Herder and Reappraising Sculpture as Tactile Art

The main objective of this essay is to re-examine the nature of sculpture and its importance among arts via retrieving and studying the relatively neglected importance of touch in the experience of this art. This objective is pursued according to eighteenth-century German philosopher, Johann Gottfried Herder, by focusing on his Sculpture: Some Observations on Shape and Form from Pygmalion’s Creative Dream, where he insists that sculpture is originally a tactile art, and therefore has a distinct position among arts. In the present essay, after giving a short account of the background of the dispute over comparison of arts in eighteenth century, and inquiring Herder’s stance in this dispute, it is explained that he, by proposing the concept of force to be the chief criterion for judging arts, and by claiming that our sense of touch corresponds to the obscure force of Being, concludes that sculpture is an art with fundamental potential to perceive this force.