48. The relation of genius to taste,
For estimating beautiful objects, as such, what is.required is taste; but for fine art, i.e. , the production of such objects, one needs genius.
If we consider genius as the talent for fine art (which the proper signification of the word imports), and if we would analyse it from this point of view into the faculties which must concur to constitute such a talent, it is imperative at the outset accurately to determine the difference between beauty of nature, which it only requires taste to estimate, and beauty of art, which requires genius for its possibility (a possibility to which regard must also be paid in estimating such an object).
A beauty of nature is a beautiful thing; beauty of art is a beautiful representation of a thing.
To enable me to estimate a beauty of nature, as such, I do not need to be previously possessed of a concept of what sort of a thing the object is intended to be, i. e., I am not obliged to know its material finality (the end), but,rather, in forming an estimate of it apart from any knowledge of the end, the mere form pleases on its own account. If, however, the object is presented as a product of art, and is as such to be declared beautiful, then, seeing that art always presupposes an end in the cause ( and its causality), a concept of what the thing is intended to be must first of all be laid at its basis. And, since the agreement of the manifold in a thing with an inner character belonging to it as its end constitutes the perfection of the thing, it follows that in estimating beauty of art the perfection of the thing must be also taken into account-a matter which in estimating a beauty of nature, as beautiful, is quite irrelevant.It is true that in forming an estimate, especially of animate objects of nature, e.g. , of a man or a horse, objective finality is also commonly taken into account with a view to judgement upon their beauty; but then the judgement also ceases to be purely aestheti
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