ABSTRACT
The life-changing experiences that Johann Wolfgang Goethe made during his journey to Italy (1786–1788) had repercussions not only on his aesthetic convictions but also on his scientific conception of nature. In the 1790s, after his return to Weimar, Goethe sought to reform, by means of critical journals, art exhibitions, prize competitions, and new theatrical practices, the art and literature of his age in a neoclassical direction. At the same time, he developed new scientific theories: most notably, his morphology, a pre-Darwinist theory of the evolution of nature. This chapter argues that both Goethe’s aesthetic thinking and his scientific research rely on a particular form of experimentalism. The idea—be it the idea of a natural phenomenon or the idea of a work of art—is only obtainable by means of exploratory experiments. Rather than being the origin of things, the idea constitutes the goal of the scientist’s or the artist’s teleological experimental process.
