Meisterstreich: The formation of the concept of genius and the end of normative aesthetics

The concept of beauty, based on the criterion of taste, marks the boundary that separates the era of normative aesthetics of classicism from the time when rejected elements played a decisive role in art. These elements include the subjectivation of experience, individual feelings as the driving force in the reception of art, and the individualization of criteria for judging artistic values. A new term emerges as the equivalent of rationalist sensus communis and classicist raison. This term can be tentatively defined as moderation (bon sens) or more narrowly, as politeness. While ancient art embodies unchanging and universal norms of artistic creation, leading to a historico-philosophical dualism, pre-romanticism, with its emphasis on sentimentality, demands a conceptual differentiation and nuancing of rational rules, taking into account cultural-philosophical and collective-psychological factors that modify those rules to fit specific creative contexts. Within sentimentalist-romantic theories of artistic creativity, the problem of genius arises, countering the rigid prescriptionism of pseudo-Horacian poetics and notions of mimesis as the constant imitation of immediate events and actions, and their 'possible' or 'probable' variants. An ingenious work of art in this context, relies not only on the strength of feelings and the immediacy of the artist's experience, but also on their ability to shape a flawless paradigm in their mind through unreflective, imaginative transposition. This paradigm is then brought to life using relevant materials. A genius artist does not oppose the rules in their creation; on the contrary, they understands them more deeply and reliably than someone who, in a fervent pursuit of innovation, abandons the safe and shortest path to artistic truth. Abbé Du Bos, Denis Diderot, and Johann Georg Hamann have delved into thisissue, shedding light on it and interpreting it from different angles, making lasting contributions to the aesthetics and theory of pre-romantic and romantic art.