energy.^7 When this creative energy as a gift of nature surges forth, then the
result is a moment of inspiration, an epiphany, or, as Francoise Meltzer
notes, something very like the reception of grace.^8 Craft and reworking of
material may be necessary in order to give this moment of inspiration
satisfactory outward shape, and its genuineness may have to be confirmed
in the responses of others, but it remains crucial as the fount of artistic
making.
Though a conception of the importance of inspiration is increasingly
shared from the early seventeenth century onwards, the most well worked
out and influential conception of artistic genius is put forward by Kant in
sections 46–50 ofThe Critique of the Power of Judgment. According to Kant,
“geniusis the talent (natural gift) that gives the rule to art...atalentfor
producing that for which no determinate rule can be given.”^9 Since no
determinate rule for artistic making can be formulated, then, as already
noted, genius“cannot itself describe or indicate scientifically how it brings
its product into being.”^10 Kant immediately notes that lack of any determin-
ate rule for production in works of genius explains how the German word
“genius [Genie] is derived from [the Latin]genius, in the sense of the particular
spirit given to a person at birth, which protects and guides him, and from
whose inspiration those original ideas stem.”^11 Inspiration comes or is given
divinely-naturally; genius“is apportioned [to one who receives it] immedi-
ately from the hand of nature, and thus dies with him, until nature one day
similarly endows another, who needs nothing more than an example in order
to let the talent of which he is aware operate in a similar way.”^12
It is not the case, however, that every unpredictable and spontaneous
production will be successful art. Craft is also required.“Genius can only
(^7) Ibid., p. 289A. On the emergence of the modern system of the fine or high arts in the
seventeenth century, see also Paul Oskar Kristeller’s classic essay,“The Modern System of
the Arts,”in theJournal of the History of Ideas12 (1951, 1952), reprinted inArt and
Philosophy, ed. Kennick, pp. 7–33. Kristeller’s account of the rise of the modern system
of the arts is usefully qualified in Meyer Schapiro,“On the Aesthetic Attitude in Roman-
esque Art,”in M. Schapiro,Romanesque Art: Selected Papers(New York: G. Braziller, 1977),
pp. 1–28. On the shift toward expression as a central aim of art, see M. H. Abrams,The
Mirror and the Lamp(Oxford University Press, 1953).
(^8) Francoise Meltzer,“Originality in Literature,”inEncyclopedia of Aesthetics, ed. Kelly, vol.
III, pp. 413–16 at p. 414A.
(^9) Kant,Critique, trans. Guyer and Matthews, §46, p. 186.
(^10) Ibid., §46, p. 187. (^11) Ibid. (^12) Ibid., §47, p. 188.
Originality and imagination 117