ABSTRACT
Emile Durkheim aptly observes that a positivistic understanding of society implies that philosophy, unless it accepts the terms of reference of the positive sciences, must be regarded as a form of literature, unable to articulate any truth about human society in excess of the kind of truth which imaginative literature can provide. The German realist novel is in part defined by a concern with the autonomy of the aesthetic. But it is the most powerful opponent of the ideology of the aesthetic. That is so because it constantly connects the sphere of aesthetic representation to the critical, public, and plural domain of interpretation. The visual centre of the painting is certainly the one-eyed monster of the forge, and the most highlighted feature the strenuous countenance of the leading workman mastering the heavy ingot of red-hot iron. Of course, neither interpretation is compelled or uniquely suggested by Adolf Menzel's painting.
