Editor’s Note: “Über Kunst und Kunsttheorie” is an Artikel or essay by Carl von Clausewitz, written at some point after a trip to Paris in 1807. In her Introduction, Olivia Garard provides context, interpretation, and insight into Clausewitz’s thinking about art, and the connections between those thoughts and his famous teachings in On War. The essay below is an original translation by Garard, marking the first time to our knowledge that it has appeared in the English language.
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Art in its widest sense is any human activity for which the ability[1] is not directly given to him by Nature, nor is it developed through her hand. Man has received from Nature the developed abilities of the senses (at least it seems so); he has learned (through instinct) to walk, eat, drink, etc., by her hand. Both kinds of abilities cannot count as art.
What underlies art is an innate capability[2] that is developed through free will.
This is the signification, which likewise has the widest scope. It follows from this that the contemplation of a developed intellect (meditation) is also art; for if someone contemplates the properties of magnitudes (as in doing math), or if someone philosophizes, then it is also art.[3]
As this widest sense of art has scarcely served us, we must seek out those conceptions that connect use in the field of literature with this concept.[4]
The development[5] of an innate capability can only occur through two means: contemplation[6] and practice.[7]
If so, then for each non-natural capability a collection of conceptions must exist that serves to teach this practice[8]; we call this a theory of art. Today people have transferred the name art from the learned capability to the collection of conceptions, which serve to acquire that capability. Accordingly, one calls, for example, the theory of architecture simply architecture, the theory of the art of war, the art of war.[9] On the matter of this transference, which cannot be seen as an individual misuse that can be eradicated, we will still find occasion to make some observations later. We only want to remark here that this transfer has catalyzed the confusion between art and science.
Science is a collection of insights,[10] organized according to an idea (systematically). It follows from this that every art theory, as long as it is only systematically organized, belongs to science; that is to say, the concept art (in the sense of art theory) is subordinated to the concept science, as it constitutes a part of the same. The feature that one must add to the concept science in order to obtain art is that the collection of insights has the purpose to develop in us a capability for art.
Here once again we must abandon the direct path to discuss a limitation that this use has introduced.
Instead of considering science and art (theory) as subordinate concepts, one is used to thinking of them as coordinate; that is to say, one has revoked the predicate “science” from art theory and confronted art and science with each other. – Now we are at the point where we run across concepts from the literary world; the question is now, once so contrasted, how both things can be distinguished from each other without crossing through the whole series of conceptions that we have just mentioned.
The insights, which we find gathered in art (theory), have the purpose to develop a capability in us. The insights, which being retained in science, carry their purpose in themselves,[11] they should enrich our awareness.[12] Here we must change our standpoint twice in order to exhaust the subject.[13]
First, we must prevent the objection that mathematics, chemistry, and a hundred other insights, which no one disputes the predicate science, nevertheless are useful to people for a thousand purposes, which are being brought out through one or the other capabilities. – This use of mathematics, chemistry, etc., is an application of these sciences. The purposes, which are being attained through these different ways, lie outside their scientific nature. That our explanation here completely coincides with use is proved by all textbooks, which constantly engage with primarily depicting[14] the insights of their sciences and never admit within their borders the purposes for which these insights could be utilized.
On the other hand, the question can be raised: Can’t the insights of an art (theory) be thought of as independent, that is to say, without relation to their purposes, and then don’t they become a science? – Certainly. This also oftentimes happens when there are reasons available for it, such insights are very well-known under the name science. Herbology can be very well separated from medicine and is certainly then a science. Most insights of an art theory are individual parts of the sciences; they become parts of an art as soon as the common ribbon, a purpose, which encompasses these often very heterogenous parts and connects them into a unity, is mentally added.
But one finds not only sciences in service to art, rather, conversely, arts comprise only parts of the sciences. Chemistry has been considered until now still a science and, at the same time, chemical operations, which are necessary for chemistry, are art.
The above determination now gives an easier means to generally recognize this whole collection of differing insights for what it is, in order to ascribe to it either the predicate art or science. If the ultimate purpose of the whole is pure awareness, then the whole is a science; if this purpose is a capability to develop artistic proficiency, then the whole is an art. Anatomy gives us an example of how art and science are intertwined with each other and are still recognized by the ultimate purpose. The whole is a science because its purpose is: knowledge of animal structure. The doing of anatomy[15] itself, that is to say the dissecting and assembling of parts, is, indisputably, an art; the theory of this doing of anatomy, that is to say those insights which gives that capability to the pupil is likewise art because its purpose is: developing a capability. If when we now consider this whole, we find that the parts mutually serve as purpose and means, then anatomy itself belongs to the theory of doing anatomy, and anatomy, again, serves the doing of anatomy. Despite these manifold connections, use calls quite decisively the whole a science. Why? Because the purpose of the whole demands it.
We have concerned ourself so far with the concept of art in general. The question is now: in which way do individual arts arise? – When one connects a multitude of activities of one kind with one another. This connection can only happen through a common feature and this feature is now included either in the latent capability for use or in the means, which these connections make use of, or in the purpose the activity has.
The first is perhaps not at all the case. We are, anyway, too unfamiliar with the composition of our intellectual[16] nature to know whether the sum of our intellectual ability consists of more isolated capabilities or of a sole capability, which is modified by the effects of things outside it and so generates the different appearances of the moral[17] world; that is to say, we do not even know whether we have an individual capability.[18]
But even if this is so, surely an individual art is never a product of an individual capability.
The means very often constitute the distinction in the different arts. Music, poetry, and almost all the fine arts have the same purpose, but they achieve it through different ways. In one are sounds, in another colors, and in a third images[19] etc., these are the different elements.
Finally, there is still the purpose, which very often separates the arts from one another. The art of hydraulic engineering and the art of fortifications almost use the same means; one cannot also say that very different capabilities are at their core, apart from inclination, it seems rather that in both a gifted mind[20] and a mathematical sense are sufficient. Therefore, these two arts differ merely based on purpose.
If an individual art differentiates from the others through purpose and means, it is deduced that it owes its name precisely to these objects.
Art and craft do not differ in any specific features, rather merely according to degree. The more mental powers are required when practicing the ability, the more likely it may claim the name art. Experience teaches that these fluctuating borders also occur in conventional use. Where would one want, for example, to put the dividing line[21] of that enormous step ladder, which begins with Raphael and ends with the beer-sign painter.[22]
Art, therefore, is a developed capability; should it express itself, it must have a purpose, just like any other activity of existing powers, and, in order to accomplish this purpose, it must have means. Both purpose and means must, therefore, be there before the art, they cannot arise from it; they are given to it and limit its domain on both sides. Purpose and means connect with one another under the name to create. Art is the ability therein; the theory of art teaches these connections, as far as this is possible by ways of conception. One can therefore say: theory is the depiction of art by way of conception. One easily sees that this constitutes the whole art, with the exception of two things, that is to say the underlying talent and practice. The latter cannot be given through theory, thus, this is what differentiates practical instruction from the theoretical.[23]
About art itself, nothing can be said, because talent is purely subjective. All our considerations must confine themselves to theory.[24]
If the whole creation of art consists of the connection of the purpose with the means, so the characteristics of these two things must be how the creation is modified and determined. Theory will, therefore, concern itself with the investigation into the composition of purpose and means and the results of these investigations will constitute the laws (or rules, it makes no difference) of art.[25]
From this follows that the truths, which a theory assembles are of a dual nature. They teach us either to recognize or to use the characteristics of things.
When troops, who have once begun to fire, are no longer in our control[26] and when it is endlessly difficult to bring troops without fires to attack with bare weapons: such are the truths which instruct us about the characteristics of our troops. What follows from this is that where one wants to insist on the break through[27] one must have even more than a line of troops—the truth teaches us to make a proper use of the troops.
Only the truths of this second kind whereby we are taught how we are meant to do something can actually approach the name of law. Meanwhile, indeed, we could also find these names sometimes used for cognitive truths.[28] The law of gravity is in mechanical arts a cognitive truth. The predicate law will be given to it not because it is a law for us, but rather because it is a law for Nature.
If one wants to apply what was said to pure mathematics, where the scientific form has preserved itself according to the purest nature of the thing, then the solutions of the tasks are then what completely correspond to the concept of law. The extant propositions of mathematics are just cognitive truths, which, as we know, are grouped into axioms and theorems. This classification is not found in any art theory, although the expression axiom is often used endlessly. In mathematics, this classification is extremely necessary. We do not want to decide whether it is possible in an art theory, but, this much is sure, that this kind of classification for art theory is not so essentially needed as it is for mathematics, which is the most abstract of all the sciences such that everything depends on the form of the conception.
By the way, in art, the expression, axiom, is used more in the sense of a teaching rather than a cognitive truth. Here it seems to differentiate itself from the concept law by way of the expression, which has a more subjective sense. More rarely one hears it said of the axioms of art than the axioms of artists; the expression is also used so often in the art of war, as it is well-known that in this art the whole individual nature of the artist has such a great influence on the artwork.[29]
Following these general considerations we direct our glance on the nature of art laws.
A law is, first of all, a regulation[30] of action, that is to say a determination of the use of available means for a predetermined purpose.[31]
It follows that purpose and means determine the case for which the regulation should serve. The case becomes another as soon as another purpose or another means enters; the case remains itself unchanged, as long as those things suffer no changes.
Further, it follows that the characteristics of purposes and means generate the regulation, that is to say, they are the sole source of all regulations.
Regulations for individual cases can find no place in theory, because they cannot exhaust all the possible individual cases (logically: intuitions).[32] Therefore theory must bring the individual cases under general viewpoints (they are unified in categories through common features) in order to give a regulation for the whole class of cases. These regulations receive through that the feature of universality, and this is a substantial feature for the concept of law or rule (which is the same). But one, though, makes the point still to differentiate law from regulation. Law expresses only a thought, in which, admittedly, several conceptions can be contained, but that end all in one thought. If I establish the rule: who has a superior calvary must seek the plane—then more than one conception is contained within, but it is only one thought.[33] But regulations are a series of thoughts, which are connected to a whole in order to determine a certain procedure in all its parts. Regulations emerge from laws, already as an application, depiction, and, therefore, having a greater degree of universality. There are regulations for the interior service,[34] regulations for how one should set-up a camp and how one must leave it, for how one should use entrenching tools, etc. But there are no regulations for how one goes on campaign, for how one delivers a battle, or for how one should set-up the machine.[35] Here individual truths (laws of the art) can merely guide the direction of the mind-spirit.[36] With a regulation, one finds oneself on a beaten road; if one follows the mere art laws, it is just as if one trusts oneself to the guidance of the celestial bodies.
Regulations are, therefore, often assigned more for operating[37] than for the activity of the mind.
Because regulations emerge from art laws, therefore we turn to the latter in order to consider further their emergence.
As we have just seen, laws are not for individual cases and the individual case can only be determined through purpose and means. Now if one wants to unite several cases under common viewpoints, then this cannot happen otherwise than with purposes and means.
Thus, one will have to search for common features (characteristics) for the differing purposes and means.
It will be, therefore, that rules can only be built upon such characteristics of purposes and means that are not purely local (intuition), but rather are recognizable in many cases, that is to say, according to the common logical language, having a certain degree of universality.
A law, which ought to be perfect according to the form, would not only have to express what should happen, but rather also identify the precise cases where it should happen; that is to say, it must specify the common features of purposes and means, whereupon it is built. Under these conditions it would be universal, and exceptions would be impossible. If we find the law in the art of war: “One must secure the flank through external reinforcements,” then this rule presumes a position that is weaker in the flanks than in the front; therefore, without this additional characteristic of positions, this rule is not universal; with it, exceptions are no longer possible. The above condition becomes unnecessary if the characteristics themselves are completely universal. “One must not be ambushed,” presupposes: one cannot be struck unprepared; since these assumptions do not suffer any exceptions, then this assumption need not be made at all, and the rule remains, nevertheless, universal.
But these perfected forms of the laws through the nomenclature of characteristics, upon which they are predicated (whereby the cases always are determined for which they fit), is, for the most part, impossible if one does not want to completely sacrifice substantial brevity and clarity for the laws of art. One has to recall the law in the moment, since one wants to make use of it; but this can happen only if the law consists in a few conceptions, not in a whole series of them. This obliges us to establish laws without naming the conditions upon which they rest, and it is left to the power of judgment[38] to seek out the cases for which they fit; thus, our rules usually have the repute of too great an extent and seem to include cases to which they do not fit. Such cases we name exceptions.
The difficulty to establish rules under the conditions, however many exceptions can be made from them, as one wants, is not at all great; but it is important to notice that not all rules are of the same merit and that there are only very few, perhaps, in some arts which really assist the artist. The merit of an art law depends on two things.
Given that, as already noticed above, not all art laws have the perfect form, so they can approach it more or less, that is to say they suffer more or less exceptions, upon which, indisputably, their merit must depend.[39]
Another characteristic of the rule that determines its merit is the degree of its usefulness. There are rules that are completely universal but that can always be omitted in theory. Truths, which common sense abstracts for itself from the first sight, need not be established in theory for its own sake, as one must also, of course, learn them primarily from theory. But this is unnecessary, since the mind-spirit’s glimpse teaches us from the first sight of the thing itself. A law is established in theory in order to depict concentrated the result of continual contemplation, the last proposition of a whole series of conclusions. Therefore, in a theory, only such propositions should be included that one does not receive from the first look, as one likes to say, ones that are not self-explanatory.
The use, which one has to expect from the laws of an art theory, does not consist, incidentally, in how they inhere in the artist as a creative power;[40] this power is completely independent of theory, lying in the talent of the artist, and would usually be identified with the name whiz,[41] if it has reached a splendid height.
This power is the ability to invent, what we consider as the source of all creating, which theory can neither more abundantly scatter nor let run dry, in a word: on which it has no other authority[42] than that it sets out the way, for the radiating power, which it should take. But this does not happen by the laws continuously leading the artist to his creating, being his sole guide. Strictly speaking this is never true, although more so with the beginner than with the developed artist. The talent developedthrough study[43] and practice goes its way mostly without a guide, and only very rarely will the action of the artist become marshaled by a rule standing clearly before his eyes. The main determination of art laws is: the business of that education itself, that is to say to serve the studies; and, therefore, it is here where one would have to mainly seek the effects of theory whereby they give direction to the creating power of the artist. Theory serves the study in two ways. Firstly, that they [art laws] are present to the student when contemplating artworks and teach him beauty, which he feels just through the mere gazing, to hold up before the intellect,[44] to recognize it, to adopt it as one’s own in order to be able to utilize it someday oneself.[45] Secondly, it happens by the law of reasoning,[46] which serves the purpose of an investigation of objects that are of exceeding importance for the development of talent, that acquaint oneself with the object and nurture and impregnate the mind-spirit with ideas. It seems, indeed, one could also enlist such investigations and reasonings without ending with a law deduced out of them; one would be frightened of retaining nothing from them if one did not find the whole concentrated at the end in a sole proposition; one would then trust in making a purposeless journey; in a word: one would generally grumble less if one did not, thereby, hope to pave the way to rules, from which, at the beginning of the studies, one usually expects more from the exercise of the studies than they really achieve. Thus, the theory of an art has to also consist not only of the bare-naked assembly of individual propositions and rules, but also the investigation about purpose and means, the reasoning about the connection of the two, in a word, the whole justification of propositions and rules will account for very substantial parts of the same.
Carl von Clausewitz. Translated by Olivia Garard.
Olivia A. Garard served as an active duty officer in the U.S. Marine Corps from 2014 to 2020. She is currently investigating to what extent we can understand the phenomenon of warfare through the mind of the commander in Carl von Clausewitz’s On War. She hopes to do the same with The Sunzi. She holds an A.B. in philosophy from Princeton University, a M.A. in war studies from King’s College London, a M.A. in liberal arts from St. John’s College, and is working towards a M.A. in eastern classics from the same. Her first book is An Annotated Guide to Tactics: Carl von Clausewitz’s Theory of the Combat (Marine Corps University Press, 2021). She tweets at @teaandtactics.
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NOTES
[1] Vermögen
[2] Fähigkeit
[3] “All thinking is indeed art.” (Clausewitz, tr. Jolles, 84 and Clausewitz, Vom Kriege, 302).
[4] Begriff
[5] Ausbildung
[6] Nachdenken
[7] Übung
[8] Tätigkeit
[9] Architecture, Baukunst, or what Jolles translated as “building,” is an example carried over in the description of art and the theory of it in On War Book Two, chapter three. (Clausewitz, tr. Jolles, 84 and Clausewitz, Vom Kriege, 301).
[10] Erkenntnissen
[11] See Carl von Clausewitz, Historical and Political Writings, ed. and tr. Peter Paret and Daniel Moran (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992), 265. “I have not spoken of science, which is set apart from both the arts (Poesie) and practical life in this way: that it carries its object (Zweck) within itself. It is thus independent of time and space, but also of all the goals of life. The arts seek an infinite goal (unendlichen); practical life seeks a finite goal (Ziel); whoever enters the realm of science must have no goal at all.”
[12] Erkenntnis
[13] Gegenstand
[14] Darstellung
[15] Anatomieren
[16] geistig
[17] moralisch
[18] This remark notwithstanding, it still remains true that certain capabilities, more than others, reveal a creative origin, which can be explained less from a mere modification of the general ability for conception (Vorstellungsvermögens). The latter is, for example, the case with the sense for music in comparison with imagination and memory (Clausewitz note). While the language evokes Kant, Clausewitz is skeptical of the ultimate state of the faculties of the mind. He does admit a baseline talent necessary for certain skills, like music. –OG, tr.
[19] Vorstellungen
[20] offener Kopf
[21] Grenze
[22] How the aesthetician will further define art and artist does not concern us. That the above explanation would be too material for him, I am convinced in advance. We are making a simple, unsophisticated depiction of the concept (Clausewitz note).
[23] Clausewitz expanded and drew on these ideas in On War Book Two, chapter two. See section 27 in particular. (Clausewitz, tr. Jolles, 76-77 and Clausewitz, Vom Kriege, 290-292).
[24] One forgives us, by the way, if we appear to linger too long on a topic, which does not give any new results. Nowhere is a perfectly clear assembly of fundamental concepts more necessary than in the art of war, because here, very often, one still fights with a chiaroscuro of concepts, which, to be sure, place great obstacles in the way of education (Clausewitz note).
[25] “Theory has, therefore, to consider the nature of means and ends (Zwecke).” (Clausewitz, tr. Jolles, 77 and Clausewitz, Vom Kriege, 292).
[26] Gewalt
[27] Daraufdringen
[28] erkennende Wahrheit. Literally this is “recognizing truth,” but the Kantian flavor makes me think this is part of the mental infrastructure of how one perceives the world (transcendental aesthetic). The understanding pulls in sensations (intuitions) and processes them based on how we are capable of viewing the world. We cannot help but cognitively see (recognize) them as they are, given the form of our intellect. Nevertheless, they still reveal an underlying condition of Nature.
[29] A Clausewitzian example would be Napoleon.
[30] Vorschrift
[31] The following description of laws, rules, regulations, and exceptions rhymes with On War Book Two, chapter four, “Methodism.” (Clausewitz, tr. Jolles, 87-91 and Clausewitz, Vom Kriege, 305-311). Additionally, in On War Book Three, chapter eighteen, “Tension and Rest,” Clausewitz describes “the dynamic law of war.” This is an underappreciated chapter, especially given his appellation of law.
[32] This is another Kantian moment. Intuitions are the media of sense perceptions.
[33] See “and a plain, according to the received rules, is the ground for cavalry” in Carl von Clausewitz, tr. undocumented (possibly Françis Egerton) The Campaign of 1812 in Russia (London: Greenhill Books, 1992), 105. Thanks to Vanya Bellinger for this reference. See also “With a very numerous cavalry we shall seek wide plains and have a preference for great movements” in On War Book Five, chapter four, “Relation of the Three Arms.” (Clausewitz, tr. Jolles, 240 and Clausewitz, Vom Kriege, 511).
[34] Kleindienst. I have been unable to find a satisfying German description, one possibility is tax-service. I am following the French translation, “le service intérieur.” (Clausewitz, tr. Steinhauser, 131).
[35] Maschine. Another translation, suggested by Vanya Bellinger, could be “whole apparatus.” But I want to highlight the fact that mechanism, another conception consistent with Kant’s Critique of Judgment, is here. It is also found in On War and often invoked in relation to friction. See Olivia Garard, “Reconsidering Clausewitz on Friction,” https://warontherocks.com/2023/01/reconsidering-clausewitz-on-friction/.
[36] Geist
[37] Manipulationen
[38] Urteilskraft
[39] Clausewitz loves to use the phrase, mehr oder weniger, more or less to hedge his intellectual bets. It is one of his most common phrases, and in On War Book One, chapter one, he even nominalizes it twice. No English translation adequately captures this distinction. (Clausewitz, Vom Kriege, 193, 202).
[40] Kraft
[41] We say usually for the word whiz (Genie) seems to suffer no fixed definition, because it is often being used in completely different senses (Clausewitz note). I use whiz to capture that genius-spirit sense, which I find akin to daimonion. A whiz may never act, but a genius must act and act with virtuosity. –OG, tr.
[42] Macht
[43] Studium
[44] Verstand
[45] See On War Book One, chapter three, “On Martial Genius.”
[46] Räsonnement, French transliteration of raisonnement, which is also used in On War.