No More Learning

56. Robert Glanville, Objekte (Berlin, 1988), claims that this is true for all ob- jects. This is not easy to see. It is remarkable, however, that this claim is made by an architect.
57. See, e. g. , Karl Philipp Moritz, "Die metaphysische Schonheitslinie," in Schriften zur Asthetik und Poetik (Tubingen, 1962), pp. 151-57 (157): "Das Ge- horige weglassen [or rather: das gehorige Weglassen, N. L. ], ist also eigentlich das wahre Wesen der Kunst, die mehr negativ, als positiv zu Werke gehen mufi, wenn sie gefallen soil. " One can trace this view into our own century, e. g. , to Mondrian.
58. Explicitly, August Wilhelm Schlegel, Die Kunstlehre (Pt. 1 of the lectures on literature and art), quoted from Kritische Schriften und Briefe, vol. 2 (Stutt- gart, 1963), p. 71. See also Chapter 4, section VII, above.
59. On the separation of these distinctions in a sociotheoretical context, see
also Niklas Luhmann, "Das Moderne der modernen Gesellschaft," in Luhmann, 2
Beobachtungen der Moderne (Opladen, 1992), pp. 11-49 ( 5ff-); trans, as "Moder- nity in Contemporary Society," in Luhmann, Observations on Modernity, trans. William Whobrey (Stanford, Calif, 1998), pp. 1^21 (9ff. )
60. On his version of the reentry paradox, which duplicates the framing of the artwork within the work itself and thereby shows that this is the work's own pro- gram, see David Roberts, "The Paradox of Form: Literature and Self-Reference," Poetics 21 (1992): 75-91; "The form within the form frames the enclosing form. "
61. Johann Joachim Winckelmann, Geschichte der Kunst des Altertums {vj6y- 1768), quoted from Sdmtliche Werke, vols. 3-6 (1825; rpt. Osnabriick, 1965).
62. For an elaboration of this point, see Niklas Luhmann, "Das Kunstwerk und die Selbstreproduktion der Kunst," in Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht and K. Lud- wig Pfeiffer, eds. , Stil: Geschichten und Funktionen eines kulturwissenschaftlichen Diskurselements (Frankfurt, 1986), pp. 620-72.
63. Henri Focillon, The Life of Forms in Art (New York, 1992), p. 47.
64. The Church of the Holy Spirit, located in front of the train station in
372 Notes to Pages 208-1$
Bern, combines in a remarkable manner rococo elements with neoclassical stylis- tic forms--of course, without following a postmodern manner of construction.
65. See Chapter 3, section VII, above.
66. August Wilhelm Schlegel recognizes this problem and solves it via die no- tion of the "perfection" of the individual work (see Die Kunstlehre, p. 20), but the problem undergoes a modification that invites consideration of national dis- tinctions. "Sonst aber mufi jedes Kunstwerk aus seinem Standpunkte betrachtet werden; es braucht nicht ein absolut Hochstes zu erreichen, es ist vollendet, wenn es ein Hochstes in seiner Art, in seiner Sphare, seiner Welt ist; und so erk- lart sich wie es zugleich ein Glied in einer unendlichen Reihe von Fortschritten, und dennoch an und fiir sich befriedigend und selbststandig sein kann. " How- ever, Schlegel's inference of an infinite progress for the notion of perfection does, to put it mildly, beg the question.
67. Not accidentally in the realm of architecture and radiating from it. One thinks of Viollet-le-Duc, of the restoration of cathedrals, and of the rebuilding of Carcassonne.
68. Exceptions are ironic or strangely rendered stylistic quotations such as those that can be found in the music of Stravinsky or Schnittke.
? 6
1. See, e. g. , the distinction beau rialIbeau relatif'm Denis Diderot, Traiti du beau, quoted from CEuvres, Plelade ed. (Paris, 1951), pp. 1105-42 (ii27ff).
2. See Georg Kauffmann, Die Entstehung der Kunstgeschichte im ip. Jahrhun- dert (Opladen, 1993).
3. Comparing historiography and poetry, Sir Philip Sidney speaks of "old moth-eaten records," The Defense ofPoetry (1595; Lincoln, Nebr. , 1970), p. 15. 4. Herbert Spencer, "What Is Social Evolution? " The Nineteenth Century 44
(1898): 348-58 (353). For a more detailed account, see the chapters on "The Law of Evolution," in Herbert Spencer, First Principles, 5th ed. (London, 1887), pp. 307*1
5. See several of the contributions in Revue internationale de systemique 7, no. 5 (1993)-
6. See Marion Blute, "Sociocultural Evolutionism: An Untried Theory," Be- havioral Science 24 (1979): 46-59. There are counterexamples, as well, thanks to the numerous contributions of Donald T. Campbell.
7. On this version of the problem, see Magoroh Maruyama, "Postscript to the Second Cybernetics," American Scientist 51 (1963): 250-56.
8. See Niklas Luhmann, "The Paradox of System Differentiation and the Evolution of Society," in Jeffrey C. Alexander and Paul Colomy, eds. , Differenti-
ation Theory and Social Change: Comparative and Historical Perspectives (New
Notes to Pages 215-19
373
York, 1990), pp. 409-40; Niklas Luhmann and Raffaele De Giorgi, Teoria della societa (Milan, 1992), pp. 169ft".
9. On Schelling's significance in developing this line of questioning, see Wil- helm G. Jacobs, "Geschichte und Kunst in Schellings 'System des tranzscenden- talen Idealismus,'" in Walter Jaeschke and Helmut Holzhey, eds. , Friiher Idealis- mus und Friihromantik: Der Streit um die Grundlagen der Asthetik (IJ9$-I8O$) (Hamburg, 1990), pp. 201-13. Schelling only arrived at another teleology of his- tory that entailed, apart from a cosmopolitan society of constitutional states (peace), an epiphany of art that unfolds its unique paradox of a both conscious and unconscious life in history.
10. See Chapter 4, sections IVfE, above.
n . Friedrich Schlegel ascertains: "und gewifi ist die Arabeske [understood as "diese kiinstlich geordnete Verwirrung, diese reizende Symmetric von Wider- spriichen, dieser wunderbare ewige Wechsel von Enthusiasmus und Ironie"] die alteste und urspriinglichste Form der menschlichen Fantasie" {Gesprdchtiberdie Poesie, quoted from Werke in zwei Bdnden [Berlin, 1980], vol. 2, p. 164). For de- tailed evidence, see also Franz Boas, Primitive Art (Oslo, 1927; New York, 1955).
12. Ernst Gombrich's important monograph Ornament und Kunst: Schmuck- trieb und Ordnungssinn in der Psychologie des dekorativen Schaffens (Stuttgart, 1982) contains a wealth of material from all ages, but it is ordered in view of fac- tual concerns and does not claim to offer a history of the ornament and its rela- tionship to the evolution of art. For a historical account that illustrates how the European development of the ornament profited from its subordination to ar- chitectural and structural innovations, and later to specifically artistic stylistic in- ventions, see Joan Evans, Pattern: A Study of Ornament in Western Europe from 1180 to ipoo, 2 vols. (1931; rpt. New York, 1975). For the beginnings of this divi- sion in the construction of gothic cathedrals, see also Otto von Simson, The Gothic Cathedral: The Origins of Gothic Architecture and the Medieval Concept of Order (New York, 1965), e. g. , p. 5: "Here ornamentation is entirely subordinated to the pattern produced by the structural members, the vault ribs and support- ing shafts; the aesthetic system is determined by these. "
13. See Chapter 3, n. 40, above.
14. See, e. g. , Michel Angelo Biondo, Von der hochedlen Malerei (1547; German trans. Vienna, 1873; rpt. Osnabriick, 1970), pp. 24f, 28ff.
15. Biondo believes that beauty appears on the outside of the painted objects (in the drawing? but Biondo speaks of composition); see ibid. , p. 30.
16. See Wolfgang Kemp, "Disegno: Beitrage zur Geschichte des Begriffs zwis- chen 1547 und 1607," Marburger Jahrbuch fiir Kunstwissenschafi 19 (1974), pp. 219-40.
17. First ed. (Venice, 1587), quoted from Torquato Tasso, Prosa (Milan, 1969), p. 349. The formulation "ed vestirla ultimamente con que' piu esquisiti orna-
Notes to Pages 219-20
374
menti" clearly shows ambivalence toward the ornament: on the one hand, it earns rhetorical praise; on the other hand, it is marginalized as a decoration after the fact.
18. Tasso, Discorso terzo, pp. 392ff.
19. See Chapter 3, section IV, above.
20. For detailed evidence, see Evans, Pattern. The difficulty of distinguishing
such external suggestions from stylistic developments within the art system is ob- vious, and it proves once more how artificial the separation between art and or- nament really is.
21. Jacques Derrida has dealt with the "parergon" in relation to the "ergon" with reference to Kant's Third Critique in The Truth in Painting, trans. Geoff Bennington and Ian McLeod (Chicago, 1987).
22. See Francis Hutcheson, An Inquiry Concerning Beauty, Order, Harmony, Design, Treatise I of his Inquiry into the Original of Our Ideas ofBeauty and Virtue (1725; 4th ed. , 1738; critical ed. The Hague, 1973), ? 1, III, pp. 38f.
23. See section IV of this chapter.
24. Hutcheson, Inquiry, ? 2, III, p. 40. In the theory of art, such formulas were already common in the sixteenth century, i. e. , long before Leibniz.
25. Ibid. , ? 4, I--III, pp. 74fT. : "casual conjunctions of ideas. " The defense against unwanted associations is a clear indication of differentiation.
26. See William Hogarth, The Analysis ofBeauty, written with a view of fixing thefluctuating Ideas ofTaste (London, 1753; Oxford, 1955). On ornamentation as
a principle of intensification from "less to more," see p. 35. On the "waving line"
as a "line of beauty" and on the "serpentine line" as a "line of grace," see p. 650.
Other authors also emphasize the connection between the visual arts and the or- nament. Art is "greatly ornamental" in Jonathan Richardson, A Discourse on the Dignity, Certainty, Pleasure andAdvantage ofthe Science ofA Connoisseur (1719), quoted from The Works (London, 1773; rpt. Hildesheim, 1969), pp. 241-346 (245,
see also 268). There has been a long tradition of emphasizing the movement of
the line; see, e. g. , Federico Zuccaro, L'idea dei Pittori, Scultori ed Architetti (Turin, 1607), quoted from Scritti d'arte Federico Zuccaro (Florence, 1961), p. 220, on the disegno eriterno: "La linea dunque e proprio corpo ex sostanza visiva
del disegno esterno. " Antoine Coypel, Discoursprononcez dans les conferences de I'Academie Royale de peinture et de sculpture (Paris, 1721), pp. 46ft. ; Karl Philipp Moritz, "Die metaphysische Schonheit," in Mortitz, Schriften zur Asthetik und Poetik (Tubingen, 1962), pp. 151-57. Or, as a lexical entry under "contours," see Jacques Lacombe, Dictionnaireportatifdes Beaux-Arts (Paris, 1752), p. 174.
27. In his Vierten Kritischen Waldchen, Herder writes, e. g. , that poetry could learn from architecture how to handle uniformity and proportion, and from painting--since the latter is "zu ihrem Hauptzwecke zu kalt, zu trocken, zu gle- ichformig," poetry should adopt the "eigene Linie der Schonheit," a "schones
Notes to Page 221
375
Unebenmafi. " Quoted from Herders Sammtliche Werke, ed. Bernhard Suphan (Berlin, 1878), vol. 4, p. 165.
28. Zuccaro, L'idea dei Pittori, pp. 237! ? .
29. Historically, the legitimization of the fantastic has to do with Plato's uni- versalization of the principle of imitation (Sophistes). Imitation becomes intrin- sically paradoxical: it can refer both to existing and to nonexisting objects.
In Sophistes 236 C, Plato distinguishes accordingly between eidolopoiike, eikastike, and phanstastike, while presupposing that art can never be beautiful if it trans- lates solely natural proportions. But the dialectic of distinguishing turns the problem into a dichotomy. In the late Renaissance, one adopted this distinction in the theory of poetry as well as in painting. See, e. g. , the imitazione icastical imitazione fantastica distinction in Gregorio Comanini, // Figino overo del fine dellapittura (1591), quoted from Paola Barocchi, ed. , Trattati d'arte del cinque- cento, vol. 3 (Bari, 1962), pp. 237-379 (265^). Remarkable theological difficulties arise when this distinction is applied to the representation of the divine. One can only opt for icastica--the ontologically stronger side of the distinction--even though God has no visible form. And the manner in which God must be repre- sented is prescribed. After all, we are in the period of the Counter-Reformation after the Council of Trent.
30. See esp. Karl Philipp Moritz, Vorbegriffe zu einer Theorie der Ornamente (Berlin, 1793; rpt. Nordlingen, 1986); and on this text, Giinter Oesterle, "'Vor- begriffe zu einer Theorie der Ornamente': Kontroverse Formprobleme zwischen Aufklarung, Klassizismus und Romantik am Beispiel der Arabeske," in Herbert Beck, Peter C. Bol, and Eva Mack-Gerard, eds. , Ideal und Wirklichkeit in der bildenden Kunst im spaten 18. Jahrhundert (Berlin, 1984), pp. 119-39.
31. See Karl Konrad Polheim's monograph Die Arabeske: Ansichten und Ideen aus Friedrich Schlegels Poetik (Paderborn, 1966); further, with a view toward the novel, Dietrich Mathy, Poesie und Chaos: Zur anarchistischen Komponente der
32. See Gustav Rene Hocke, Die Welt als Labyrinth, Manier undManie in der europdischen Kunst: Von 1520 bis 1650 (Hamburg, 1959); Hocke, Manierismus in der Literatur (Hamburg, 1959); Hocke, Malerei der Gegenwart: Der Neo- Manierismus vom Surrealismus zur Meditation (Munich, 1975).
33. This trend may correspond to a commercial need, that is, to a structural coupling of literature and the economy. The reader has to read ever new books in order to experience suspense.
34. Fortuna or, by choice, perturbazione. See Torquato Tasso, Discorsi dell'arte, p. 389. By way of a variety guaranteed by the episodes otzfavola, Tasso already distances himself from the schema good luck/misfortune, "perche la varieta de gli episodi in tanto e lodevole in quanto non corrompe l'unita della favola, ne genera in lei confusione" (p. 391).
fruhromantischen Asthetik (Munich, 1984), esp. pp. 99ff. 1
376 Notes to Pages 221-23
35. The full quotation reads as follows: "T'is evident that the more the per- sons are, the greater will be the variety of the Plot. If then the parts are manag'd so regularly that the beauty of the whole be kept intire, and that the variety be- come not a perplex'd and confus'd mass of accidents, you will find it infinitely pleasing to be led in a labyrinth of design, where you see some of your way be- fore you, yet discern not the end till you arrive at it" (John Dryden, OfDra- matick Poesie: An Essay, 2d ed. [1684; London, 1964], pp. 8of? ).
36. For some suggestions, see Hutcheson, An Inquiry Concerning Beauty, ? 6, XI, p. 78.
37. Hogarth, The Analysis ofBeauty, p. 61.
38. See the fitting formulation "factual fictions" in Lennard J. Davis, Factual Fictions: The Origins ofthe English Novel (New York, 1983).
39. Moritz, Vorbegriffe zu einer Theorie der Omamente.
40. Schlegel, Gesprdch iiber die Poesie, pp. I73ff.
41. See Georg Lukacs, Die Theorie des Romans: Ein geschichtsphilosophischer
Versuch iiber diegrojTen Formen derEpik (Berlin, 1920; Neuwied, 1971).
42. As an aside: the eighteenth century's claim that poetry is older than prose may have been motivated by the fact that, in poetry, the ornamentation that holds
the work together is recognized more easily than in prose, namely, as rhythm.
43. For an overview, see Gombrich, Ornament undKunst, pp. 4jff.
44. See Kant, Kritik der Urteilskraft, ? 48: "Zur Beurteilung schoner Gegen-
stande, als solcher, wird Geschmack, zur schonen Kunst selbst aber, d. i. zur Her- vorbringung solcher Gegenstande wird Genie erfordert. " An evolutionary theo- retical interpretation of this passage has been suggested by Niels Werber, Literatur
als System: Zur Ausdijferenzierung literarischer Kommunikation (Opladen, 1992), p. 45. One could also think of a systems-theoretical interpretation, which might concur even more closely with Kant's intention: gathering variety is the business
of genius; taking care of redundancy is the business of taste. Romanticism later re- jected "taste" because of its strong market orientation and insisted that genius by
no means acts arbitrarily, but is capable of self-discipline. Jean Paul, Vorschule der Asthetik, quoted from Werke, vol. 5 (Munich, 1963), pp. 56ff. , speaks of the Beson-
nenheit of genius. See also Raymond Williams, Culture and Society 1/80-ip^o (Harmondsworth, Middlesex, 1961), pp. 6i? . , with reference to Coleridge and Keats. Variation and selection, or operation and observation, might be distin- guished in this way as well. At any rate, the theory of art cannot be reduced to one of these elements. Upon second sight, the "schone Objektivitat der Unbesonnen- heit" (Jean Paul, Vorschule der Asthetik, p. 72) requires correction by the differ- ence-generating operation of the distinguishing observation.
45. On this late-nineteentli-century habit, see William James, "Great Man, Great Thought and the Environment," The Atlantic Monthly 46 (1880): 441-59, (against Spencer). Against this view (albeit with a different adversary in mind),
Notes to Pages 224-32
177
see Herbert Spencer, "What Is Social Evolution? " The Nineteenth Century 44 (1898): 348-59 (356f. ). See also, from the circle of the Prague Structuralists, Jan Mukarowski, "Das Individuum und die literarische Funktion," in Mukarowski, Kunst, Poetik, Semiotik (Frankfurt, 1989), pp. 213-37.
46. Consider, e. g. , computer-generated forms (in music or in painting).
47. On this and on the following, see Niklas Luhmann and Raffaele De Giorgi, Teoria delta society, pp. i87ff.
48. Giinter Ellscheid speaks of the hermeneutic significance of the displaced interest in Giinter Ellscheid and Winfried Hassemer, eds. , Interessenjurisprudenz (Darmstadt, 1971), Introduction, p. 5.
49. We deliberately bracket the question of whether this might yield a better or worse adaptation of the system to its environment, for this question is far less relevant than the older Darwinist theory assumed. All that is important is con- tinuing the system's autopoiesis--no matter what its structures may be.
50. This holds especially for living organisms. See Robert B. Glassman, "Persis- tence and Loose Coupling in Living Systems," Behavioral Science 1% (1973): 83-98. From the domain of living organisms, the concept of loose coupling has entered
the social sciences as a formula for the necessity of interrupted interdependencies.
51. See Chapter 5, above.
52. See Chapter 3, section IV, above, and section II of this chapter.
53. Jan Assmann, Das kulturelle Geddchtnis: Schrift, Erinnerung undpolitische
Identitat infruhen Hochkulturen (Munich, 1992), p. 90.
54. See, e. g. , Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Laokoon, oder iiber die Grenzen der
Malerei undPoesie, quoted from Lessings Werke (Leipzig-Vienna, n. d. ), vol. 3, pp. 1-194 (48fE).
55. We do not deny that there had been art even before one began to distin- guish in this manner. Without recourse to previous states, there can be no evo- lution. But distinctions that trigger evolution presuppose more than that.
56. For evidence of this diversity, see the contributions in Hans Ulrich Gum- brecht and K. Ludwig Pfeiffer, eds. , Stil: Geschichten und Funktionen eines kul- turwissenschaflichen Diskurselements (Frankfurt, 1986).
57. "Frames" in the sense of Erving Goffmann, Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization ofExperience (New York, 1974).
58. Famous in this regard is Claude Levi-Strauss, Totemism (Boston, 1963). 59. We shall return to this point in Chapter 7, below.
60. We are thinking here, of course, of Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten, Aes-
thetica, vol. 1 (Frankfurt/Oder, 1750), but also of a more general discussion, as, e. g. , in Diderot's Traite du beau.
61. See section II of this chapter.
62. On sources from late antiquity, see Wilhelm Perpeet, Asthetik im Mitte- lalter (Freiburg, 1977), esp. pp. 38ff. (on Augustine).
3 7 8 Notes to Pages 232-35
63. The formulation is from Odoh von St. Emeran (emphasis by N. L. ), quoted from Rosario Assunto, Die Theorie des Schonen im Mittelalter (Cologne, 1963), p. 149. Again and again, we must point out, this goes together with a pas- sive notion of cognition that does not make but only receives distinctions.
64. On the development of this insight from Alberti to Palladio and beyond, see Robert Klein, "La forme de l'intelligible," in Umanesimo e simbolismo, Ar- chivio defihsofia (1958), pp. 103-21; Rudolf Wittkower, Architectural Principles in the Age ofHumanism (London, 1949).
65. This is Sir Philip Sidneys formulation in The Defense ofPoetry, p. 9.
66. This happens long before the notorious querelle toward the end of the sev- enteenth century. See August Buck, "Aus der Vorgeschichte der Querelle des An-
ciens et des Modernes in Mittelalter und Renaissance," Bibliothique de I'Human-
isme et de la Renaissance 20 (1958): 127-41; Buck, Die "querelle des anciens et des modernes" im italienischen Selbstverstandnis der Renaissance und des Barocks (Wies- baden, 1973); Elisabeth Gosmann, Antiqui und Moderni im Mittelalter: Eine geschichtliche Standortbestimmung(Munich, 1974); Albert Zimmermann, ed. , An- tiqui undModemi: Traditionsbewufitsein und Fortschrittsbewufitsein im spdten Mit-
telalter, Miscellanea Mediaevalia, vol. 9 (Berlin, 1974); Robert Black, "Ancients and Moderns in the Renaissance: Rhetoric and History in Accolti s 'Dialogue on the Preeminence of Men of His Own Time,"' Journal of the History ofIdeas 43 (1982): 3-32.
67. See Francis Hutcheson, An Inquiry into the Original ofOur Ideas of Beauty and Virtue. Hutcheson begins by stating, "The importance of any truth is noth- ing else than its moment, or efficacy, to make men happy, or to give them the greatest and most lasting pleasure. "
68. These are Parsons's insights! --which occur, not accidentally, in the context
of his notion of evolution theory. See, e. g. , Talcott Parsons, The System ofModern Societies (Englewood Cliffs, N. J. , 1971), p. 27; and in more detail, Parsons, "Com- parative Studies and Evolutionary Change," quoted from Talcott Parsons, Social System and the Evolution of Action Theory (New York, 1977), pp. 279-320 (307ff. ).
69. On the situation in England, see Joan Pittock, The Ascendancy of Taste: The Achievement ofJoseph and Thomas Warton (London, 1973); on the situation
in France, see, e. g. , Siegfried Jiittner, "Die Kunstkritik Diderots (1759-1781)," in Helmut Koopmann and J. Adolf Schmoll, called Eisenwerth, eds. , Beitrage zur
Theorie der Kiinste im ip. Jahrhundert (Frankfurt, 1971), vol. 1, pp. 13-29.
70. Karl Heydenreich, "Was ist der Zweck selbst werth," in Heydenreich, Sys-
tem derAsthetik (Leipzig, 1790; rpt. Hildesheim, 1978), p. 181.
71. In the context of elaborate reflections (which, however, fail to clarify the relationship between objecthood and the "adequate objectivity of the will"), see
Arthur Schopenhauer, Die Welt ah Wille und Vorstellung, vol. 1, ? 41, quoted from Werke, vol.