- A-Z
- Zeitsprünge : Forsc...
- Jahrgang 26
- Heft 3-4
- Erhebende Einbildun...
- Autor(in)
- Erschienen
- 15. September 2023
- ISSN
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E-ISSN: 2751-515X
P-ISSN: 1431-7451
- DOI
- Seitenbereich
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464-482
- Zusammenfsg.
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In eighteenth-century aesthetics nature was often seen not as a finite resource, but as a resource for imagining infinity. The paper follows Jacques Rancière’s thesis in Le temps du paysage. Aux origins de la révolution esthétique (2020) that ›nature‹ operated within two registers: as a visual phenomenon, it had, as it were, inclusive effects; in its function of stimulating the imagination, it fulfilled the purpose of transcending the given and transporting the viewer to an indeterminate ›nowhere‹. The article explores the following questions: What particular form of imagery was necessary to stimulate an imagination that could go beyond the visual? And how was the tension between the inclusive and unifying dimension of nature, on the one hand, and the uplifting, transcending dimension, on the other, played out? In particular, the paper seeks to unfold the ›practices of imagination‹ implicit in the artistic work of William Gilpin: To set the boundless imagination in motion, it is argued, paintings do not present boundless sights. Rather, the boundaries of parts of the landscape are artfully withdrawn from view.