A circular project
The work of art reflects to us the identity of the conscious and unconscious
activities. But the opposition between them is an infinite one, and its removal
is effected without any assistance from freedom. Hence the basic character
of the work of art is that of an unconscious infinity (synthesis of nature and
freedom). Besides what he has put into his work with manifest intention,
the artist seems instinctively, as it were, to have depicted therein an infinity,
which no finite understanding is capable of developing to the full.
System of Transcendental Idealism (1800)
F.W.J. Schelling
(translated by Peter Heath)
