In ancient Greece, especially in Plato's inspiration theory, an idealistic creation theory has emerged. During the period from the second half of18th century to the first half of19th century, it was formally formed and had a great influence. The representative figure of aesthetic theory is Kant, a famous German idealist philosopher.
In his famous aesthetic work Critique of Judgment, Kant believes that the art of beauty (in the second natural sense, art with intention but seemingly without intention) can only be created by genius. Kant said: "Genius is the natural talent that makes laws and regulations for art". Since natural talent, as an artist's natural creation function, belongs to nature itself, people can say that genius is the soul of nature, and through it, laws and regulations are naturally formulated for art. Kant pointed out that the characteristics of genius are: first, creativity; Second, examples; Third, if you can't learn, you can't teach; Fourth, only art has genius, and science has no genius; The abilities of the brains that make up a genius are imagination and understanding. However, Kant himself is contradictory. On the one hand, he raised genius to the supreme position, on the other hand, he said that if there was a contradiction between genius and aesthetic taste, he would rather sacrifice genius; On the one hand, genius includes imagination and understanding, on the other hand, genius only includes imagination.
Kant's theory of genius is one of the theoretical foundations of the romantic movement. Romantic movement is a resistance to French neoclassicism in17th century. Neoclassicism emphasizes obedience to reason and respect for authority. Advocate the gradual imitation of ancient works. All this is naturally a great constraint on the developing bourgeoisie, so during the Romantic Movement, the bourgeoisie shouted three slogans: "genius", "emotion" and "imagination". Kant's theory of genius was born under this background, which undoubtedly has its historical progress. It emphasizes originality and opposes imitation; Emphasizing nature and opposing rigidity is of positive significance for emancipating the mind in literary and artistic creation.
As for the contradiction of Kant's theory of genius itself, it reflects Kant's wandering between romanticism and neoclassicism.
The negative side of genius is also obvious. Genius says that artistic creation can be specialized and mysterious. Genius is only the privilege of a few people, so art becomes unattainable.
Marxists also admit genius, but it is obviously different from bourgeois idealism: first, compare innate conditions with acquired conditions, and think that acquired conditions are the main ones; Second, comparing geniuses with people, they think that people are the main body and individuals must be combined with people.