The role of genius in objectifying the absolute in Schelling’s philosophy of art

Art by making ideas sensuous brings our conscious ideas into harmony with what is given to us unconsciously by nature. For Schelling, aesthetic intuition is the real expression of reason; it objectively produces what philosophy can only address ideally through intellectual intuition, thus art is the eternal organ of philosophy. The production of the artwork, which comes about through the work of genius, begins by the free conscious act, brings the identity of freedom and necessity, and ends in objective unconsciousness act of artwork. In the work of art, there is an identity between freedom and the necessity and also between subject and object; what brings harmony in the artwork  between the free conscious act and the objective unconscious act is the absolute, which initiates philosophy. By showing the inadequacy of practical reason, which is based on the division between subject and object, Schelling deviates from Fichte’s transcendental idealism. So the philosophy of art must be considered as a subversion of Fichte’s focus on practical reason, where Fichte grounds his system in the self’ s free activity, Schelling now argues that the true realization of human activity is in the work of art, which is objectively produced. This essay examines the position of genius in art product, by explaining the relation between the conscious act and the unconscious act and demonstrating the identity of the two in the production that is called the highest expression of nature. Therefore, with a focus on demounting the subversion of practical philosophy, the aim is to show how the absolute is objectified in the work of art, which is achieved through genius and aesthetic intuition.