About amateurism
About amateurism is the name given to a collection of several fragmentary schemes and associated paralipomena composed by Friedrich Schiller and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in the summer of 1799 . About dilettantism consists of a schematic overview of dilettantism in the various "subjects" and its benefits and harm, the origin and occurrence abroad, as well as individual schemes that deal in more detail with the occurrence and type of dilettantism in the individual arts around 1800 . At the same time, Über den Dilettantismus is also a work that, despite its fragmentary character, clearly depicts the classic concept of art and genius to which Goethe and Schiller felt obliged. The work was intended for publication in Goethe's magazine Propylaen , but was only published after Goethe and Schiller's deaths in 1833 and 1841, respectively. The initiator and driving force of the project was Friedrich Schiller, who also suggested a practical review of the findings in Weimar. At the court of muses around Duchess Anna Amalia there , both of them took on the epic of the amateur Amalie von Imhoff , The Sisters of Lesbos , where they wanted to check whether a work of art could be created from it through their own improvements.
Dilettantism in Goethe and Schiller
Numerous statements about amateurism have come down to us from both Goethe and Schiller.
Friedrich Schiller had already dealt with the contrast between the actor and the handicraft and the mere lover in his essay On the German Theater in 1784 . Here the amateur was preferred to the professional actor, since the former not only plays the affects, but makes them seem natural. Schiller's engagement with the amateur became increasingly critical. In his text on the necessary limits to the use of beautiful forms from 1795, the "mere lover" of art is distinguished from the true art genius. In 1797 he had already criticized false poetry in the votive tablets under the heading Dilettante :
- "Because you succeed in a verse in an educated language,
- Who writes for you and thinks, do you think you are a poet? "
While Friedrich Schiller was critical of amateurism, Goethe was more convinced of the usefulness of amateurism. In 1799 he asked Christian Jagemann about the meaning of the term dilettantism , which first appeared in Germanized form in 1774 with Christian Friedrich Daniel Schubart and then noted: “It means a lover of the arts who not only looks at and enjoys, but also at wants to take part in their exercise. ”This made him one of the amateurs in the field of painting and natural science.
From November 1798, Goethe and Schiller had also addressed amateurism when they worked out the scheme The Collector and His Own . The work dragged on until May 1799, the article was published in June 1799 in Goethe's magazine Propylaen . Different types of amateurs, i.e. practically active art lovers, are drawn up in the form of letters. In addition to accounts of the life of a family that collects art, the eighth and thus last letter contains a list of the various art lovers and creators who have amateurish traits.
- Imitators: The imitator is first and foremost a tracer of reality, “the work cannot make us very comfortable because it lacks the truth of art as a beautiful appearance.” The imitator also includes the draftsman of silhouettes.
- Imaginants: They lead art beyond its limits into the indefinite and infinite, whereby the art is removed from its actual center.
- Characteristic: You approach art abstractly and on the basis of rules and thus limit art itself.
- Undulists: They approach art with indifferent grace and create shallow, meaningless works.
- Small artists: They create miniatures and are to be viewed as negative if they approach the imitators and cannot bring their work into one unit.
- Sketchists: They promote a one-sidedness in art by addressing only the mind and not the sense. Artists of this kind can only sketch, but never finish.
Each of these amateur artists views art either as a game or with too much seriousness. "True art can only arise from intimately connected seriousness and play," a statement that Goethe and Schiller took up again in their schemes on amateurism.
About amateurism
Emergence
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller wrote the schemes for amateurism from May 3 to May 26, 1799.
“Together we repeatedly drew that temperament rose, and the useful and harmful influence of amateurism on all arts was further worked out in tabular form, the sheets of which are still available with both hands. In general, such methodical drafts became the most pleasant entertainment through Schiller's philosophical spirit of order, to which I inclined symbolically. They were taken up again from time to time, checked, adjusted ... "
The plan was to publish the work in Goethe's magazine Propylaen ; the work on individual aspects of amateurism seemed to take shape during Goethe's stay in Jena in 1799. On May 27, 1799, Goethe left Jena and took with him the scheme about amateurism. Friedrich Schiller, the driving force behind the project, reminded Goethe soon after his departure that "the scheme for this essay [...] copied and enriched with new remarks, [sent] back", but Goethe put him off on the same day. In July 1799 it was again Friedrich Schiller who wanted to resume the faltering work on the schema about amateurism. “Haven't you given any further thought to amateurism? I longed for such a suggestion and would like to contribute my thoughts if I had the active state of the collected material in mind. If it has been copied and you don't need it, send it to me ”. This seems to have happened, as Goethe asks Schiller in September, “on your present excursion [admit] whether you cannot complete the scheme. It would be nice if you would then bring that one knew what must judge the people. "However, the essay on amateurism did not materialize, the developed schemes were first printed in finished form in 1833 (see. Section Paralipomena ), the" General Scheme “even not until 1841.
construction
General scheme
The first three-sided schema on amateurism to be written is the general schema , which arose on May 3, 1799. On page 1 it consists of an unstructured list of various arts in Goethe's handwriting with a date by his servant Johann Ludwig Geist , in which amateurism, i.e. the work of a lover, can be represented, e.g. B. in poetry, architecture, garden art or theater. Furthermore, the arts are assigned to different instincts from which the dilettante's preoccupation with the respective art can arise. Goethe and Schiller differentiate between the instincts of expression, desire for pleasure, instinct for imitation and the instinct for education. Accordingly, only the theater can not be assigned to any of these four drives.
Pages 2 and 3 of the general scheme go through the subjects of poetry (lyrical and pragmatic), drawing (painting and sculpture), music (exercise, creation), dance, architecture, garden art and theater in a table. For each subject, considerations are made about the benefits and harms (for the subject / for the whole) and examples at home (old time / new) and abroad. The overview scheme is headed with the fragment "Main Law: Dilettism is more innocent, yes it has an educational effect in such arts where". The table was written by Schiller, individual words were added by Goethe.
Single schemes
As early as May 19, 1799, the individual scheme for drawing was created, which, like the general scheme, is subdivided according to benefit and harm for the individual and the whole and according to occurrence in old and new times in Germany and generally abroad, but more detailed than the general one Scheme goes into the individual points. A day later, Goethe and Schiller prepared the individual dance scheme, which does not contain any information about amateurism abroad. On May 21, 1799, the individual scheme for architecture was created, the next that for music and garden art. The latter has no entries on amateurism abroad and in the old days in Germany.
On May 23 and 24, 1799, the individual schema for lyrical poetry was created, and on May 24th the schema for pragmatic poetry, which is significantly shorter than that for lyrical poetry and has numerous gaps. While any use of amateurism is negated in pragmatic poetry, there is no information on the occurrence of amateurism at home and abroad. On May 26th, Goethe and Schiller dealt with the scheme of the art of acting, the next day Goethe left Jena.
All schemes were written by Friedrich Schiller and supplemented by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. The headings were added later by Johann Peter Eckermann ; a few individual comments can also be found by Johann Heinrich Meyer's hand.
Evaluation of amateurism
damage
Dilettantism is always "skill without a poetic spirit", since the lover of art, unlike the true artist, lacks interest in what is created. “[...] the artist the true connoisseur has an unconditional whole interest and seriousness in art and the work of art. the dilettante always only half a game he plays everything as a pastime ”.
For the “true connoisseur”, the dilettante is also a danger for his own artistic success, since he also has a negative power over the audience. “He takes the element out of art, and worsens its public, which he takes away from seriousness and rigor. [...] He brings those artists who are closer to dilettantism into respect at the expense of the real artists. "Goethe and Schiller see themselves as the" real artists ", something that is different from them is rejected:" All newer artists belong in the class of the imperfect. "
The dilettante is also characterized by imperfection and “mediocrity” because he “gets lost on subjective wrong paths”, but does not recognize this because he confuses his subjectively created material with true art. As an actor e.g. For example, the dilettante will only ever choose roles that correspond to his own character and “never describe the object, always only his feeling about the object”. "All amateur births [...] will only express the inclination and aversion of their creator." The art you create is therefore always subjective. The dilettante cannot at any time detach himself emotionally from the subject he is writing about, he can never step out of himself and thus find an objective truth. Since his work is exclusively subjective, it will never be able to achieve general validity. According to Goethe and Schiller, the work of a dilettante can never become real art, since this demands objectivity .
"All amateurs are plagiarism ", amateurs create their works based on the "real ... poetry", they use phrases and expressions of already known works and thus do not become artistically active themselves. The material is found in a passive way, by falling back on what already exists. The dilettante does not become a creator in the artistic sense, but only an “imitator, copist, silhouette”, as it already says in the scheme for The Collector and His People , which also deals with dilettantism. At the same time, an overestimation of their own artistic ability as well as the playful handling of art leads most amateurs to an early loss of motivation, which - if at all - produces mediocre, mechanically created and superficial works, but the creator of these works, believing in this way, is art to have produced, to seek recognition of his work.
Use
Dilettantism also has positive sides. Since the dilettante deals with the art himself when creating his art, he can develop further in individual cases in such a way that he becomes receptive to the "real art". The "aesthetic training" can lead the amateur to "get to know the laws of what we are looking for". In art, a dilettante cannot become an “artist”, but by perfecting his craftsmanship he can lead the craft to a certain resemblance to art. As a result, it can also be useful for others as a preliminary stage in art. B. ultimately lead the recipient of the amateurish work to art itself.
In a letter to Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi dated January 2, 1800, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe also recognized his own work in the visual arts as amateurish in the course of dealing with amateurism.
Practical review
Literature was generally viewed as amateurish by women who entered the literary market around 1800. In addition to criticism of works by Caroline von Woliehen (Agnes von Lilien) , Sophie Mereau and Charlotte von Stein , Amalie von Imhoff's epic poem The Sisters of Lesbos was an opportunity for Goethe and Schiller to examine the limits and possibilities of amateur literature production.
Amalie von Imhoff had already sent Friedrich Schiller her epic in six songs for publication in Schiller's Musenalmanach in March 1799. It revolves around the custom on the island of Lesbos, according to which only the first-born daughter is allowed to marry and her sisters have to serve her as maidservants. In The Sisters of Lesbos , however, the younger sister and the groom of the eldest fall in love, but in the end the younger sister finds the strength to renounce.
Schiller was initially enthusiastic and praised the “beautiful spirit” of the work and the classic, “the delicate and yet definite drawing, the pure noble and yet truly human figures, the simple and yet sufficient means through which everything happens. The exposition is done with great skill, the resolution is touching through its high simplicity and delicacy. Everything remains in nature and truth, and nevertheless has a beautiful, ideal character. ”He sent the work on to Goethe, who panned it.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe got in touch with Amalie von Imhoff as early as May 13, 1799, during his intensive preoccupation with the schemes of amateurism, and held a poetic congress at Caroline von Wolhaben's, as a result of which he criticized the sisters of Lesbos practiced and demanded makeovers. Amalie von Imhoff agreed to a revision of her work following the mediation of Johann Heinrich Meyer, but Goethe was not satisfied with her changes and began his own improvements.
“I received the first cant of the poem from our friend, but unfortunately all the Gravamina that I have already told you count against. There is no epic retardation, so everything pushes itself on top of each other and the poem lacks calmness and clarity when you read it. There is not a single section given in the whole song, and the sections are really difficult to identify; the very long periods make the matter more complicated than they give the performance a grace through a certain perfection. Many dark parentheses and relationships arise, the words are often rearranged without an epic purpose and the use of the participles is not always happy. I want to see what is possible to be done, all the more so as I do not credit my current hours. "
The aim of Goethe's intervention was, on the one hand, to improve the poem, which filled over 100 pages when it was published in the Musenalmanach for 1800 , and, on the other hand, to check whether a dilettante work could become art by improving a genius . Schiller also rated the change in the epic The Sisters of Lesbos as scientific research:
"... however, you have to regard the work as a sectionem cadaveris for the sake of science, since this practical case is not entirely inconvenient in the current theoretical work [the dilettantism studies]."
The joint reworking of the Sisters of Lesbos made only slow progress and although in June and early August Goethe was still of the opinion that he could definitely create an artistic work according to his claims, his conclusion at the end of August was negative.
"There is always no question that the poem has a lot of disposition and a lot of good, only in the execution it falls too far behind what it should be, although in the meantime that you have not seen it, much has happened to it."
The conclusion of the practical occupation with a work that was amateurish according to Goethe and Schiller's investigations was negative and Goethe did not let his part of the collaboration be announced in the booklet itself. When it was published, The Sisters of Lesbos received positive reviews and experienced several editions as a single publication.
Paralipomena
There are various shorter supplements and additions to the schemes, some of which have been handed down in Schiller's handwriting and partly in Goethe's, with comments from Johann Ludwig Geist or Johann Heinrich Meyer. In the winter of 1823/24, the schemes and parallels on amateurism were edited by Johann Peter Eckermann for the final edition of Goethe's works. Up until April 24, 1824, Eckermann worked on the schemes from Schiller's hand, which were in Goethe's possession, and put everything together in a new arrangement into an essay, which was entitled On the so-called Dilettantismus or the practical hobby in the arts and in the Edition last hand printed in 1833. Eckermann had converted the tabular schemes into running text and thus prepared a new version of the material that arranged the numerous individual notes and ended up counting 36 pages. However , Eckermann did not include the general scheme in his processing. It only appeared in 1841 as a review of Schiller's works .
First, the origin of the word dilettante from Italian should be examined in order to finally deal with the spread and definition of the word around 1800. Accordingly, a dilettante is not someone who “was born with real artistic talent, but circumstances would have prevented it from being excelled as an artist”, but someone who, without artistic talent, only imitates the true artist. While the dilettante often acts from externally secure living conditions, the genius often lives in voluntary poverty and is externally much more at risk.
“Genius and talent may have an inner certain, but are extremely uncertain on the outside. They don't always coincide with the conditions and needs of the time. In barbaric times they are valued as something strange. You are not sure of applause. "
The dilettante is not born as an artist and only tries his hand at art, because he sees success in the example of real artists. The amateur understands art as a simple game. A closer examination of the amateurism of the "women, rich, distinguished" was aimed at, but not implemented. According to Goethe's definition, in addition to his innate talent, the artist stands out from the dilettante through the following characteristics:
- Practice of art after science.
- Assumption of an objective art.
- School-appropriate consequence and improvement.
- Profession and Profession.
- Connection to a world of art and artists.
- School.
In the following, the value or damage of amateurism for the individual arts should be determined, which should be determined according to the degree of objective (damage) or subjective (benefit) orientation of individual arts. The individual schemes follow.
reception
Characteristics that Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller cite to differentiate amateurish works from real artistic works are often indefinite. The prerequisites for true art are regularity and greater knowledge in contrast to the dilettante, but also a higher calling, which ultimately leads to the concept of genius. A dilettante can therefore acquire the knowledge of the artist, but cannot use this knowledge like genius, since genius itself cannot be learned, but is innate in the true artist. How genius defines itself is not explained here, whereby the concept of genius in the schema for amateurism z. B. von Koopmann was criticized as "a bulwark from which Schiller and Goethe successfully defended themselves against the oncoming flood of amateurism".
In the research about amateurism in the late 20th century was mainly taken up by feminist literary studies. In 1990 Christa Bürger put forward the thesis that Goethe and Schiller had written the schemes about dilettantism as a work about the dilettantism of the female literary constitution, since z. For example, the criteria of the Paralipomena, which distinguish amateurs from true artists, would invariably have applied to (bourgeois) women authors around 1800.
- Practice of art after science. - Women were denied access to universities.
- Assumption of an objective art. - Women could often only write from the subjective point of view of being a housewife and wife.
- School-appropriate consequence and improvement. - Women wrote autodidactically.
- Profession and Profession. - Women were not able to (openly) pursue a profession in a marriage.
- Connection to a world of art and artists. - Around 1800 women were mostly confined to the domestic sphere.
- School. - sh. Point 1.
Feminist literary criticism therefore criticizes Über den Dilettantismus as an attempt by Goethe and Schiller to characterize dilettantism in the negative sense as fundamentally feminine and literature by women per se as inferior.
plant
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: About the so-called dilettantism or the practical hobby in the arts . In: Goethe's works. Complete edition last hand . Volume 44: Goethe's posthumous works . Cotta, Stuttgart and Tübingen 1833, pp. 256-285. Digitized
- Benno von Wiese, Helmut Koopmann (ed.): Schiller's works. National edition . Volume 21: Philosophical Writings, Part Two. Weimar, Hermann Böhlaus Successor 1963, pp. 60–63, leaflets of the schemes as an enclosure.
literature
- Gerhart Baumann: Goethe: "About amateurism" . In: Euphorion . 46, 1952, pp. 348-369.
- Ursula Wertheim: The scheme about amateurism . In: Weimar Contributions . Special issue 1960, pp. 965–977.
- Helmut Koopmann: Dilettantism: Comments on a phenomenon of the Goethe era . In: Helmut Holtzhauer and Bernhard Zeller (eds.): Studies during the time of Goethe. Festschrift for Liselotte Blumenthal . Hermann Böhlaus successor, Weimar 1968.
- Christa Bürger : Dilettantism of women . In: Christa Bürger: Writing Life. The classic, the romantic and the place of women . Metzler, Stuttgart 1990, pp. 19-31.
- Sigrid Lange: On epic and dramatic poetry by Weimar authors. Reflections on gender specifics in poetology . In: Journal for German Studies . Neue Episode 1, 1991, pp. 341-351.
- Amateurism . In: Gero von Wilpert : Goethe-Lexikon (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 407). Kröner, Stuttgart 1998, ISBN 3-520-40701-9 , p. 223f.
Individual evidence
- ^ Friedrich Schiller: Votivtafeln - Dilettante . In: Friedrich Schiller, NA 1, p. 302.
- ^ Christian Friedrich Daniel Schubart: German Chronicle for the year 1774 . Stage, Augsburg 1774, p. 232.
- ^ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: Weimar edition . Dept. 1, Vol. 47. Reprint. dtv, Munich 1987, p. 321.
- ↑ The collector and his own . In: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: Berlin edition . Volume 19. Structure, Berlin 1973, p. 261.
- ^ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: Berlin edition . Structure, Berlin 1973, p. 268.
- ^ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: Weimar edition . Dept. 1, Vol. 35. Reprint. dtv, Munich 1987, p. 83f.
- ^ Letter of May 29, 1799. Schiller, NA 30, p. 50.
- ^ Letter of July 15, 1799. In: Schiller, NA 30, p. 72.
- ^ Letter of September 4, 1799. In: Schiller, NA 38.1, p. 154.
- ↑ About amateurism . In: Karl Richter (Hrsg.): Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - Complete works according to the epochs of his work . Volume 6.2. Hanser, Munich 1988, p. 152.
- ↑ Schiller, NA 21.2, appendix folding table on dilettantism (7) lyric poetry.
- ↑ Schiller, NA 21.2, appendix folding table on dilettantism (2) drawing.
- ↑ Schiller, NA 21.2, appendix folding table on dilettantism (2) drawing.
- ↑ Goethe to Schiller, letter of June 22, 1799. In: Schiller, NA 38.1, p. 108.
- ↑ Schiller, NA 21.2, appendix folding table on dilettantism (1).
- ↑ Schiller, NA 21.2, appendix folding table on dilettantism (2) drawing.
- ↑ Schiller, NA 21.2, appendix folding table on dilettantism (8) Pragmatic poetry.
- ↑ Schiller, NA 21.2, appendix folding table on dilettantism (8) Pragmatic poetry.
- ↑ Schiller, NA 21.2, appendix folding table on dilettantism (7) lyric poetry.
- ↑ Schiller, NA 21.2, appendix folding table on dilettantism (7) lyric poetry.
- ↑ Schiller, NA 21.2, appendix folding table scheme to "The collector and his own".
- ↑ Schiller NA 21.2, appendix folding table on dilettantism (1).
- ↑ Schiller, NA 21.2, appendix folding table on dilettantism (2) drawing.
- ↑ "After seeing the futile effort of an amateurish pursuit of fine art, I finally wanted to get a pure look at what is left of it." Goethe to Jacobi, letter of January 2, 1800. In: Dörr / Oellers (Ed.): Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - Complete Works . Vol. 32, Section 2, Vol. 5. Deutscher Klassiker Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1999, p. 11.
- ↑ For example, poems for women fall under the amateurism of the new era in Germany, and Goethe noted in his notes about the dilettantism of women .
- ↑ Schiller to Amalie von Imhoff, letter of March 25, 1799. In; Schiller, NA 30, p. 40.
- ↑ Schiller, NA 38, p. 94.
- ↑ Schiller, NA 30, p. 51.
- ↑ Schiller, NA 38, p. 148.
- ↑ See Karl Hoffmeister (Ed.): Review of Schiller's works . Volume 4. Cotta, Stuttgart and Tübingen 1841, pp. 571-574.
- ↑ On so-called dilettantism , p. 256.
- ↑ On so-called dilettantism , p. 257.
- ↑ On so-called amateurism , p. 259.
- ↑ On so-called amateurism , p. 261.
- ↑ Koopmann, p. 200.