The art of the last 150 years has hitherto been regarded primarily as a result of revolutionary changes in seeing. Modernity has therefore been interrogated insufficiently with respect to its contents. This publication shows that older and extremely old resources—topics like regulation of form—take on new importance in art by living from and in the interplay between art and philosophy, the natural sciences and an expanded way of seeing. Western art is put in relation to world cultures. The examinations follow in the tradition of iconological research, but depart from it through taking into account how the normative is relativized by the individual. The results maintain an intentionally critical distance to purported progressivity as well as to reactionary opinions.