To begin with, this essay traces selected phases of the influence exerted by theMannheimer Anitkensaalon (art) literature around 1800. The essay examines the strategies through which a new experience of perception is depicted: namely, the experience of an abundance of sculptures in space. It then concentrates on Goethe's description of theAntikensaalinDichtung und Wahrheit: while corresponding texts by Schiller and La Roche rather tend to emphasize its auratic quality by using sacred metaphors, Goethe stages a process of aesthetic education though the confrontation between the autobiographical self and the spatial dimensions of the collection and its statues. In this way, the Mannheimer Antikensaalis described as a laboratory of immediate perception.