The main objective of this essay is to re-examine the nature of sculpture and its importance among arts via retrieving and studying the relatively neglected importance of touch in the experience of this art. This objective is pursued according to eighteenth-century German philosopher, Johann Gottfried Herder, by focusing on his Sculpture: Some Observations on Shape and Form from Pygmalion’s Creative Dream, where he insists that sculpture is originally a tactile art, and therefore has a distinct position among arts. In the present essay, after giving a short account of the background of the dispute over comparison of arts in eighteenth century, and inquiring Herder’s stance in this dispute, it is explained that he, by proposing the concept of force to be the chief criterion for judging arts, and by claiming that our sense of touch corresponds to the obscure force of Being, concludes that sculpture is an art with fundamental potential to perceive this force.

The art of Greek sculpture is the most complete and appropriate visual form of expression of the divine in the Greek art religion and similar types in the earlier and later religions. In Greek sculpture, form and content are in balance and interact with each other. The Spirit and the material have no dominion over one another. The spirit (divine) recognizes as its proper home the human body, and this self-consciousness is expressed and manifested through the “work” of the artist. Thus, the ideal gods of religious art, born in Greek epics, found an objective and concrete form in the art of sculpture. In art of Greek sculpture, the Spirit gives up its former savagery and finds civilization suitable for its finite freedom. Thus, in Greek sculpture, there is a union: between God and man, which makes each need another. And the Greek man feels at home because of his direct sensory connection with the divine command. The art of sculpture, in collaboration with architecture (temple), plays a unique role in the formation of the “nation” in classical Greece. In addition, God’s embodiment in Greek art religion provides the basis for the emergence of man-Christian God. However, the art of Greek sculpture in expressing the divine order is inherently flawed, and this inadequacy is due to the limits of art in the whole/art in general.