Abstract

In 1924 the artist Luise Staudinger issued a bronze medal featuring a portrait of Kant on one side and a famous passage from Kant on the other: “Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and reverence […]: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.” To this Staudinger added an illustration of a naked young man kneeling with outstretched arms, described by the artist as a man in prayer. Yet this does not seem to fit the meaning of Kant’s words. This paper shows that Luise Staudinger was implicitly referring to her father, Franz Staudinger. In his writings, Staudinger taught that he who truly lives up to the moral law always does what he ought to do out of his own free will and with devotion. It is in fact devotion (Hingabe) that is the key to Luise Staudinger’s illustration. The young man is not in prayer; instead, the figure symbolizes a state of mind, namely obedience to the moral law out of devotion to it.