Moses Led The Israelites Out Of Egyptian Art

While Schiller would like the story of Moses leading the Israelites out of Egypt because of how the story portrays the sublime as well as being an example of tragic art. Kant would argue the piece of art as beautiful because of how he defines beauty and measures whether an art piece is agreeable. Of the two philosophers, Kant has the stronger argument. Kant expands more on his theory of by factoring delight, and judgment.
The piece of art I chose to study was the story of how Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt. This story can be found in the second book of the Bible, Exodus. The story begins with Moses being found by the Pharaoh’s daughter after being given up by his mother. The Pharaoh’s daughter took Hebrew Moses as her own and raised

Kant is saying, when you look at or read a piece of art you should have a sense a pleasure for it to be labeled beautiful. To him, beautiful art should bring positive images to your mind. Kant also states that beautiful art should bring a feeling of life (Kant, p270, 1963). Kant would read about Moses freeing the Israelites and have positive images come to mind. This is different from Schiller’s theory on the sublime because he feels that art should evoke feelings of pain and suffering. Schiller and Kant would both agree that there can be beauty in having feelings of pain and suffering however, Kant would argue that the story brings pleasure to the reader because the reader can get inspired by the art piece. Schiller would want the reader to feel pleasure from those feelings by feeling sympathy from the tragic events that

“The delight which we connect with the representation of the real existence of an object is called interest. Such a delight, therefore, always involves a reference to the faculty of desire, either as its determining ground, or else as necessarily implicated with its determining ground” (Kant, p270, 1963). Kant would find delight in the Israelites desire to be free. He would also find delight in Moses’s actions. He would see the altercation between Moses and the Egyptian that was beating the Hebrew as admirable. To him, this would be one of the first instances where Moses is displaying his desire to see his fellow Hebrews stop being abused and held captive by the Egyptians. Kant would also find delight in Moses listening to God via the burning bush. “Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God. The Lord said, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey” (Exodus 3). Moses was initially scared to go speak to the burning bush however, his interest in seeing the bush catch fire and begin to speak drove him to speak to it (God). Kant would find delight in Moses displaying