3 Visual Imagery as Poetry

In the aesthetic reflections of the early romantics, visual art is subordinate to poetry. At the time, one of the primary reasons for this secondary status within theoretical concepts on the union of the arts had to do with its function as providing a lifelike reproduction. Epistemologically, the mimetic work of art is subordinate to abstract words and musical motifs. One of the most important pioneers in the overcoming of this academic ranking was the painter Philipp Otto Runge (1777–1810). For his painterly output he drew on an inner connectivity with the universe; the representation of feelings produced symbols of our thoughts on the great forces of the world.^[10] He described symbolism as the real poetry, i.e., the inner music of the three arts by means of words, lines, and colors.^[11] The inner affinity of pictography (which he also calls hieroglyphics) with poetry and music presumes a superior conception: They are the images of God or the gods.^[12]