Johann Georg Sulzer

Initially known more as a mathematician, Sulzer grappled at length with the formation of a unified aesthetic theory, which stimulated the ultimately more influential ideas of the likes of Kant (a correspondent) and Schiller. Bodmer taught him in Zürich. Maupertuis, Euler and C. P. E. Bach were among those befriended in Berlin, where Lambert became a colleague; others met in Prussian enlightenment circles included Mendelssohn and Lessing, who both criticised his ideas as somewhat outmoded. Burney visited him in Berlin, as did Lavater and Fuseli (more recent students of Bodmer’s); Klopstock was his companion on a journey back to Switzerland.