The Figure of the Black in German Aesthetic Theory

Abstract

DURING THE COURSE of the eighteenth century the figure of the Black became a permanent fixture in German arts and letters. Whether as the cabin boy resolving the conflict in Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger's drama Sturm und Drang or as the female image of the noble savage in an allegorical grouping of Meissen porcelain, the presence of the Black in European thought during and immediately after the Age of Enlightenment raised the question of the depiction of the Black and the nature of its reception. When writers of this age turned to speculations concerning basic principles of art, the function of such figures in theoretical contexts provided a clue to the comprehension of the exotic as well as of the specific role of the Black in eighteenth-century thought. An understanding of the aesthetic implications of one aspect of the exotic during this period can be extrapolated from an evaluation of the theories of the beautiful in the eighteenth century and an analysis of their discussion of the Black.'