Malerei sind so kann sie und nur sie allein, koperliche
Schonheit nachahmen (Lessing 1964).
He determines describing the beautiful body as problematic for the
writer. Lessing describes the parts as allowing themselves to "auf
einmal," all at once, to be viewed whereas in the next sentence he
describes them as lying next to each other. Lessing invokes here the
problem of simultaneity and succession. A writer cannot portray beauty
in any other way than as an enumeration of individual parts that
constitute the whole. Artists, by contrast, can portray the body with a
continuity that writers cannot achieve.
Thus the initial description of his title figure in his 1772 Emilia
Galotti provides an ironic example of the written and "visible" body. The
painter describes a portrait of Emilia, an artwork. In light of Lessing's
assertion concerning the problems of representing a beautiful body, this
constitutes irony. "Dieser Kopf, dieses Anlitz, diese Stirne, diese Augen,
diese Nase, dieser Mund, dieses Kinn, dieser Hals, diese Brust, dieser
Wuchs, dieser ganze Bau, sind, von der Zeit an, mein einziges Studium
der weiblichen Schonheit" (Lessing 1997). The painter describes each
physical attribute, separating the pieces from their totality. His
description of the portrait objectifies her: his observations is paradoxical
because it deprive Emilia of her humanity and establish her solely as a
Kunstwerk.
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