
Some Sources of Romanticism: 2 – The First Attack on Enlightenment
Isaiah Berlin
00:00
What Is the Ideal of Man?
Winkelman speaks about noble tranquillity and calm restraint. He doesn't, any more than anyone else suppose that all the ancients were nobly tranquil or calmly restrained. But he does think that this is the ideal of what man should be. These things are identical for these particular thinkers, just as mathematics deals in perfect circles. So the sculptor and the painter must deal in ideal forms. This, i think, is the rational, the rationalist notion of most eighteenth century aesthetics. That is why there is a comparative neglect of history.
Transcript
Play full episode