Schiller's Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man: Cultivating Beauty (the Politics of Art)

You can find a corresponding essay on my website: https://premieretat.com/cultivating-beauty-schiller-on-the-political-effects-of-art/

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In this lecture, I examine the Schiller's account of the political uses of art set forth in his Letters on the Aesthetic Education of man. I will explore his transcendental deduction of the beautiful in a future lecture. Instead, I here examine Schiller's more practical account of the function of beauty within society. Schiller begins by defending art from its cultured despisers who say it is frivolous in light of the political crisis inaugurated by the French Revolution. Schiller responds that art is, in fact, the only way out of the vicious circle that society is entrapped in. To reform an unjust state, the people carrying out the revolution must be just, and to reform an unjust people, the state undertaking their reform must be just. Yet, when BOTH state and people are unjust, it appears that there is no way out of the dilemma. Schiller argues that it is at precisely this point art can intervene by offering redemption from another quarter. For Schiller, it is art that holds the key to saving us from civilizational collapse, and, as a result, the artist takes on the mantle of the prophet.