Late nineteenth-century German philosophers used the word Einfühlung, later translated as empathy, when discussing aesthetics. One of the earliest appearances of the word was in 1846. Philosopher Robert Vischer used Einfühlung to discuss the pleasure we experience when we contemplate a work of art. The word represented an attempt to describe our ability to get ‘inside’ a work of beauty by, for example, projecting ourselves and our feelings ‘into’ a painting, a sculpture, a piece of music, even the beauty of nature itself. ‘For the romantic,’ comments Stueber, ‘nature is properly understood only if it is seen as an outward symbol of some inner spiritual reality.’ As the work of … Continue reading David Howe