The Silent Language of Art. Franz Rosenzweig on the Problem of the Linguistic Nature of Art

Abstract

In his major work of 1921, Franz Rosenzweig develops a complex aesthetic theory, both critical of German idealist aesthetics (especially that of Kant and Hegel), and central to the Star of Redemption’s systematic construction. The analogy between art and language commonly drawn in German idealism is one of the key questions Rosenzweig discusses. In what sense can we say that the artwork ‘speaks’ to its audience, delivers a message, or enables an understanding the way word language does? Is the analogy legitimate, or does it rest on a false exaltation of the artwork, which ultimately serves ontological, and not aesthetic, purposes? This paper looks at the problem of ‘art as language’ (Kunst als Sprache) and suggests that, for Rosenzweig, the artwork is an incomplete form of language, whose essentially silent nature is yet revelatory of some of language’s hidden features. When Rosenzweig, towards the end of his aesthetic theory, characterizes the artwork as ‘unheimlich’ (uncanny), he points at a fundamental uncanniness in language as well. The function of the artwork in the Star is to show that equating language with Revelation leads to certain ambiguities and insufficiencies that can only be solved by the perspective of Redemption.