Kant's theory of genius - for all its vagueness and lack of philosophical rigor - has been enormously influential. In particular, the radical separation of the aesthetic genius from the scientific mind; the emphasis on the near-miraculous expression (through aesthetic ideas and attributes) of the ineffable, excited state of mind; the link of fine art to a 'metaphysical' content; the requirement of radical originality; the raising of poetry to the head of all arts - all these claims (though not all of them entirely unique to Kant) were commonplaces and wide-spread for well over a century after Kant. Indeed, when modernists protested (often paradoxically) against the concept of the artist by using 'automatic writing' or 'found objects' it is, for the most part, this concept of the artist-genius that they are reacting against.