Abstract

By 1576, in order to obtain the censor’s permission to publish his two last treatises, the artist and philosopher Francisco de Holanda was forced to produce a major change in his conception of art. In an anticipation of the trend that was going to spread all over Europe some decades later, he agreed to replace his neo-platonic notion of an art of divine inspiration for a new conception of the artistic expression centred on the aristotelic caracterization of the human creative process. However, in doing that, Holanda paved the way for the development of a true methaphysics of art. In this article, the author intends to establish the network of philosophical influences that made possible this important change of course in the history of european aesthetics, as well as determine its implications.