Art and nature: Friedrich Schlegel’s intervention in the Quarrel between the Ancients and the Moderns

Abstract

This paper aims discuss those readings that interpret the early work of Friedrich Schlegel as a contribution towards the defense of the ancients. For this purpose, in the first place is reconstructed Schlegel positioning against the thesis supported by Winckelmann in his History of Ancient Art. In the second place, we analyze the discussion of poetic conception of Sturm und Drang that Schlegel performed in various passages of his early work. The aim of this development is to highlight that the young author found equally objectionable the two opposing positions on the Querelle insofar that they assumed a naturalistic conception of artistic beauty. From the point of view of Schlegel, however, the overcoming of subjectivist drift of modern art could only occur through a radicalization of the very subjectivity.