Herder then develops his view by invoking Baumgarten’s characterization of poetry as “the sensibly perfect in discourse.” What he now argues is that poetry actually gets its force by exploiting both the depiction of objects as in painting and their energy as represented by music. Once painting and music have been properly distinguished from each other and poetry from both, it becomes clear that poetry, because it uses artificial rather than natural signs, can present both objects and actions to us. It is in this sense that poetry can present more truth to us than either painting or music alone.