According to Lessing, painting and poetry are both mimetic but are distinct neighboring arts in terms of their media. Painting is a spatial art; it exists in space because its medium is spatial signs. Th ese signs, the forms in a painting, corre-spond to bodies that exist in space. In contrast, poetry is a temporal art because its medium is temporal signs. Th ese signs, words composed of articulated sounds in a poetic work, correspond to actions that unfold in time. Th e pictorial signs, placed next to each other on the pictorial surface, are suited to depicting bodies that exist alongside each other in space. Th e poetic signs, however, which follow one another in a poetic work, are suited to depicting actions that unfold in time. Since painting cannot depict bodies apart from action and poetry cannot depict actions without bodies, both must at times abandon their appropriate relation-ship and cross each other’s boundaries. Th e discussion considers both their cross-ing of boundaries, in which they nevertheless remain within the limits of their media (Homer, Raphael), as well as transgressions that result in poetry becom-ing confi ned to the domain of painting (Haller) and painting to the domain of poetry (Kavčič).
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