“ Vischer was not an original thinker, and his monumental Aesthetik, in spite of industry and learning, has not the higher qualities of success. He attempts the hopeless task of explaining art by the Hegelian dialectic. Starting with the definition of beauty as "the idea in the form of limited appearance," he goes on to develop the various elements of art (the beautiful, sublime and comic) , and the various forms of art (plastic art, music and poetry) by means of the Hegelian antitheses—form and content, objective and subjective, inner conflict and reconciliation. ”

“ He died at Gmunden on the 14th of September 1887. His writings include literary essays collected under the titles Kritische Gänge and Altes und Neues, poems, an excellent critical study of Goethe's Faust (1875) , and a successful novel, Auch Einer (1878; 25th ed., 1904) . ”