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In the mid-nineteenth century, the notion of plastic arts came under the pen of Félicité de La Mennais within the framework of an aesthetics from above (“metaphysics”), which, to take up the famous distinction introduced by Gustav Fechner in his Vorschule der Ästhetik, is opposed to the aesthetics from below (“scientific”). However, Hippolyte Taine later made a contribution to the definition of artistic plasticity that is not without similarities to that of Lamennais, even though it is most often agreed that it belongs to the aesthetics from below.