Abstract

The imaginations occupy a key position in the thinking of Cusanus, especially in De mente. He stresses the interplay of the intellect and the imagination, which, by interaction with the concrete things being perceived in a new way, is capable of evoking images. In De imaginatione, Gianfrancesco Pico della Mirandola, with recourse to the theories known in his time, outlines the central role of the imagination in the Renaissance, focusing on the creativity of the imagination. Fundamental correspondences with these interpretations can be discovered in the art of their time: firstly, in the Ghent Altarpiece by Jan van Eyck with its amazing observation and rendering of reflections, which shows equivalents to the thinking of Cusanus; secondly, in the ›Garden of Earthly Delights‹ by Hieronymus Bosch. In this work, the processes of the imaginatio as formulated by Pico are visualized, especially with regard to splitting up and recomposing, what is perceived. Thus in the years around 1500 we witness the emergence of a productive conception of the imagination.