. Eine Kulturgeschichte des Spazierganges: Spuren einer bürgerlichen Praktik, 1780–1850. Vienna, 1996. Kretschmer, Paul. “Dualismus und das Streben nach Synthese in den philosophischen Schriften Friedrich Schillers.” Diss., Münster (Westf.), 1971. Kulturstiftung DessauWörlitz. Der Vulkan im Wörlitzer Park. Berlin, 2005. Lehmann, Pit. “Vom Verteidigungsgelände zum Promenadenring.” In Topfstedt and Zwahr, Leipzig um 1800, 6–16. Lengelsen, Monika. “Spaziergänger in Wörlitz.” In Park und Garten im 18. Jahrhundert, 119–24. Lloyd, David. “Kant’s Examples.” Representations 28 (Fall 1989): 34–54. Löffler, Katrin. “Aufklärerische Kommunikationsformen in der Stadt Leipzig.” In Topfstedt and Zwahr, Leipzig um 1800, 17–42. Longuenesse, Béatrice. “Point of View of Man or Knowledge of God: Kant and Hegel on Concept, Judgment, and Reason.” In The Reception of Kant’s Critical Philosophy: Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel, edited by Sally Sedgwick, 253–82. Cambridge, 2000. Lowood, Henry E. “The Calculating Forester: Quantification, Cameral Science, and the Emergence of Scientific Forestry Management in Germany.” In The Quantifying Spirit in the 18th Century, edited by Tore Frängsmyr, J. L. Heilbron, and Robin E. Rider, 315–42. Berkeley, 1990. Lukács, Georg. Ästhetik Teil I. Bd. 12, Werke. Neuwied am Rhein, Berlin-Spandau, 1963. McClelland, Charles E. State, Society, and University in Germany, 1700–1914. Cambridge, 1980. McLaughlin, Peter. Kant’s Critique of Teleology in Biological Explanation: Antinomy and Teleology. Lewiston, 1990. Meyer, Gustav. Lehrbuch der schönen Gartenkunst, mit besonderer Rücksicht auf die praktische Ausführung von Gärten, Parkanlagen u.s.w. Berlin, 1860. Miller, Elaine P. The Vegetative Soul: From Philosophy of Nature to Subjectivity in the Feminine. Albany, 2002. Miller, Mara. The Garden as an Art. Albany, 1993. Neumeyer, Eva Marie. “The Landscape Garden as a Symbol in Rousseau, Goethe and Flaubert.” Journal of the History of Ideas 8, no. 2 (April 1947): 187–217.

312

Bibliography

Niedermeier, Michael. “Aufklärung im Gartenreich Dessau-Wörlitz.” In Bechtoldt and Weiss, Weltbild Wörlitz, 51–65. Palmquist, Stephen R. Kant’s System of Perspectives: An Architectonic Interpretation of the Critical Philosophy. Lanham, 1993. Park und Garten im 18. Jahrhundert: Colloquium der Arbeitsstelle 18. Jahrhundert Gesamthochschule Wuppertal. Heidelberg, 1978. Parshall, Linda B. “C. C. L. Hirschfeld’s Concept of the Garden in the German Enlightenment.” Journal of Garden History 13 (1993): 125–71. Pevsner, Nikolaus. Academies of Art, Past and Present. Cambridge, 1940. Philipp, Klaus Jan. Um 1800: Architekturtheorie und Architekturkritik in Deutschland zwischen 1790 und 1810. Stuttgart, 1997. Pochat, Götz. “Gartenkunst und Landschaftsgarten vor Wörlitz.” In Bechtoldt and Weiss, Weltbild Wörlitz, 17–49. Pries, Christine. Übergänge ohne Brücken: Kants Erhabenes zwischen Kritik und Metaphysik. Berlin, 1995. Richards, Annette. The Free Fantasia and the Musical Picturesque. Cambridge, 2001. Richards, Sarah. “A Magazine for the Friends of Good Taste: Sensibility and Rationality in Garden Design in Late Eighteenth-Century Germany.” Studies in the History of Gardens and Designed Landscapes 20, no. 3 (Autumn 2000): 229–48. Riedel, Wolfgang. “Der Spaziergang”: Ästhetik der Landschaft und Geschichtsphilosophie der Natur bei Schiller. Würzburg, 1989. Rodekamp, Volker, ed. Das Schillerhaus in Leipzig-Gohlis. Leipzig, 1998. Ross, Stephanie. What Gardens Mean. Chicago, 1998. Rüdiger, Birthe. “Der Großbosesche Garten—‘etwas Merckwürdiges von Leipzig.’” In Ullmann,—die ganze Welt im kleinen—, 92–102. Schepers, Wolfgang. “C. C. L. Hirschfelds Theorie der Gartenkunst (1779–85) und die Frage des ‘deutschen Gartens.’” In Park und Garten im 18. Jahrhundert, 83–92. ———. Hirschfelds Theorie der Gartenkunst, 1779–1785. Worms, 1980. Schlüter, Paul. “Carl Heinrich Heydenreichs System der Ästhetik.” Diss., Halle, 1939. Schneider, K. E. Die Aesthetik der Gartenkunst: ein Beitrag zur Einführung derselben in das Kunstsystem. Leipzig, 1890. ———. Die schöne Gartenkunst in ihren Grundzügen dargestellt: ein Versuch zur ästhetischen Begründung derselben. Stuttgart, 1882. Schott, Robin May. Cognition and Eros: A Critique of the Kantian Paradigm. Boston, 1988. Scott, James C. Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed. New Haven, 1998. Sennett, Richard. The Conscience of the Eye: The Design and Social Life of Cities. New York, 1990. Sheehan, James J. German History, 1770–1866. Oxford, 1994. Simmel, Georg. “Philosophie der Landschaft.” In his Das Individuum und die Freiheit: Essais, 130–39. Berlin, 1984.

Bibliography

313

Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden. Zweihundert Jahre Hochschule für Bildende Künste Dresden, 1764–1964: Ausstellung vom 7. September 1964 bis 28. Februar 1965 im Albertinum Dresden. Dresden, 1965. Stadtgeschichtliches Museum Leipzig, Sammlung Eduscho Bremen. Süsse muss der Coffee sein! drei Jahrhunderte europäische Kaffeekultur und die Kaffeesachsen. Leipzig, 1994. Stern, Robert. Hegel, Kant and the Structure of the Object. London, 1990. Todorov, Tzvetan. Theories of the Symbol. Ithaca, 1982. Topfstedt, Thomas, and Hartmut Zwahr, eds. Leipzig um 1800: Beiträge zur Sozialund Kulturgeschichte. Beucha, 1998. Trajkovitz, Thomas. “Der Leipziger Kaufmann und Manufakturist Andreas Dietrich Apel und sein Garten.” In Ullmann,—die ganze Welt im kleinen—, 103–16. Trauzettel, Ludwig. “Gartenkünstler und Gartenkunst in Wörlitz.” In Bechtoldt and Weiss, Weltbild Wörlitz, 85–98. Ullmann, Ernst, ed.—die ganze Welt im kleinen—: Kunst und Kunstgeschichte in Leipzig. Leipzig, 1989. Volk, Waltraud. Leipzig: Historische Straßen und Plätze heute. Berlin, 1979. Vries, Hent de. Religion and Violence: Philosophical Perspectives from Kant to Derrida. Baltimore, 2002. Weiss, Allen S. Mirrors of Infinity: The French Formal Garden and Seventeenth-Century Aesthetics. Paris, 1992. Wenger, Michael. “Schillers Herzog: Zum Wandel der Festkultur unter Herzog Carl Eugen von Württemberg.” In GeistesSpuren: Friedrich Schiller in der Württembergischen Landesbibliothek, edited by Jörg Ennen and Vera Trost. Stuttgart, 2005. Wiebenson, Dora. The Picturesque Garden in France. Princeton, 1978. Williamson, Tom. Polite Landscapes: Gardens and Society in Eighteenth-Century England. Baltimore, 1995. Wimmer, Clemens Alexander. Geschichte der Gartentheorie. Darmstadt, 1989. Zande, Johan van der. “In the Image of Cicero: German Philosophy between Wolff and Kant.” Journal of the History of Ideas 56, no. 3 (July 1995): 419–42. ———.“Orpheus in Berlin: A Reappraisal of Johann Georg Sulzer’s Theory of the Polite Arts.” Central European History 28, no. 2 (1995): 175–208.

Index

Note: Page references in italics indicate illustrations.

A Abicht, Johann Heinrich, 56–57 absence vs. presence, 90–91 Absicht (legibility of intent), 129–30 Absolute Subject, 150 academic gardens, 13–57; acceptance of, 13, 14, 243n.10; art academies in Saxony, 18–22, 244n.21 (see also Dresden Academy; Leipzig Academy); botanic, 14, 15, 16, 243n.9; vs. gardens as medical discipline, 14, 15; Hirschfeld’s promotion of, 13–18, 242n.5; identity derived from dedicated uses of, 16–18; and Kantianism vs. Popularphilosophie, 53–57, 262–63nn.155–156; and recreational uses of gardens, 16; and social networks of academics, 42–53, 256n.102 (see also individual academics). See also Leipzig as garden art center Adelung, Johann Christoph, 260n.131 aesthetic ideas, 132–35 Aesthetic Letters (Schiller), 137, 141, 142– 44, 146–48 aesthetic objects/unity, 150–52 aesthetics: beauty, ideal of, 76; emphasis on, following publication of the Critiques, 2; and ethics, 74; on imitation, 76–78, 87 (see also semiotics); literary, French model of, 261n.139; regular-

ity and utility in, 66–67; and rhetoric, 76, 266nn.33–35; rise of, 13; sense/form/play as underlying, 142–46, 147; sensus communis in, 41, 42, 199, 254n.90, 292n.59, 296n.97. See also Kantianism Aesthetisches Wörterbuch (Heydenreich), 258n.115 affirmation vs. negation, 91 agency, 113–36; Absicht, 129–30; and architectonics, 125–29, 279– 80nn.34–35, 279nn.29–30; and concepts, 113–14; and gardens and ethics, 135–36, 283n.54; and Genie, 113–14, 121–25, 127–29, 131–36, 281–82nn.44–45 (see also Genie); and mechanism/discursivity, 114–19, 125, 129, 130, 134, 276n.7, 276nn.9–10; and natural signs, 122–23, 124; and natural vs. artistic beauty, 119–22 Alison, Archibald: Essays on the Nature and Principles of Taste, 106–7, 269n.73, 274n.118; influence of, 106–8, 265n.25, 269n.73 allegory, 82, 267n.50 Allgemeine Deutsche Bibliothek, 43 Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung, 56 Allgemeine Theorie der schönen Künste (Sulzer), 256nn.98–99

315

316 Ammerkungen über die Landhäuser und die Gartenkunst (Hirschfeld), 14 analytic-synthetic method, 115, 117–18 Anlage zur Architektonic (Lambert), 101–2 Anthropologie (Platner), 54 Apels Garten (Leipzig), 30, 31, 248n.46 Aper, 266n.35 Aphorismen (Platner), 54, 56 arborescence, 128 archetype/ectype, 195 architectonics: and agency, 125–29, 279– 80nn.34–35, 279nn.29–30; and architecture, 160, 162–63, 217– 18; ground of, 212–19, 295– 96n.90, 296n.92, 296n.98; of Kantianism, 125–29, 161–62, 238, 279nn.29–30, 280n.35, 286n.4; as metaphor/representation, 160, 162–63; as model of reason, 160–61; and Risse, 192; of succession of scenes, 127, 231 architecture: and architectonics, 160, 162–63, 217–18; and Baukunst, 138–39; Heydenreich on, 63, 66, 67, 264nn.10–11; Kant on, 181, 183–84, 185; as mechanical vs. fine art, 63, 66, 67, 264n.10 Architektur- Naturgarten debate, 244n.26 Ars Poetica (Schelle), 251n.75 Artemis-Isis, 166 artificial ruins, 166, 168, 168–70, 217, 287n.16 artistic creation, 113. See also agency arts: Alison on division of, 107–8, 274n.118; and ethics, 135–36, 283n.56; formative, 179, 180–82, 184, 185, 288n.27, 290n.41; Heydenreich on division of, 65–66, 71–72; Kant on division of, 63, 65, 71–72, 74, 264n.7; mechanical, 63, 65–66, 67, 264n.10; morality cultivated through, 64, 74; pleasant, 63, 65–66, 71. See also fine art association, laws of, 273n.109 associationism, 72

Index Ästhetik Teil I (Lukács), 69 Aufklärer, 60–61 Augustus II, King of Poland and Elector of Saxony (August der Starke), 26

B background of discourse. See discourse, background of Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the Decorative Arts, Design, and Culture, 289n.37 Barrell, John, 237, 302n.34 Baukunst vs. Poetik, 138–40 Baumgarten, Alexander Gottlieb, 75, 266n.34 Baumgärtner, Friedrich Gotthelf, 259n.126 beauty: free, as vagabond, 210, 295n.83; free/natural, 184; free vs. dependent, 204–5, 283n.4; as grounded in subject vs. object, 152; Heydenreich on, 83, 119–21, 210; and humanity, 150; and the ideal man, 150; ideal of, 76; Kant on, 119–21, 163, 184, 283n.4; as mediating between matter and form, 143; natural vs. artificial, 83, 237–38, 284n.8; natural vs. artistic, 119–22; Schiller on, 143, 150, 152; as symbol of morality, 163; wandering, 210, 295n.83 Beck, C. D., 257–58n.109 Becker, Wilhelm Gottlieb, 1, 6–7; on cultivation of taste, 292n.59; as editor of Monatschrift für Damen, 259n.124; as editor of Taschenbuch für Gartenfreunde, 21–22, 48, 49, 259nn.121–22; as editor of Taschenbuch zum geselligen Vergnügen, 259n.124; family background of, 51; Girardin translated by, 47; and J. C. A. Grohmann, 49; influence of, 50; at Leipzig University, 47; and Oeser, 47, 258n.118; as overseer of Grüne Gewölbe treasures, 49, 53; patronage vs. university

Index career for, 53; personal network of, 49–50; at the Philanthropin, 47, 53; at the Ritterakademie, 47, 53; and Schiller, 49; Das Seifersdorfer Thal, 211, 271n.95; and Semler, 49 Begriffe, 173. See also concepts Beharrlichkeit, 95, 109 Beiser, Frederick: The Fate of Reason, 10–11; German Idealism, 10–11 Benn, Sheila, 10, 285n.30 Berlin: art academy in, 23 Berlin Tiergarten: class distinction at, 255n.95 Betrachtungen über die Philosophie der natürlichen Religion (Heydenreich), 126–27, 279n.32 Bildung, 212 Blackbourn, David, 239–40n.5 Borchardt, Rudolf, 204, 294n.80 Born, Friedrich Gottlob: as co-editor of Neues Philosophisches Magazin, 56–57; Kantianism of, 56; translations of Kant by, 263n.157 botanic gardens: Hirschfeld on, 15, 16, 243n.9; at universities, 14, 15, 16, 243n.9 Bourdieu, Pierre: and Collins, 245n.30 Bouterwek, Friedrich, 7, 289n.37, 296n.92 Brandt, Johann Heinrich, 209 Brasch, Moritz, 263n.157 Breiters Kaffeegarten (Leipzig), 31 Briefen über die Kunst an eine Freundin (Racknitz), 21–22 British empiricism, 6 Brocker, Manfred, 236 Brodsky, Claudia, 162–63, 238, 287n.9 Brüning, Ortlef, 32 Buffon, Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de, 272n.100 bundle theory, 72–73, 99, 134, 175 Buonafede, Appiano (pseud. Agatopisto Cromaziano): Storia della restaurazione di ogni filosophia ne’ secoli, 46, 258n.112 bureaucratic vision, 236 Burke, Edmund, 285n.43

317 Buttlar, Adrian von, 9

C cabinets of curiosities, 16 Cambridge University (England): grounds of, 16 Castell, Robert: Villas of the Ancients Illustrated, 19, 243–44n.16 categories of understanding, 72–73 causal chains, 281–82n.45 censorship, 213 Chalkographische Gesellschaft (Dessau), 295n.85 Chambers, William, 21, 24 character, 80 Cicero, 76, 266n.34 class: and moral character, 254–55n.93 class distinction: at Berlin Tiergarten, 255n.95; and moral character, 41; and social ambitions, 51; and strolling, 41–42, 254– 55nn.92–94 coffee gardens, 30–31, 31, 188, 249n.55 coffeehouses, 30–31 coin design, 295n.82 Collins, Randall: and Bourdieu, 245n.30; on development of intellectual circles, 47; on Kant’s influence in the university, 212; model of intellectual revolutions by, 22, 245n.30 composition: functional/physical needs addressed in, 138–39; in garden art, 92–93, 269n.77; in painting, 67, 92–94 concepts: vs. aesthetic object, 152; and agency, 113–14; a priori (categorical) vs. a posteriori (empirical), 113; formation of, 83–85; and intuitions, 114, 134, 172–74; Kant on, 113–14, 191–92, 275n.1, 290n.43; as rules, 172–73; and topography, 228–29 consensus of taste. See sensus communis coordinated unity, 72–74 Copenhagen Academy, 14, 16, 242n.3

318 Cotta, Johann Friedrich. See Taschenkalender für Natur- und Gartenfreunde countryside: Roman appreciation for, 19, 244n.18 Court of the Myrtles (Alhambra), 293– 94n.76 Court van der Voort, Pieter de la, 247n.42 critical philosophy: a priori explanation/ transcendental method in, 72; J. C. A. Grohmann on, 286n.3; ground of, 212–19, 295–96n.90, 296n.92, 296n.98; as mediation between rationalism and empiricism, 147, 284n.12; topographical thought in, 225–31, 299n.17 Critique of Judgment (Kant): on aesthetic ideas, 132–34, 195; on aesthetic object vs. concepts, 152, 191–92, 290n.43; on archetype/ ectype, 195; on architectonics, 126, 279n.30; on architecture, 181, 183–84, 185, 238; on comprehension of form, 112; criticism of, 180, 192; on delineation/flatness, 180–94; on deportment-intuition-outline, 287n.19; on determinant vs. reflective judgments, 170–71, 174–75, 177; division of the arts in, 63, 65, 71–72, 74, 176, 183, 264n.7; on the formative arts, 179, 180–82, 184, 185, 288n.27, 290n.41; framing logic of, 198–210, 292nn.61–62, 293–94n.76, 295n.82 (see also parerga); on free/natural beauty, 184; on free vs. dependent beauty, 204–5, 283n.4; on garden deception, 195–96, 199, 291n.52; on garden design as decorative/ornamentation, 188–89, 197, 218, 289n.37; garden theory in, 7, 175–77, 180–94, 277–78n.18, 278n.20; on geometrical forms, 116, 278n.19; on Hume, 279n.30;

Index influence of, 63, 64, 71–72, 264n.7; on judgment as middle term between understanding and reason, 230, 231; on landscape gardening as fine art, 277–78n.18; Lustgärtnerei vs. Gartenkunst used in, 197, 200, 291–92nn.54–55; on music, 178–79, 189–91; on natural objects that please due to their form, 83, 267n.55; on natural purposes, 115–17, 122, 125, 126, 279n.30, 281n.38, 281n.43; on natural vs. artificial beauty, 237–38, 284n.8; on Naturgärten, 195–96; on objective purposiveness, 186–87, 289n.32; on objects/backgrounds, 171–72, 174, 176–77, 193, 197–98; on painting, 181–82, 181–83, 185; on parerga, 180, 194–98, 217–18, 292n.62; on philosophical metaphor, 162; Platonism of, 195, 291n.51; on pleasure gardens, 185, 187–88; on poetry, 177–79, 287n.20, 288n.22; on purposiveness without a purpose, 184–85, 204, 288n.29; on reason’s bounds, 232–33; on regularity/symmetry, 185–86; on sculpture, 181, 183–84, 185; on self-organization, 117, 276n.7; on signs, 177, 179, 288n.21; on the strange as placeless, 182, 288n.28; on the sublime, 218, 297n.107; on tone-feeling-background, 287n.19; topographical language in, 225, 229–30, 238, 299n.17; on topography, 218, 229–30, 297n.106; triadic approach in, 147; on truthful illusion, 181–83, 185, 195–97, 233, 291n.51; on tulips/wildflowers, 204–5, 206, 207, 293n.76, 293nn.72–73,

Index 294n.78; on use vs. contemplation, 185 Critique of Practical Reason (Kant): on actions determined by passions vs. mechanical rules vs. freedom, 74; on objects, 172; on will determined by universal law of reason, 74 Critique of Pure Reason (Kant): on architectonics, 161, 286n.4; on a critical path, 200–301n.23, 231–32, 233; on determinant vs. reflective judgments, 170–71, 174; on dogmatic wanderings, 231–32, 300n.19; on genera/species, 226; “Göttingen review” as response to, 55; on Hume, 300n.18; on imagination as blind, 173–74; on intuitions/concepts, 172–74; on the isle of truth, 225, 226–27; on Locke, 300n.18; on metaphysics, 237; on objects, 172, 174; promotion of, 56; publication of, importance of, 59; reason marshaled against reason in, 161; on reason’s bounds, 226–27; on regulative ideas, 234; on skeptics, 232, 300n.19; topographical language in, 225, 226, 237; topography as a form of property in, 235–37, 301–2n.33, 301nn.25–26; on the transcendental aesthetic, 285n.32; on the transcendental dialectic, 227; on transcendental location/topic, 226; on the Understanding, 227; on unity, 238, 302n.36 Crusius, Carl Lebrecht, 43, 256n.100 Crusius, Siegfried Lebrecht, 43, 256n.101 cryptoporticus gallery, 271n.92 cultural landscape, 86, 268n.60 Czartorisky, Adam, Prince of Poland, 19

D Dauthe, Johann Carl Friedrich, 33–35, 248n.48, 250n.70. See also Löhrs Garten

319 De la composition des paysages (Girardin), 47, 259n.119 Deleuze, Gilles, 189, 232, 298n.9, 300n.20 delineation/flatness, 180–94. See also parerga Derrida, Jacques: on parerga, 180, 194; on philosophical metaphor, 162; on the uncanny as atopological, 288n.28; on wandering beauty, 210, 295n.83 determinant vs. reflective judgments, 170– 71, 174–75, 177 Das deutsche Museum (journal), 244n.21 Dezallier d’Argenville, Antoine-Joseph: influence of, 24; La Théorie et la pratique du jardinage, 18 Diderot, Denis: Todorov on, 79–80 discourse, background of, 159–219; critical philosophy’s ground, 212–19, 295–96n.90, 296n.92, 296n.98; delineation/flatness, 180–94; framing logic, 198–210, 212, 294n.79; garden parerga, 194– 98, 292n.62; gardens as backgrounds, 175–81; Luisium as Naturgarten, 165–66, 167–68, 168–69, 287n.16; objects/backgrounds, 170–77, 193, 197–98; overview of, 159–65 discursive understanding, 115, 118–19, 125, 129, 130, 134, 276nn.9–10 discursivity/mechanism. See mechanism/discursivity Donath, Matthias, 256n.102 double mimesis, 205, 293–94n.76 Dresden: arts patronage in, 26; royal court culture of, 24 Dresden Academy: English garden design at, 21; establishment of, 18; Krubsacius at, 18–22; vs. Leipzig Academy, 24; Schenau as director of, 260n.128; status of, 23 Drewen, Uwe, 259n.123 Dublin University: grounds of, 16 Dünkelsbühler, Ulrike Oudée, 180, 210, 212, 288n.28, 294n.79, 295n.83

320 Dutch gardens: bürgerlich connotations of, 24, 25–26, 246–47n.41; vs. French gardens, 247n.42; German perceptions of, 247n.42; Hirschfeld on, 25–26, 247n.42, 247n.44; in Leipzig, 24–26, 246–47nn.41–42, 247n.44 Dutch stereotypes, 247–48n.45

E Eberhard, Johann August: as editor of Philosophisches Magazin, 56–57 ectype/archetype, 195 “Einige Ideen über den Charakter des Gartens” (Heydenreich), 59–60, 62, 263n.2, 267n.41 Elective Affinities (Die Wahlverwandtschaften; Goethe), 7, 294n.81 Elementarphilosophie (Reinhold), 56 Elements of Criticism (Kames), 21 Eley, Geoff, 239–40n.5 Emile (Rousseau), 259n.119 emotions/feelings: characteristics of, 81; expression of, 81, 113, 273n.108; landscapes as arousing, 269n.80; Naturgärten as arousing, 169–70; vs. thinking, 298n.3 Empfindsamkeit movement, 9, 254n.91 empirical psychology, 72, 265n.25 Englische Anlage (Leipzig): class distinction at, 41–42, 254–55nn.92–93; fortifications transformed into park, 27; Mittelweg producers at, 42–43, 45; plan/design for, 32–33, 35, 35–36; Schelle on, 41–42, 254n.90; society vs. nature in, 41–42; strolling in, 37–38, 41–42; views of, 38–39; visual attention on, 41, 253n.88. See also Promenade English gardens: vs. French gardens, 21–22, 26–27, 239n.4, 244n.26, 284n.9 (see also Mittelweg garden theory; and under “Über den Gartenkalender auf das Jahr 1795”); in Germany, 1,

Index 244n.19; Krubsacius’s designs for, 19, 21, 244nn.19–20; Mittelweg as adaptation of, 2–4; Pliny’s influence on, 19, 20, 243–44n.16; and polite society, 41–42, 254–55nn.92–93; and Roman appreciation for countryside, 19, 244n.18; Roman Campagna in, 90; strolling in, 37–38 “English,” meanings of, 146 Esplanade (Leipzig), 32 Essai sur l’architecture (Laugier), 24, 246n.39 Essays on the Nature and Principles of Taste (Alison), 106–7, 269n.73, 274n.118 ethics: and aesthetics, 74; and the arts, 135–36, 283n.56; and gardens, 135–36, 283n.54. See also morality/moral character Ethics (Spinoza), 225, 298n.9 Evelyn, John, 240n.12 Eyserbeck, Johann Friedrich, 167 Eythra estate (Leipzig), 26

F The Fate of Reason (Beiser), 10–11 Fauser, Markus, 32, 251n.79 Feder, Johann Georg Heinrich: “Göttingen review,” 55, 262n.152 feelings. See emotions/feelings feminization of men’s bodies, 290n.42 Fichte, Johann Gottlieb, 6, 215–17, 257n.108 “Fichte und Kant” (J. C. A. Grohmann), 215–17, 297n.105 fine art: autonomy as basis of, 65–68, 74; as communicative, 75–76, 266nn.33–35; Heydenreich on, 64–65; vs. mechanical/pleasant, 63, 65–66, 71; utilitarian origins of, 85; as visual, 71 fine art, gardening as: vs. decorative/ornamentation, 188–89, 289n.37; Heydenreich on, 60, 61, 63, 67–68, 264n.7, 265n.21; Kant on, 277–78n.18; Schiller on,

Index 137–38, 152, 265n.17; as Vernunftsystem, 160 flatness/delineation, 180–94. See also parerga flowers, 204–5, 206, 207, 293n.76, 293nn.72–73, 294n.78, 294n.80 form drive, 142–44 forms vs. shapes, 111–12 “Fragmente über den Zusammenhang der Empfindung und Phantasie” (Heydenreich), 103–5, 272– 73n.103, 273n.109 frames around pictures, 210, 212 framing logic, 198–210, 212, 292nn.61–62, 293–94n.76, 294n.79, 295n.82. See also parerga Franziska von Hohenheim, Duchess of the German Reich, 153 Franz of Anhalt-Dessau, Prince, 165–66, 252n.81, 256n.101, 295n.85. See also Wörlitz garden Frederick Augustus I, King of Saxony, 18 Frederick Christian, Elector of Saxony, 18 French-Dutch taste, 24, 246–47n.41 French gardens: vs. English gardens, 21–22, 26–27, 239n.4, 244n.26, 284n.9 (see also Mittelweg garden theory; and under “Über den Gartenkalender auf das Jahr 1795”); perceived excesses of, 3–4 “French,” meanings of, 146 French Revolution, 46, 146, 258n.114 Friedrich August, Prince-bishop of Lübeck, 52 Friedrich Heinrich of Oranien, Prince, 247n.41 friendship, cult of (Göttinger Hainbund), 254n.91 Fruchtbaumschule (Düsternbrook, Germany), 15–16, 17

G The Garden as an Art (Miller), 7–8 garden libraries, 16, 243n.8 gardens: as backgrounds, 175–81; benches for viewing in, 99; bird’s-eye views vs. vignettes of, 207, 208–9, 210; clumps used in,

321 84; elements of, 80–86, 85, 88, 175, 267–68n.55, 267n.53, 267n.54, 268n.58; and ethics, 135–36, 283n.54; geometrical forms in, 123–24, 127–28, 278n.19; ground/terrain of, 207–8; landscape vs. geometric, 84; picturesque, 160, 161, 163; portable images of, 210, 212, 295n.85; raw materials in, 69–70; regular vs. irregular, 63, 66–67, 74, 128; rules in, 109, 274–75n.122; scale in, 268n.68; spatial character vs. flatness of, 209–10, 295n.82; stability of signs in, 108–9, 122–23, 128, 134–35, 175; as stage settings, 152, 285n.44; utility of, 183– 84, 186–88, 289n.35; walls/ fences/hedges around, 199–201, 202, 206–7, 292n.60, 292n.62, 293n.65. See also academic gardens; fine art, gardening as; garden theory/philosophy; Mittelweg gardens; pleasure gardens garden theory/philosophy: and garden treatises, 2; in Germany vs. England/France, 2; growth following publication of the Critiques, 8, 59; on immersion in environment, 269n.80; Italian theorists on, 8, 241n.14; philosophical analysis of, overview of, 1–8, 240n.11; semiotics (see semiotics); as topographical thought, 6, 11, 165. See also academic gardens; fine art, gardening as; gardens; Mittelweg garden theory; and specific theorists Garten, etymology of, 292n.60 Gartenbibliothek auf das Jahr, 48, 259n.121 Gärten der Goethezeit, 10 Gartenlandschaft (Schiller), 51 Garten vs. Gartenlandschaft, 139–40, 148, 283–84n.7 Garve, Christian: “Göttingen review,” 55, 262n.152; influence of,

322 55–56, 263n.156; influences on, 262n.150; on the strolling philosopher, 263n.156; as a translator, 55 Gedanken über einige Gegenstände der Philosophie des Schönen (Pörschke), 160 Gellert, Christian Fürchtegott, 43, 246nn.35–36 Gellert monument (Leipzig; Oeser), 23, 246nn.35–36 Gemählde von Gärten im neuern Geschmacke dargestellt, 259n.125 Genie: adequate ideas of laws of nature formed by, 281n.45; and causes, 281–82n.45; as child of nature, 130–32; garden, 62–65, 72, 73–74, 89, 112, 122, 269n.77; Kant on, 122–23, 131, 132, 277n.16; and the rule of synthesis, 134, 282n.51; and rules of nature, 121–22, 282n.51; and Theilvorstellungen, 133, 134–35, 282n.53; and Totalbild, 127, 129, 133–35. See also under agency German gardens, 9. See also Mittelweg garden theory German Idealism, 22, 46, 258n.114 German Idealism (Beiser), 10–11 German identity, 4–5 German language, 261n.139 Gerndt, Sigmar, 9–10, 285n.30 Geßner, Salomon, 284n.7 Gestalten, 112 Girardin, René-Louis, Marquis de: De la composition des paysages, 47, 259n.119 Glacken, Clarence J., 275n.5 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von: Elective Affinities, 7, 294n.81; garden interests of, 23, 245–46n.33; and Oeser, 23, 245–46n.33, 258n.118; on “painting” parlor game, 41, 253n.89; on Schelle’s Ars Poetica, 251n.75 Goethezeit period (1770–1830), 9

Index Gohlis (Leipzig), 45 Göschen, Georg Joachim, 257n.108 Gothein, Marie Luise, 9, 246n.33 Göttinger Hainbund (cult of friendship), 254n.91 Gottsched, Johann Christoph, 51, 261n.139 Grand Tour, 15, 242n.5 Greece, fascination with, 144, 284n.19 Green, Joseph, 188 Grimmische Tor (Leipzig), 34 Groen, Jan van der, 247n.42 Grohmann, Johann Christian August: and Becker, 49; on critical philosophy, 286n.3; at the Englische Anlage, 42–43; examples used by, 296n.96; family background of, 51; “Fichte und Kant,” 215–17, 297n.105; on gardens and surrounding countryside, 200; garden theory, overview of, 6–7, 8; and J. G. Grohmann, 255n.96; Laugier’s influence on, 246n.39; at Leipzig University, 44, 246n.39; on Luisium, 165–66, 168–70, 189, 217, 287n.16; on natural situations that serve human purposes, 187; on nature, 203–4; and Oeser, 258–59n.118; patronage vs. university career for, 52; Platner’s influence on, 54; Ruhepünkte, 51; scholarship on, 11; semiotics of, 169–70; at Wittenberg University, 44, 49, 260n.131 Grohmann, Johann Gottfried: Buonafede translated by, 46, 258n.112; death of, 51; drawing/painting by, 46, 258n.110; as editor of Ideenmagazin für Liebhaber von Gärten, 48–49, 51, 259n.126; at the Englische Anlage, 42–43; family background of, 51; on garden amusements, 188, 289n.35; and J. C. A. Grohmann, 255n.96; Heydenreich’s collaborations with, 45–47; Kantianism promoted by, 46;

Index language proficiency of, 46, 258n.111; Laugier lectures by, 265n.16; at Leipzig University, 44, 45–46; Lézay-Marnézia translated by, 46, 62, 263n.2; and Oeser, 258n.118; patronage vs. university career for, 52 Großbosescher Garten (Leipzig), 25, 30, 248n.46, 249n.53 Grüne Gewölbe treasures, 49, 53 Guattari, Felix, 189, 232, 300n.20 Günther, Christian August, 4 Guyer, Paul, 11

H Habermas, Jürgen, 30 Hagedorn, Christian Ludwig von, 18 ha-has (sunken fences), 201, 202, 207, 293n.65 Hällische Bastion (Leipzig), 32, 249–50n.62 Hamann, Johann Georg, 180, 288n.23 Handbuch für Liebhaber Englischer pflanzungen und für Gärten, 259n.125 Hannover garden, 244n.19 Hauptstimmung (mood produced by the garden), 98, 105–10, 112, 113, 133, 274n.112 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 289n.37 Heidegger, Martin, 288n.28 Heideloff, Victor, 154–55 Henrich, Dieter, 163–64, 287nn.11–12 Henriette Catharina of Anhalt-Dessau, 247n.41 Herrmann und Ulrike (Wezel), 27–30 Herumwandler (Heydenreich), 51 Heusinger, Johann H. G., 7, 192–93 Heydenreich, Karl Heinrich: Aesthetisches Wörterbuch, 258n.115; ahistorical approach of, 8; alcohol/drug addictions of, 50; Alison’s influence on, 106–8, 265n.25, 269n.73; on architectonics, 125, 126–27; on architecture, 63, 66, 67, 264nn.10–11; background of, 51, 60–61; on beauty, 83, 119–21; Betrachtungen über die Philosophie der natürlichen

323 Religion, 126–27, 279n.32; Buonafede translated by, 46, 258n.112; Christian influence on, 274n.116; on class and moral character, 254–55n.93; on the cultural landscape, 86, 268n.60; “Einige Ideen über den Charakter des Gartens,” 59–60, 263n.2; emotional illness/death of, 50, 260n.134; at the Englische Anlage, 42–43; examples used by, 296n.96; “Fragmente über den Zusammenhang der Empfindung und Phantasie,” 103–5, 272– 73n.103, 273n.109; on the frame around natural beauty, 210; garden theory, overview of, 6 (see also semiotics; and specific works); J. G. Grohmann’s collaborations with, 45–47; Herumwandler, 51; Kantianism of, 46, 56, 57, 65–66, 71–72, 75, 126–27, 129, 279n.32; on Kant’s view of rules, 119–21; Kurzgefasstes Handwörterbuch, 46–47; language proficiency of, 46, 258n.111; on the Leipzig Academy, 245n.32; at Leipzig University, 44, 45–46, 59, 60, 257–58n.109; Lessing’s influence on, 95, 266n.32, 268n.65; on Lézay-Marnézia, 264n.5; music theory of, 82, 83–84, 95– 96, 105, 267n.51; Natur und Gott nach Spinoza, 94, 96–98, 111, 221–25, 232, 270n.89, 298n.4, 299n.12; patronage vs. university career for, 52; on perspectival cognition, 102–3; on Phantasie/memory, 95–96, 103– 6, 133, 191–92, 272–73n.103, 273n.109; philological interest of, 45–46, 257–58n.109; “Philosophische Grundsätze über die Nachahmung der landschaftlichen Natur in Gärten,”

324 46; philosophy studied by, 60; philosophy taught by, 45–46; Platner’s influence on, 54; on pleasure gardens, 63, 68–69, 71; on poetic capacity, 133; poetry of, 257n.108, 298n.3; on Popularphilosophie, 60–61; on regular vs. irregular gardens, 63, 66–67, 74; reputation ruined, 136; Schelle influenced by, 36, 251n.76, 251n.78; and Schiller, 45, 257n.108; scholarship on, 11; on Spinoza, 129–30; on strolling, 36–37; on teleological judgments, 126–27; on Theilvorstellungen, 133, 134–35, 282n.53; on Totalbild, 103–4, 105–6, 129, 133–34, 273n.106. See also Originalideen über die interessantesten Gegenstände der Philosophie; System der Ästhetik Hinüber, Jobst Anton von, 244n.19 Hippel, Theodor Gottlieb von, 288n.26 Hirschfeld, Christian C. L.: academic gardens promoted by, 13–18, 242n.5; Ammerkungen über die Landhäuser und die Gartenkunst, 14; on the Berlin Tiergarten, 255n.95; on compositional principles of painting, 67; on country vs. city, 17; and S. L. Crusius, 43, 256n.101; as editor of Gartenbibliothek auf das Jahr, 48, 259n.121; as editor of Kleine Gartenbibliothek, 48, 259n.121; Fruchtbaumschule of, 15–16, 17; garden lectures by, 14–15, 242n.5; on garden types, 267n.54; and Gellert, 43, 246n.36; on Hohenheim, 285n.29; influence of, 9, 284n.9; influences on, 90, 265n.25; in Kiel, 5, 14–15, 16, 43, 246n.36; at Kiel University, 52; Das Landleben, 15, 43, 256n.101; on landscapes and feelings they arouse, 269n.80;

Index in Leipzig, 43; at Leipzig University, 52–53; and Nicolai, 43; patronage vs. university career for, 52; Popularphilosophie followed by, 60; in Prussian Academy of Arts and Sciences, 243n.10; scholarship on, 10; on solitude vs. society, 17; and Sulzer, 255–56n.97; as a tutor, 52; and Weidmann & Reich, 43, 256n.99; Der Winter, 43. See also Theorie der Gartenkunst Hirschfeld Memorial, 211 historical vs. logical structure, 143–49 Hoffmann, Alfred, 9, 256n.98 Hohenheim: buildings at, 153; construction/location of, 153; criticism of, 153–55; English Village, 144–45, 153, 154–55; festivals at, 153; Rapp on, 271n.95; scale in, 268n.68; Schiller on, 137–38, 144–45, 149, 152–57, 285n.30 Hohmaennisch Plan (1749), 32 Hölderlin, Friedrich, 260n.133 Hufeland, Gottlieb, 56 Hume, David: on appearance of utility, 288n.29; Kant on, 228–29, 300n.18; on natural purposes, 279n.30 Hunt, John Dixon, 7–8, 240n.12

I idealism, 22, 46, 180, 258n.114 ideal man, 150, 222 ideal model, 78–80 Ideenmagazin für Liebhaber von Gärten, 48–49, 51, 259n.126 Ideen zu einer Gartenlogik (Semler), 51, 261n.144 Identity philosophy, 122 imitation: aesthetics on, 76–78, 87; vs. creation, 139; vs. expression, 90, 134, 282n.52; vs. resemblance, 163. See also semiotics intuitions: aesthetic ideas as, 133–34; and concepts, 114, 134, 172–74

Index intuitive understanding, 118–19 Irhosen, Heinrich Kurt, 261n.140 Isle of Rousseau (Ermenonville), 84–85, 85 Italian gardens, 244n.18

J Jacobi, Friedrich Heinrich, 227–28 Jäger, Hermann, 244n.19 Jena, 22 Jena University, 23, 56 Jugler, Johann Heinrich: on coffee gardens, 249n.55; on English style improvements in Leipzig, 32; on fortifications in Leipzig, 32; on Gellert monument, 246n.35; on Großbosescher Garten, 248n.46, 249n.53; on Hällische Bastion, 32, 249–50n.62; on Leipzig Academy, 245n.32; on Rosenthal wood, 250n.73

K Kallias letters (Schiller), 151, 189 Kames, Henry Home, Lord: Elements of Criticism, 21; influence of, 24, 90, 265n.25; Lukács on, 90 Kang, Young Ahn, 286–87n.9 Kant, Immanuel: on the aesthetic vs. the pedagogic, 215, 296n.96; annoyances suffered by, 190, 289n.40; architectural metaphors used by, 161, 238, 286n.4; on art vs. nature, 122–23, 195, 199, 201–3, 237, 276–77nn.13–14, 277n.16; on beautiful forms, 111–12, 275n.126; on beauty as symbol of morality, 163; Born’s translations of the critiques, 263n.157; on categories of reason, 180; on categories of understanding, 72–73; on concepts, 113–14, 191–92, 275n.1, 290n.43; on discursive understanding, 115, 118–19, 125, 129, 130, 134, 276nn.9–10; Dutch stereotypes in, 247–48n.45; examples used

325 by, 215, 296n.96; on freedom, 227–28; Gartenzeichner used by, 291n.54; on Genie, 122–23, 131, 132, 277n.16; and Green, 188; J. C. A. Grohmann on, 215–17, 297n.105; on Hume, 228–29; influence of, 53–57, 159, 261n.144, 283n.4 (see also under Critique of Judgment); on intuitive understanding, 118– 19; on mechanism, 114–15, 117–19, 130; on natural vs. artistic beauty, 119–21; at the Philosophendamm, 288n.26; on pleasant arts, 67, 264n.12; on productive imagination, 133; Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics, 55, 172, 228–29; property metaphors used by, 236–37, 301–2n.33; on purposiveness in forms, 122–23, 276–77nn.13–16; on regulative ideas, 233–35; on rules, 119–21, 172–73, 277n.16, 282n.51; on a sensus communis, 41, 199, 254n.90, 296n.97; on strolling, 232, 262n.155, 300n.21; on unity of apperception, 150; Vitruvius story used by, 116; “What is Orientation in Thinking?,” 227–29, 299n.13, 299n.15; on women/femininity, 189, 191, 290n.42. See also critical philosophy; Critique of Judgment; Critique of Practical Reason; Critique of Pure Reason; Kantianism; Prolegomena to any Future Metaphysics; topographical philosophy Kantianism, 2; academics trained during, 44; as architectonic, 125–29, 161–62, 238, 279nn.29–30, 280n.35, 286n.4; and the French Revolution, 46, 258n.114; J. G. Grohmann’s promotion of, 46; Heydenreich’s promotion of, 46; journals/

326 periodicals on, 56–57; vs. Popularphilosophie, 53–57, 262– 63nn.155–156; reception/influence of in universities, 53–57. See also critical philosophy Karl Eugen, Duke of Württemberg, 153 Karlsschule Stuttgart, 16 Kent, William, 21, 234 Kiel University (Germany): court politics at, 52; Hirschfeld at, 5, 14–15, 16, 246n.36 Kleinbosescher Garten (Leipzig), 208 Kleine Gartenbibliothek, 48, 259n.121 Klinsky, Johann Gottfried, 259n.121, 260n.128 Koch, Hugo, 244n.21; on Goethe, 246n.33; on Krubsacius, 19, 21; on Löhrs Garten, 27; on Racknitz, 244n.26 König, Gudrun M., 255n.95; Eine Kulturgeschichte des Spazierganges, 251n.74 Königsberg, 180, 288n.26 Korff, H. A., 9 Körner, Christian Gottfried, 45, 257n.105 Krauß, A. F., 292n.60 Krubsacius, Friedrich August, 244n.17; background of, 18–19; at Dresden Academy, 18–22; English garden design by, 19, 21, 244nn.19–20; influence of, 21– 22; influences on, 21, 24; Natur und Antik pursued by, 19; Pliny the Younger’s gardens interpreted by, 19, 20, 243–44n.16; students of, 21–22, 245n.27 Krug, Wilhelm Traugott, 7, 247n.41, 289n.37, 295n.82 Krußer, F. W. von, 294n.78 Eine Kulturgeschichte des Spazierganges (König), 251n.74 Kunst vs. Natur, 140, 284n.8 Kuntz, Karl, 219

L Lambert, Johann Heinrich: Anlage zur Architektonic, 101–2

Index Das Landleben (Hirschfeld), 15, 43, 256n.101 Ländliche Natur, 59–60, 263n.2 land ownership, 235–36 landscape gardens: codification as a type, 9; deceit in design of, 285n.43; of Switzerland, 284n.7 landscape painting. See painting landscape prospects, 237, 302n.34 landscapes, 269n.80, 270n.89 landscape scenes, 41, 253n.89 “Landschaften im Kleinen” design, 21 landschaftliche Natur as aesthetic excess, 76–80, 124, 267n.41 language, origin of, 86, 268n.59 Laokoon (Lessing), 268n.65 Laugier, Marc-Antoine: Essai sur l’architecture, 24, 246n.39; J. G. Grohmann’s lectures on, 265n.16; influence of, 24, 68, 246n.39 legibility: of agency (see agency); definition of, 76; and flattening of topography, 269n.80; and semiotics, 74–76, 266nn.33–35; and spatialization, 108 Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, 53, 281n.39 Leibniz-Wolff scholasticism, 54, 60–61, 160, 161 Leipzig: bürgerlich, 24, 25–26, 42, 51, 246–47n.41; map of, 33; publishing/book trade in, 48; table societies in, 6. See also Leipzig as garden art center Leipzig Academy: vs. Dresden Academy, 24; establishment of, 18, 26; French/English garden styles at, 24; Heydenreich on, 245n.32; and Leipzig University, 23; Oeser as director of, 23–24 Leipzig as garden art center, 22–42; Apels Garten, 30, 31, 248n.46; arts patronage in, 26; coffee gardens in, 30–31, 31; and Collins’s model of intellectual revolutions, 22, 245n.30; Dutch gardens in, 24–26,

Index 246–47nn.41–42, 247n.44; and economy following Seven Years War, 26, 248n.46; and English vs. French gardens, 26–27; Esplanade, 32; fortifications transformed into green space, 27, 32, 248n.51; Grimmische Tor, 34; Großbosescher Garten, 25, 30, 248n.46, 249n.53; Mittelweg theory affected by, 13–14; Promenade, 27–32, 29, 35, 36, 255n.94; remodeling of/additions to gardens, 26–27, 248n.48; and rise of German Idealism, 22; social networks of academics in, 42–53, 256n.102 (see also individual academics); trade’s role in, 24; university’s/ art academy’s role in, 23, 245n.32 (see also Leipzig Academy); and villa gardens of elites, 24–25. See also Englische Anlage Leipzig University: and the academy, 23; Kantianism vs. Popularphilosophie at, 53–57; student life at, 260–61n.135 Lenné, Peter Joseph, 9, 255n.95 Le Nôtre, André, 240n.11 Leo, Friedrich August, 48–49, 260nn.127– 28 Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim, 266n.32; on division of the arts, 95; Laokoon, 268n.65; on natural signs, 87–88, 124; on painting vs. poetry, 88–89 Lézay-Marnézia, Claude-Fran ois-Adrien, Marquis de: Heydenreich on, 62, 264n.5; Sur la nature champ tre, 46, 59–60, 62, 263n.2, 267n.41 Ligne, Charles-Joseph, Prince de, 1, 47 Locke, John, 76, 300n.18 Lockeans, 54, 55. See also Popularphilosophie logical vs. historical structure, 143–49 Löhr, Heinrich Eberhard, 248n.48 Löhrs Garten (Leipzig), 26–27, 27, 34–35, 248n.48

327 Longuelune, Zacharias, 18 Louis XIV, King of France, 247n.43 Luisium (near Wörlitz), 167–68, 294n.78; J. C. A. Grohmann on, 165–66, 168–70, 189, 217, 287n.16; as Naturgarten, 165–66, 167–68, 168–69, 287n.16 Lukács, Georg: Ästhetik Teil I, 69; on the cloistered courtyard with single tree, 205–6, 294n.77; on double mimesis, 205, 293–94n.76; on geometric gardens, 84; on Kames, 90; on negation vs. affirmation, 91

M Mabil, Luigi, 8, 241n.14 Magazin für Freunde des guten Geschmacks, 48–49, 260nn.127–28 Marienweder park (Poland), 244n.19 Marsden, William, 288n.30; The History of Sumatra, 185–86 mechanism/discursivity, 130, 276n.7; Kant on, 114–15, 117–19, 125, 129, 130, 134, 276nn.9–10; and rules of nature, 121–22 medallion design, 295n.82 mediation, German, 4–5. See also Mittelweg garden theory Meier, Georg Friedrich, 75, 265n.25 Meißen Academy, 18 memory. See Phantasie/memory Mendelssohn, Moses, 75, 227–28, 299n.13 metaphor, philosophical, 162–63 Meyer, Gustav, 9, 99–101, 102, 125 Michaelis, Christian Friedrich, 56 Miller, Elaine P., 242n.27 Miller, Mara: The Garden as an Art, 7–8 mimesis, double, 205, 293–94n.76 Mittelweg (middle path) garden theory: as adaptation of English gardens, 2–4; background of discourse regarding (see discourse, background of ); as conceptual structure, 137–42; definitions of, 6, 147, 240n.8, 284n.27; emergence of, interpreting, 146–47;

328 family backgrounds of theorists, 51–52; and German identity, 4–5; Heydenreich on, 60, 61– 62, 64–65; Hirschfeld on, 5–6, 137, 140, 240n.8; and Kantianism, generally, 6, 11, 53–57, 159, 242n.27; Leipzig’s effects on, 13–14; logical vs. historical structure of, 143–49, 148; vs. Mitte principle, 60, 61–62; motives affecting reception of, 9; philosophical attention to, overview of, 5–7, 10–11; as physical structure, 149–52, 285n.44 (see also Hohenheim); and political systems, 146, 147; production of, 42–43, 44; Schiller on (see “Über den Gartenkalender auf das Jahr 1795”); scholarship on, 9–10; social ambitions of, 51; and topographical philosophy, 231–33 (see also topographical philosophy). See also academic gardens; Grohmann, Johann Christian August; Grohmann, Johann Gottfried; Heydenreich, Karl Heinrich; Schiller, Friedrich; Semler, Christian August monadology, 281n.39 Monatschrift für Damen, 259n.124 morality/moral character: arts as cultivating, 64, 74; beauty as a symbol of, 163; and class, 41, 254–55n.93. See also ethics Morel, Jean-Marie, 272n.100 Moritz, Karl Philipp, 11; emotional illness of, 260n.133; Heydenreich on, 75–76, 264n.7; on works of art as wholes, 75–76 motivated signs. See natural signs Müller, Heinrich, 33 Müller, Karl Wilhelm, 32–33, 35 Münchhausen, Otto von, 244n.19 music: elements multiplied in, 282n.53; and gardens, 189–90, 192–93; Heydenreich on, 82, 83–84, 95–96, 105, 267n.51; Kant on,

Index 178–79, 189–91; and poetry, 178–79, 191; and semiotics, 82, 83–84; Tafelmusik, 190

N natural purposes: Hume on, 279n.30; Kant on, 115–17, 122, 125, 126, 279n.30, 281n.38, 281n.43; Spinoza on, 132, 280–81n.36, 280–81n.38 natural signs, 86–92, 101–2, 122–23, 124, 175 nature: vs. art, 140, 147–49, 148, 284n.8 (see also under Kant, Immanuel); vs. civilization, 166; as cultivated, 202–4; language of, 169–70 Naturgärten: and architectonics, 127–29; architecture in, 166, 168–69; cultivated nature in, 203–4, 206, 294n.78; debate on, 244n.26, 267n.53; feelings aroused by, 169–70; Kant on, 195–96; natural/artificial beauty in, 237; and natural signs, 89; and nature judged as art, 122; Rousseau’s influence on, 201, 292n.64; and semiotics, 90–92; uses of, 184, 186. See also Luisium Natur und Gott nach Spinoza (Heydenreich), 94, 96–98, 111, 221–25, 232, 270n.89, 298n.4, 299n.12 negation vs. affirmation, 91 Neue Bibliothek der schönen Wissenschaften, 21, 244n.21 Neues Philosophisches Magazin, 56–57 Neue Thalia, 257n.108 Neumeyer, Eva Marie, 10 Nicolai, Friedrich, 43 Niemann, August Christian Heinrich, 16 nomadic thought, 232, 300n.20 Nonnenthor (Luisium, near Wörlitz), 166, 168, 168–70 La Nouvelle Héloïse (Rousseau), 201, 292n.64 Novalis, 260n.133

Index O objects/backgrounds, 170–77, 193, 197–98 Oeser, Adam Friedrich: and Becker, 47, 258n.118; and C. L. Crusius, 256n.100; and Dauthe, 33–34; Gellert monument, 23, 246nn.35–36; and Goethe, 23, 245–46n.33, 258n.118; and J. C. A. Grohmann, 258– 59n.118; and J. G. Grohmann, 258n.118; influence of, 47, 258n.118; influences on, 23, 24; and Laugier, 24, 246n.39; park designs of, 23–24; and Schiller, 45, 258n.118 Oranienbaum (Dessau-Wörlitz Gartenreich), 247n.41 Originalideen über die interessantesten Gegenstände der Philosophie (Heydenreich), 267n.50. See also “Philosophische Grundsätze über die Nachahmung der landschaftlichen Natur in Gärten” Oxford University, 16

P painting: composition in, 67, 92–94; vs. gardening, 92–95, 107–8, 269n.80; Kant on, 181–82, 181–83, 185; as model for gardening principles, 63, 67; vs. poetry, 88–89, 107; scale in, 88 “painting” parlor game, 253n.89 pantheism controversy, 54, 56, 59 parerga (frames), 180, 194–98, 217–18, 292n.62 Parshall, Linda, 10 Pater, Walter, 210, 212 Peine, Elias, 25 perfectionists, 75–76 periodical literature, garden, 48, 259nn.121–26. See also specific journals Phantasie/memory, 95–96, 103–6, 133, 191–92, 272–73n.103, 273n.109

329 Philanthropin (Dessau-Wörlitz), 47, 256n.101, 259n.119 Philosophendamm (Königsberg), 288n.26 “Philosophische Grundsätze über die Nachahmung der landschaftlichen Natur in Gärten” (Heydenreich), 46; on aesthetics and ethics, 74; on architecture, 63, 66, 67, 264n.10; on autonomy as basis of fine art, 65–68, 74; Christian influence on, 274n.116; on composition, 67; on composition in garden art, 92–93, 269n.77; on concept formation, 83–85; on coordinated unity, 72–74; on division of arts, 65–66, 71–72; on elements, 80; on fine art, 64–65; on formal/ utilitarian gardens, 123–24; on garden elements, 82–83, 175, 267–68n.55, 267n.53; on garden Genie, 62–65, 72, 73–74, 89, 112, 269n.77; on gardening as fine art, 60, 61, 63, 67–68, 264n.7, 265n.21; on Hauptstimmung, 98, 105–10, 112, 113, 133, 274n.112; influences on, 63, 64, 71–72, 264n.7, 265n.25; on Mittelweg theory, 60, 61–62, 64–65; on the moving stroller, 64, 67, 95, 109–11, 124, 268n.70; on painting vs. gardening, 92–95, 108, 269n.80; on Phantasie/memory, 95–96, 103–6; publication of, 46–47, 263n.1; on schöne Gartenkunst, 63, 67–69, 71, 79, 89, 124; on schöne Natur, 77–79, 267n.41; on social dimension of gardens, 68–69, 70; on a succession of scenes, 64, 72, 91–99, 109–10, 124–25, 231, 268n.70, 275n.124; on Totalbild, 105–6; on transitional moments, 98– 99, 271n.93; on the Urbild, 79, 89; on vision’s exclusive claims, 70–72

330 Philosophisches Magazin, 56–57 philosophy vs. historical analysis, 8 Pindemonte, Ippolito, 8, 241n.14 Platner, Ernst (elder): Anthropologie, 54; Aphorismen, 54, 56; on Kantianism, 54–55, 56; and Zwanziger, 263n.159 Platner, Ernst (younger), 262n.148 Plato, 271n.91 play drive, 143–44 pleasure gardens: Heydenreich on, 63, 68– 69, 71; Kant on, 185, 187–88; strolling in, 37 Pliny the Younger: cryptoporticus gallery of, 271n.92; interpretations of gardens of, 19, 20, 243–44n.16 poetry: and concepts, 177; dramatic, 89, 90; Kant on, 177–79, 287n.20, 288n.22; and music, 178–79, 191; natural signs in, 87–88; vs. painting, 88–89, 107 Pojentershof (near Königsberg), 288n.26 Popularphilosophie, 6, 246n.35; on aesthetics and ethics, 74; goals of, 60–61; Heydenreich on, 60–61; vs. Kantianism, 53–57, 262–63nn.155–156; and the moving stroller, 67; strolling-philosopher motif of, 55, 263n.156 Pörschke, Karl Ludwig, 7; Gedanken über einige Gegenstände der Philosophie des Schönen, 160; on Vernunftsystem, 160–61 potager, 25, 247n.43 Praeneste ramped stairs (Belvedere Court), 268n.58 presence vs. absence, 90–91 Probst, Israel Salomon, 3 Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics (Kant), 55, 172, 228–29 Promenade (Leipzig), 27–32, 29, 35, 36, 255n.94 promenades: ring, 40–41; Schelle on, 37– 39, 42, 251–52n.79, 252n.84; society vs. nature in, 38–41; strolling on, 38–41, 250n.73,

Index 252n.84. See also Englische Anlage Prussian Academy of Arts and Sciences (Berlin), 243n.10 Pückler-Muskau, Hermann von, 9 purposiveness: in forms, 122–23, 276– 77nn.13–16; objective, 186–87, 289n.32; without a purpose, 184–85, 204, 288n.29

R Racknitz, Joseph Friedrich von, 244n.26; Briefen über die Kunst an eine Freundin, 21–22 Ramdohr, Wilhelm Basilius, 68, 69, 265n.21, 292n.60 Rapp, Gottlob Heinrich, 138, 197, 271n.95, 291–92n.55 reason: and architectonics, 160–61; autonomy of, 213–15; bounds of, 226–27, 232–33; as embodied vs. universal, 180; and judgment/understanding, 230, 231; unity of, 125; Vernunftsystem, 160–61; will determined by universal law of, 74 regellos gardening, 67, 73 regularity: and functional/physical needs, 138–39; Heydenreich vs. Whately on, 83, 267–68n.55; Kant on, 185–86 regulative ideas, 233–35 Reich, Philipp Erasmus, 256n.99 Reinhart, Johann Christian, 45, 257n.106 Reinhold, Karl Leonhard, 257n.108; Elementarphilosophie, 56 Repton, Humphry, 232, 285n.43 resemblance, 81–82, 163 rhetoric, 76, 218, 266nn.33–35 Richards, Sarah, 10 Riedel, Friedrich Justus, 77 Risse, 192 Ritterakademie (Dresden), 47 Ritterakademien (finishing schools), 47, 53, 261n.143 Rode, August, 203, 274–75n.122 Roman Campagna, 90

Index Romantics: emotional illnesses/early death among, 50, 260n.133; syntheticism by, 44, 256–57n.103 Rosenthal wood (Leipzig), 27–28, 36, 250n.73 Ross, Stephanie: What Gardens Mean, 7–8 Rössig, C. G., 259n.125 Roßmäßler, J. A., 29 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques: Emile, 259n.119; influence of, 9; La Nouvelle Héloïse, 201, 292n.64; on origin of language, 268n.59; on return to pre-civilization conditions, 144 Rudolph coffee garden (Apel garden, Leipzig), 30, 249n.55 Ruhepünkte (J. C. A. Grohmann), 51

S Sais, 166 Saxony: art academies in, 18–22, 244n.21; bureaucratic administration of, 235–36; forestry in, 236 scenes, successive. See succession of scenes Schein (semblance), 151–52, 153 Schelle, Karl Gottlob: Ars Poetica, 251n.75; on class, 41–42, 255n.94; emotional illness of, 50–51; on Englische Anlage, 41–42, 254n.90; on English gardens and polite society, 41, 254n.92; Garve’s influence on, 55–56, 263n.156; Heydenreich’s influence on, 36, 251n.76, 251n.78; on Heydenreich’s garden semiotics, 268n.70; on Heydenreich’s poetry, 298n.3; as instructor/philologist, 36, 251n.75; at Leipzig University, 36; Die Spatziergänge, 36–40, 55–56, 251–52nn.78–79, 251n.74, 252–53nn.84–85, 252n.81; on Wörlitz garden, 252n.81 Schenau, Johann Eleazar, 260n.128 Schepers, Wolfgang, 10 Schiller, Friedrich: on the Absolute Subject, 150; aesthetic education by,

331 296n.96; Aesthetic Letters, 137, 141, 142–44, 146–48; on aesthetic objects/unity, 150–52; background of, 45; on beauty and humanity, 150; on beauty as grounded in subject vs. object, 152; on beauty as mediating between matter and form, 143; and Becker, 49; on compositional principles of painting, 67; at the Englische Anlage, 42–43; examples used by, 296n.96; family background of, 51; on the French Revolution, 146; on gardening as fine art, 265n.17; garden theory, overview of, 6, 8; Gartenlandschaft, 51; in Gohlis, 45; and Heydenreich, 45, 257n.108; Hirschfeld’s influence on, 284n.9; Kallias letters, 151, 189; Kant’s influence on, 283n.4; and Körner, 45, 257n.105; in Leipzig, 45; on logical vs. historical structure, 143–49; on necessity in physical realm, 150; and Oeser, 45, 258n.118; patronage vs. university career for, 52; and Reinhart, 45, 257n.106; on Schein, 151– 52, 153; scholarship on, 10; on sense/form/play as underlying aesthetics, 142–46, 147; on sense perceptions and self vs. objects, 149–51, 285n.32; on sublation, 147, 284n.27. See also “Über den Gartenkalender auf das Jahr 1795” Schmalz, Theodor Anton Heinrich, 56 Schmid, Carl Christian Erhard, 56 Schneider, Herr (artist), 258n.110 Schneider, K. E. (author), 289n.37 scholasticism, 6, 54, 60–61 schöne Gartenkunst, 63, 67–69, 71, 79, 89, 124 Schöne Gartenkunst (publication), 263n.2 schöne Natur, 77–79, 267n.41 Schopenhauer, Arthur, 242n.27

332 Schuricht, Christian Friedrich, 21–22 Schwarz, Carl Benjamin, 38–39 Schwöbber garden (near Hameln an der Weser, Germany), 244n.19 Sckell, Ludwig von, 9 sculpture, 181, 183–84, 185 Das Seifersdorfer Thal (Becker), 211, 271n.95 self-cultivation, 212 semiotics, 74–92; and concept formation, 83–84; and garden elements, 80–86, 85, 88, 175, 268n.58; of J. C. A. Grohmann, 169–70; and imitation vs. expression, 90, 134, 282n.52; Kant on signs, 177, 179, 288n.21; landschaftliche Natur as aesthetic excess, 76–80, 267n.41; Lessing on, 266n.32; and music, 82, 83–84; and natural signs, 86–92, 101– 2, 122–23, 124; and presence vs. absence, 90–91; signs for various arts, 83–84, 268n.56; signs of garden-making, 88–89; stability of signs, 108–12, 122–23, 128, 134–35, 175, 275n.124; and vision/legibility, 74–76, 266nn.33–35 Semler, Christian August, 7; and Becker, 49; in Dresden, 44–45; at the Englische Anlage, 42–43; family background/connections of, 51–52, 261n.140; Ideen zu einer Gartenlogik, 51, 261n.144; Kantian influence on, 53, 261n.144; Leibnizian influence on, 53; at Leipzig University, 44; at the Pädagogium, 44, 53; patronage vs. university career for, 53; Platner’s influence on, 54; as royal antiquities supervisor, 49, 53; Untersuchungen über die höchste Volkommenheit in der Landchaftsmalerei, 261n.144; on uses of gardens, 188, 189; Würdigung und Veredlung der regelmäßigen Gärten, 259n.122

Index Sennett, Richard, 253n.88 sense/form/play as underlying aesthetics, 142–46, 147 sensus communis (consensus of taste), 41, 42, 199, 254n.90, 292n.59, 296n.97 Seven Years War (1756–1763); academics born before vs. after, 44, 256n.102; economy following, 26, 248n.46 signs. See semiotics sociability, small-group, 41 Sonderweg thesis, 5, 239–40n.5 Die Spatziergänge (Schelle), 36–40, 55–56, 251–52nn.78–79, 251n.74, 252–53nn.84–85, 252n.81 Spinoza, Baruch: architectonic system of, 222, 224–25; on causality, 281– 82n.45; Ethics, 225, 298n.9; on freedom, 129, 280n.37; Heydenreich on, 129–30 (see also Natur und Gott nach Spinoza); influence of, 75, 129; on natural purposes, 132, 280–81n.36, 280–81n.38; on proto-agency of nature, 130; revival of interest in, 61; topographical reading of, 224, 298n.9; on unity of substance, 96–97, 271n.91 Stetigkeit, 95, 99, 109 Stieglitz, C. L., 259n.125 Storia della restaurazione di ogni filosophia ne’ secoli (Buonafede), 46, 258n.112 strolling: bürgerlich, 42; and class distinction, 41–42, 254–55nn.92–94; country walks, 36, 38–39, 250n.73, 252–53nn.84–85; as a cultural practice, 251n.74; and the Englische Anlage, 37–38; on the grass, 109, 274–75n.122; Heydenreich on, 36–37; and hypochondria, 262n.155; Kant on, 232, 262n.155, 300n.21; the moving stroller, 64, 67, 95, 109–11, 124, 268n.70; in pleasure gardens, 37; on promenades, 38–41, 250n.73,

Index 252n.84 (see also promenades); rules regarding, 109, 274–75n.122; types/studies of, 36–37, 251n.74. See also Die Spatziergänge Sturm und Drang movement, 9, 254n.91 Stuttgart, 255n.95 sublation, 147, 284n.27 the sublime, 218, 297n.107 succession of scenes: architectonics as organizing principle of, 127; Heydenreich on, 64, 72, 91–99, 109–10, 124–25, 231, 268n.70, 275n.124; unity of, 99–101, 102, 125 Sulzer, Johann Georg, 5; Allgemeine Theorie der schönen Künste, 256nn.98– 99; at the Berlin Academy, 52; and S. L. Crusius, 43; and Hirschfeld, 255–56n.97; influence of, 262n.150; influences on, 265n.25; in Leipzig, 43, 256n.98; patronage vs. university career for, 52; Popularphilosophie followed by, 60; and Weidmann & Reich, 43, 256n.99 the supersensible, 227–28 Switzerland, landscape gardens of, 284n.7 syntheticism, 44, 256–57n.103. See also Mittelweg garden theory System der Ästhetik (Heydenreich): on aesthetic ideas, 132–35; on aesthetic theories, 75, 266n.29; on dance, 271–72n.96; on expression of emotions/feelings, 81, 113, 273n.108; on garden elements, 267n.54; on the ideal model, 78–79; on landscapes vs. objects, 270n.89; on landschaftliche Natur as aesthetic excess, 76–80, 267n.41; on Moritz, 75–76, 264n.7; on painting vs. garden art, 94; on resemblance, 81–82; on rhapsodists vs. philosophical critics, 125; Schelle on, 268n.70; on

333 schöne Natur, 77, 79; on semiotics, 74–75, 81–82, 86–87; on signs for various arts, 83–84, 268n.56; on simultaneity and temporal succession, 95–96, 268n.65; “succession of scenes” principle in, 94

T table societies, 6 Tafelmusik (banquet music), 190 Taschenbuch für Gartenfreunde, 21–22, 48, 49, 259nn.121–22 Taschenbuch zum geselligen Vergnügen, 259n.124, 267n.53 Taschenkalender für Natur- und Gartenfreunde, 48, 49, 137–38, 267n.53. See also “Über den Gartenkalender auf das Jahr 1795” teleological judgments, 126–27, 128–29, 279n.30 Terror (France), 146 Theilvorstellungen (partial representations), 133, 134–35, 282n.53 Theorie der Gartenkunst (Hirschfeld): on academy gardens, 16–18; on bürgerlich gardens, 25–26; on Dutch gardens, 25–26, 247n.42, 247n.44; on French vs. English gardens, 284n.9; on garden libraries, 16, 243n.8; on Gellert memorial, 23, 246n.36; illustrations for, 22, 245n.27; Mittelweg garden theory emerges in, 5–6, 137, 140, 240n.8; on promenades between tree groupings, 35–36; publication of, 256n.99; on Rousseau’s Nouvelle Héloïse, 292n.64; scholarship on, 10; sources for, 14–15; vignette in, 209; on the Volksgarten, 16 Thomasschule (Leipzig), 60 Thormayer, Gottlob Friedrich, 260n.128 Todorov, Tzvetan: on the ideal model, 79–80; on Lessing, 266n.32; on rhetoric, 266n.33, 266n.35; on

334

Index

schöne Natur, 77; on syntheticism, 256–57n.103 Tompsonscher Garten (Königsberg), 188 topographical philosophy: in critical philosophy, 225–31, 299n.17; and dualism/dichotomies, 165; garden theory as, 6, 11, 165; metaphors used by Kant, 161– 65, 225–31, 238, 286–97n.9, 287nn.11–12; and Mittelweg garden theory, 231–33 (see also Mittelweg garden theory) topography: and concepts, 228–29; criticism as, 237; as a form of property, 235–37, 301–2nn.33–34; and frames, 207–10 Totalbild (complete picture), 103–4, 105–6, 127, 129, 133–35, 273n.106 transitional moments, 98–100, 271n.93 Trier’scher Garten (Leipzig), 27 truthful illusion, 181–83, 185, 195–97, 233, 291n.51 tulips, 204–5, 206, 293n.72, 293n.76, 294n.78

138–39, 141–42; on the unifying idea, 155–57 understanding: categories of, 72–73; discursive, 115, 118–19, 125, 129, 130, 134, 276nn.9–10; intuitive, 118–19; and judgment/reason, 230, 231; Kant on, 72–73, 227, 230, 231; and purpose/order, 138–39; Schiller on, 138–39, 141–42 unity: narrative, 155–57; of reason, 125; of substance, 96–99, 271n.91 universities: botanic gardens at, 14, 15, 16, 243n.9; competition for philosophy appointments, 50; gardens/grounds of, 16; garden theory at, 13 (see also academic gardens); topography of, 213 Untersuchungen über die höchste Volkommenheit in der Landchaftsmalerei (Semler), 261n.144 urban stresses, 253n.85 Urbild (original image), 79, 89, 183, 184, 194–95, 197

U

Vernunftsystem (system of reason), 160–61 Versailles, 153, 247n.43 villa gardens, 24–25 villas: of Pliny the Younger, 19, 20, 243– 44n.16; and surrounding countryside, 19, 244n.18 Villas of the Ancients Illustrated (Castell), 19, 243–44n.16 vision: exclusive claims of, 70–72; and monadology, 281n.39; and semiotics, 74–76, 266nn.33–35 Vitruvius story, 116, 275n.5 Vries, Hent de, 213–14, 215, 262n.155, 295–96n.90, 296n.98, 300n.21

V “Über den Gartenkalender auf das Jahr 1795” (Schiller), 137–57; on Baukunst vs. Poetik, 138–40; on Eye/Heart, 141–42; on French vs. English gardens, 138–40, 140, 145–47, 148, 148; on gardening as fine art, 137–38, 152; on Garten vs. Gartenlandschaft, 139–40, 148, 283–84n.7; on Hohenheim, 137–38, 144–45, 149, 152–57, 285n.30; on imitation vs. creation, 139; on Kunst vs. Natur, 140, 284n.8; on landscape scenes, 139; on the Mittelweg garden, 137, 140–42, 146–49, 148, 156–57; on nature vs. art, 147–49, 148; on sense/form/ play as underlying aesthetics, 144–46; on the understanding,

W Die Wahlverwandtschaften (Elective Affinities; Goethe), 7, 294n.81 walls around gardens, 199–201, 202, 206– 7, 292n.60, 292n.62, 293n.65 Walpole, Horace, 180

Index “watch in the forest” example (argument from design), 279–80n.34 water’s effects on landform/vegetation patterns, 100–101, 102, 272n.100 Weidmann, M. G., 256n.99 Weidmann & Reich, 43, 256n.99 Weinlig, Christian Traugott, 245n.27 Weiss, Allen S., 240n.11 Weißleder coffee garden (Apel garden, Leipzig), 30 Werthern, Johanna Luise, Countess von, 26 Wezel, Johann Karl: emotional illness of, 260n.133; Herrmann und Ulrike, 27–30; on the Promenade, 255n.94 Whately, Thomas, 83, 267–68n.55 What Gardens Mean (Ross), 7–8 “What is Orientation in Thinking?” (Kant), 227–29, 299n.13, 299n.15 Wiedewelt, Johannes, 14, 15, 242n.3 wildflowers, 204, 293n.73 Winckelmann, Johann, 5; and Greece, fascination with, 284n.19; on the ideal model, 78; and Oeser, 23, 24 Winkler Garten (Leipzig), 27 Der Winter (Hirschfeld), 43

335 Wittenberg, 6, 22 Wolffians, 54. See also Popularphilosophie Wörlitz garden (Germany; Prince Franz of Anhalt-Dessau): canals at, 108–9, 204, 293n.71; de Ligne on, 1; early construction of, 2; as first significant English garden on Continent, 244n.19; Isle of Rousseau, 84, 259n.119; plan of, 3; Rode on, 203; Rousseau’s influence on, 292n.64; Schelle on, 252n.81; Stein/Vesuv at, 219, 297n.107; Toleranzblick at, 235, 235; views of, 4; working fields at, 204, 268n.60 Wray Wood (Castle Howard, England), 200–201 Würdigung und Veredlung der regelmäßigen Gärten (Semler), 259n.122

Z Zeuxis, 199 Zopfstil, 248n.48 Zwanziger, Johann Christian, 56, 263n.159