| Goethe was generally regarded as a painter-poet or a visual poet, such an appellation has mostly highlighted the key role of the visual arts in his literary activities. The literature writing and the art papers were talked about together in Goethe's collected works, and his outlooks on literary and on arts were penetrating and affecting each other. The key point of this paper is to research on the process of formation and the development of Goethe's art ideas, but also related to the effect of his art ideas on his literary views and creations. The research approach is based on the fact:Art was very important to Goethe, and Goethe has constantly trained the artistic talent and skills in his whole life. If we could understand Goethe's outlooks on arts, we will see the inherent characteristic of his spirits. That is to say:If we don't know Goethe's art practices and ideas, we couldn't understand the spirits of his literature.There are several aspects from which we could find the visual arts being decisive significance to the formation of Goethe's spirits:First, Goethe had always hoped to be a painter when he was young. In spite of he gave up the painter-dream later, he was still positioning himself as an amateur painter. Goethe has painted a lot of pictures, and the number of hand-painted drawings was not less than2500. So we believe that Goethe has his own practice and experience in painting. Second, Goethe has always engaged in studying the visual arts in his life and extensively appreciated all kinds of arts, on the basic of which he formed his own outlooks on arts. Goethe was the one of the main pathfinders that established the theory of modern European art history. Although he was not the art historian who had a complete academic system, Goethe has initially established some important categories in the areas of art history, by which the following people developed a comprehensive theory system. Finally, visual arts were essential to Goethe in the aspect of ethos. As we know, Goethe asserted that the inspiration of his most poets was coming from the emphasis on visual. To Goethe himself, the visual ability was the manner of turning the reality to the concepts when he was thinking, painting or writing. Goethe always observed and experienced something from the specific reality, and made the fresh concrete images into a kind of idea symbols. As a result, the visual ability being the manner of feeling and thinking about the outside world for Goethe, it does not only mean the sensory organs such as the eye, but also refers to the intuitive way of comprehensive understanding the world, pursueing the integrity, clarity and stability of the sense to a space. Therefore, I think that it indispensible for Goethe's writing to learn, practice and think of the visual arts. And it is one of the most important methods to understand Goethe that we know the relationship between Goethe and the visual art.This paper takes chronology as a main approach to research the development of Goethe's aesthetics views, the locations of Goethe's living for each chapter, through which I try to differentiate the phases of Goethe's views on art forming and growing. At the same time I will pay more attention to the relationship between the atmosphere of Goethe's era and the formation of his own views, in order to discriminate and analyse the sorts of his spiritual sources, explain how Goethe could accepte and chage them, as well as make them be his unique way to observe and experience the world.There are seven chapters in this paper:The first chapter "Frankfurt period(1749-1765)" is to analyticalstudy the education of artistic and aesthetic Goethe accepted in his childhood and adolescence, and grasp his main views on arts and literary on the whole in this period. The research includes three aspects:l.The acceptance of the South classical spirits;2.The understanding of the Dutch realistic paintings;3.The attitude to the fashionable Baroque-Rococo style in German.The second chapter is about "Leipzig period (1765-1770)". When Goethe attended school in Leipzig, he studied from Adam Friedrich Oeser, and his interest in aesthetics began to the Neo-classical, but continued to have the taste of the Baroque-Rococo. So he hesitated to accept the Neo-classical completely, such ambivalence was not coming from the identification in the feeling but from the intellect. And Goethe's aesthetic interests were still biased in favor of the Germany-Dutch arts in this period.The third chapter is about "Strasbourg and Wetzlar period (1770-1776)". In the influence of Johann Gottfried Herder, Goethe's sense to arts has changed thoroughly. The pre-existing suspicion of the Neo-classical has been strengthened due to Herder. Herder's idea was the great spiritual source of German Romanticism, such as Jean Paul, Novalis, and Schlegel brothers. Similarly, Herder affected Goethe deeply, and Goethe advocated "nature" and "genius" in this period. On German Architecture, wrote in1772, was known as a piece of "Sturn und Drang" works in the history of European Art, which represented Goethe's exploration of aesthetic during this period. Goethe found the nature of the genius in "Sturn und Drang" had always been in Gothic spirits from the Middle Ages.The fourth chapter is about the early ten years of "Weimar period (1776-1786)" Goethe has been a master in literature because of Die Leiden des jungen Werthers. But the sentimentality of Werther was the emotion that Goethe would strive against and get rid of. Goethe also hoped that he could overcome the irrational magic in his inner mind in the following period of Weimar. But it was very difficult to eradicate the Daimon. The only right way was to find a manner releasing the power of the Daimon, turning it to be an upward force. This was a long way to practice and entsagenden, even if it couldn't fully control the destructive of the Daimon. Thus the spirits of Greece, Lutheran and others became an important antidote for overcoming the emotion of sentimentalism. Goethe took pains to explore a method of blending the spirits of Protestant with the spirits of Greece. The visual arts were the fulcrum, through which Goethe transformed the invisible spirits of Luther into the visible art forms, and released the existing tensions in the faith of Luther. On the other hand, Goethe also saw the intense moral conflicts in Greece tragedies, and he hoped that they could be resolved by the means of Greece Art forms. It was through learning from the South cultures that Goethe could understand the North cultures more profoundly and comprehensively. From the extreme confusion of the fate, to overcome the sentimental, to shape the ideal hopefully, Goethe's mind and art style became maturer and maturer, such spiritual travelling was uncovered in the several soul dramas such as Proserpina, Der Triumph der Empfindsamkeit, Iphigenie, etc.The fifth chapter is about "the period of Journey to Italy (1786.9-1788.6)". This phase was a decisive period prompted Goethe reached the peak of literature and arts. Italian Journey was the most important text that we depended on and made a study of in this chapter."Auch ich in Arkadien!" was the Goethe's self-image in this period. Quattro Libri dell'Architettura written by Andrea Palladio, and History of Ancient Art written by Johann Joachim Winckelmann were the main readings of Goethe in Italy. However, the Itality arts in reality were very different from the ancient Greek arts without influenced by Rome in fancy. Was Goethe able to fully accept the genuine Greek arts (as opposed to Rome)? How could Goethe understand the ancient step by step? Did Goethe give up his position of the Northern artistic value when accepting the Southern arts? What results Goethe has received by learning from Greek arts? And how the Neo-classical spirits of Goethe's formed? These problems should be focused on in this chapter. The significance of the journey to Italy was that Goethe on-the-spot investigated the antique and began to understand the classical ancient arts veritably. In the development of Goethe's art ideas, the classical ancient arts began gradually to become the other force relative to the Northen arts'in Goethe's mind. And it was impossible for the classical ancient to gain the inherent power contending against the one Northen arts owned before the journey. The sixth chapter is about "Weimar Classicism period (1789-1810)". This period was named "Weimar Classicism Era" in the history of literature, which spanned the time between Goethe coming back to Weimar from Italy, to Schiller's death in1805, mainly including the ten years of collaborating between Goethe and Schiller. And the more generalized "Weimar Classicism Era" could be continued until1810. The spirits of Weimar Classicism were built on the basis of the fruits of the Enlightenment in France and in Germany, whose theoretical core came from Winkelmann's concept of the Greek ideal, ie,"Noble Simplicity and Quiet Grandeur". Goethe and Schiller walked the road of Neo-classical opened up by Winkelmann all in all, despite they had some amendments to Winkelmann's concept. To make Weimar become the North Athens, and to train an ideal healthy human nature in the middle of Germany people, were the spiritual foundation that Goethe and Schiller could clear the air and work together. The other participants included Johann Heinrich Meyer, Wilhelm von Humboldt, etc. A large number of the literary theories and the critical theories Goethe wrote and published in this period, explained his thoughts about the ancient arts, and on the basis of which Goethe formed Charakteristische of his views on arts. Charakteristische has been an important criterion for accepting and evaluating the arts, which gave rise to the idealistic contradiction between Goethe and the Romantic painters such as Philipp Otto Runge, Caspar David Friedrich, etc. Goethe constantly rethought himself profoundly in this dispute, and he tried to re-understand the artistic style of the Romantic. Some medieval elements were absorbed into his monism about the whole world, but they could not shake the core position of his Hellenism.The seventh chapter is about "Late Life period (1810-1832)", which was the period of Goethe's comprehensive understanding the Northen arts and the Southern arts. After Schiller died in1805, Goethe's practice of Hellenism in Weimar came to an end. He did not only pay close attention to the sole culture of Greece, but also began concern himself with the cultures of the other nations. However, Goethe still thought that the culture of Greece was the top one, but the other cultures had their own significance. So Goethe became an advocator of multi-cultural. Goethe's criticism of arts in this period showed the unprecedented richness, and he came into a broader world and felt more abundant and more freely compared to the past. To Goethe himself, the significance of this period was that he had found the balance point in the relationships between the Southern arts and the Northen arts. Everything could be integrated into the totality, and everything owns its place in the totality. Goethe analysed and synthesized most types of the arts, and he reached the highest one. All of the problems could be showed in the correlations. Thus, Goethe became the one of main founders who built the theory of art history in German. This chapter focused on the analysis of Goethe's multiple-view on arts, as well as the influence of his theory to Heinrich Wolfflin.
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