Eugenia Zaitev

Among the meritorious attempts to unravel the enigma of artistic creation are the views of Immanuel Kant and Arthur Schopenhauer. In the following, we want to emphasise an aspect that is less discussed in the specialised literature, namely the relation between memory and creation. We are talking about the authentic creation that Kant and Schopenhauer consider to be the one that carries in itself the Aesthetic Ideas. With minor differences, the concept, as well as the associated linguistic expression, come together in the work of both German philosophers. An authentic work of art is the work of genius and it has the role of transmitting Ideas. Thus, we will be able to observe “the secret” of a work of art – the Aesthetic Idea.

In the present paper, we substantiate the theory according to which the ailments of imagination presented by Immanuel Kant, especially in his work Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View, are sources of artistic creation. It is obvious that not anyone suffering from melancholia, nostalgia, hypochondria or any other ailment of the soul, which Immanuel Kant refers to, becomes a creator of culture. Genius is required for this, but instead of diminishing the creative power of the genius, it seems to be enhanced by the ailments of imagination or generally, by the ailments of the soul. The hypertrophic imagination in the case of a genius plays a major role in the process of fixation in the individual and collective memory of what Immanuel Kant names