German philosopher quote

December 9, 2014 10:03 AM

Which (German?) philosopher said something like: art/writing is perfect in proportion to the degree to which the personality of the artist isn't detectable in it?
posted by phrontist to Society & Culture (6 answers total)

Response by poster: I want to say Hegel, but I can't find a citation.
posted by phrontist at 10:05 AM on December 9, 2014

TS Eliot (not German, obviously) has an almost identical quote in "Tradition & the Individual Talent" (1919)
posted by kariebookish at 10:08 AM on December 9, 2014

Sounds like Kant, although Schopenhauer said similar things about genius as the highest objectivity.
posted by thelonius at 10:10 AM on December 9, 2014

I think we can rule out Nietzsche.
posted by incolorinred at 12:49 PM on December 9, 2014 [2 favorites]

This is driving me crazy. On first glance, I assumed it had to be either Kant or Hegel, and therefore either in Critique of Pure Judgement or Introductory Lectures on Aesthetics. I'm guessing the quote your looking for may still be in one of those two works, but probably doesn't include the words "proportion" or "perfect," because I used those words to comb both works.

It actually sounds more like Hegel perhaps. Kant was big on the art work being sufficiently 'free' or things like use and 'interestedness' or whatever, but was also big into the idea of genius and such, so I'm not sure he would have said exactly something along the lines of what you've written here.

Sorry that's not super helpful.
posted by Lutoslawski at 5:21 PM on December 9, 2014

Was it a critical theorist possibly? Maybe Walter Benjamin...
posted by incolorinred at 8:34 PM on December 10, 2014