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Introduction to the Philosophy of Art THE MEANING OF ART The appropriate expression for our subject is the Philo sophy of Art, or, more precisely, the Philos­ ophy of Fine Arts. By this expression we wish to exclud e the beauty of nature. In common life we are in the habit of speaking of beautiful color, a beauti ful sky, a beautiful river, beautiful flowers, beautiful animals, and beautiful human beings.

But quite aside from the question, which we wish ROtiO discuss here, how far beauty may be predi­ cated oisuch objects, or how far natural beauty maybe placed side by side with artistic .beauty, we must begin by maintaining that artistic bea uty isr;higher than the beauty of nature .. For the beauty of art is beauty bom -and hom again - olthe spirit. And as spirit and its products stand higher . than nature· ruld its phenomena, by . so much the beauty that resides in art is superior to the·beauty of nature.

. To. say that spirit and artistic' beauty stand higher than natural beauty, is to say very lillie, fur:"higher" is a very indefinite expression, which.·s tates the difference between. them as ·q�titative and external. The "higher" quality of � tand of artistic beauty does not at all stand �lla merely relative position to nature. Spirit only .IS the true essence and content of the world, so that ,w � tever is ,beautiful is truly beautiful only . Whenlt partakes of this higher essence . and is produced by it. In this sense natural beauty ap- ".:ngs':UY .� a. r�flection of the beauty that be­ •.... ' , spmt; It IS an imperfect and incomplete ,�slOn of the spiritual substance.

',·:";:tConfining ourselves to artistic beauty, we ":; sfirs t co�sider . certain difficulties, The first :, ' ug gest sItself IS the question whether art is >.,a.J.!:lWortl!

f . h'l �1_" .

Y 0 a p I osophic treatment. To be 'c ··art an �beau t� pervade, like a kindly genius, of hfe, and joyously adorn all its outer phases, softening the·gravity and by Joseph Loewenberg, the burd �n of actual existence, furnishing plea­ sure for Idle moments, and, where it can accom­ pl �sh n? thing positive, driving evil away by occu� pymg Its place. Yet, although art wins its way everywhere with its pleasing forms, from the crude adornment of the savages to the splendour of the temple with its marvellous wealth of deco­ ration, art itself appears to fail outside the real aims of life. And though the creations ofart can­ not , be said to be directly disadvantageous to the senous purposes of life, nay, on occasion actu­ ally further them by holding evil at bay, on the whole, artb�longs to the reIaxati'on and leisure of the mind, while the substantial interests of life demand its exert ion. At any rate, such a view ren­ ders art a superfluity, though the tender and emo­ tional ffifluence which is wrought upon themind by �cupation with art is not thought necessarily detnmental, because effeminate. ' .

� ere are others, again, who, though acknowl­ edgmg art to be a luxury, have thought it neces­ sary to defend it by pointing to the practical ne� cessities of the fine arts and to the relation they bear to morality and piety. Very serious aims have been ascribed to art. Art has been rec()m­ mended as a mediator between reason and sensu­ ousness, between inclination andduty, as the rec­ oncilor of all these elements constantly warring with , one another. But it must be said tha�, by making art serve two masters, it is not rendered thereby more worthy of ap hilosophic treatment.

� stead of being an end in itself, art is degraded mto a means of appealing to higher aims, on the one hand, and to frivolity and idleness on the other. Art considered as means offers another difficulty which springs from its fonn. Granting that art can be subordinated to serious aims and m. at the res, ults which it thus produces will be sig­ mficant, stIll the means used by art is deception, for beauty is appearance, its fonn is its life; and one must admit that -a ;true and real purpose should not be achieved through deception, Even INTRODUCTION TO THE PHILOSOPHY OF ART if a good end is thus, now and then, attained by art its success is rather limited, and even then de­ ception cannot be recommended as a worth y means; for the means should be adequate to the dignity of the end, and truth can be produced by truth alone and not by deception and semblance.

It may thus appear as if art were not worthy of philosophic consideration because it is sup­ posed to be merely a pleasing pastime; even when it pursues more serious aims it does not correspond with their nature. On the whole, it is conceived to serve both grave and light interests, achieving its results by means of deception and semblance. As for the worthiness of art to be philosophi­ cally considered, it is indeed true that art can be used as a casual amusement, furnishing enjoy­ men(and pleasure, decorating ou{ surroundings, lending grace to the external conditions of life, and giving prominence to other ()bjects through ornamentation. Art thus employed is' indeed not an independent or free, but rather a subservient art. That art. might serVe other purposes and still retain its pleasure�giving function, is a relation which it has in common with thought. For sci­ ence, too, in the hands of the servile understand­ ing is' used for finite ends and accidental means, and is thus not self-sufficient, but is determined by outer objects and circumstances. On the other hand, science can emancipate itself from such service and can rise in free independence to the pursuit of truth, in which the realization of its own aims is its proper furiction.

Art'is not genuine art until it has thus liberated itself. It fulfils its highest task when it has joined the same sphere with religion and philosophy and has become a certain mode of bringing to con­ sciousness and expression the divine meaning of things, the deepest interests of mankind, and the most universal truths of the spirit. Into works of art the. nations have wrought their most profound ideas and aspirations. Fine Art often constitutes the key, and with many nations it is the only key, to an understanding of their wisdom and religion.

This character art has in common with religion and philosophy. Art'speculiar feature, however, consists in its ability to represent in sensuous form even the highest ideas, bringing them thus nearer to 'the character of natural phenomena, to the senses, and to feeling. It is the height supra-sensuous world into which thought re but it always appears to immediate consci and to present experience as an alien Through the power of philosophic thi' are able to soar above what is merely here,a sensuous and finite experience.' But sp mt heal the breach between the supra-sens uous' the sensuous brought on by its own adv produces out of itself the world of fine· art as first reconciling medium between what is me relj external, sensuous, and transient, and the WOl:l ill of pure thought, between nature with its reality and the infinite freedom of phil reason.

Concerning the unworthiness of art bee its character as appearance and deception, be admitted that such criticism would net, without justice, if appearance could be said to � equivalent to falsehood and thus to som ethinft1 . that ought not to be. Appearance is essen' .

.' reality; truth could. not be, did it not ..

through.appearance. Therefore not appearance� general can be objected to, but merely the ' :; ular kind of appearance through which art:

to "portray truth. To charge the appear which art chooses to embody its ideas as .. ' tion, receives meaning only by comparisonwiilf, the external world of phenomena and its imril!idi � ate materiality, as well as with the inner world �, sensations and feelings. To these two worl ds�; are wont, in our empir ical work-a-day life,to � tribute the value of actuality, reality, and truth, in':

contrast to art, which is supposed to be lacldn g'\ such reality and truth. But, in fact, it is jusr tlle'.

whole sphere of the empirical inner andiOu�' world that is not the world of true reality; indeed it may be called a mere show and a cruel d� tion in a far stricter sense than in the case of;l!lt Only beyond 'the immediacy of sense and oLex;· ternal objects is genuine reality to be fount!, Truly real is but the furidamental· essence and:the underlying substance of nature and of spirit, and the universal element in nature and in spirit is precisely what art accentuates and makes visible� This essence of reality appears also in the com­ mon outer and inner world, but it appears in the form of a chaos of contingencies, distorted by the immediateness of sense perception, and by the GEORG WILHELM FRIEDRICH HEGEL capriciousness and conditions, events, characters, etc. Art frees the true meaning .of appearances from the sho W and deception of this bad and tran­ sient world, and invests it with a higher reality and a m ore genuine being than the things of ordi­ nary l if e . THE CONTENT AND IDEAL OF ART The content of art is spiritual, and its form is sen­ suous; both sides art has to reconcile into a united whole. The first requirement is that the content, which art is to represent, must be worthy of artis­ tic representa tion; otherwise we obtain only a bad unity, since a content not capable of artistic treatment is made to take on an artistic form, and ' a :matter prosaic in itself is forced into a form quite opposed to its inherent nature.

The second requirement demands of the con­ tent of art that it shall be no abstraction. By this is not meant that it must be concrete, as the sen­ suous is alleged to be concrete in contrast to everything spiritual and intellectual. For every­ thing that is genuinely true, in the realm of thought as well as in the domain of nature, is concrete, and has, in spite of universality, never- 1heless, a particular and subjective character. By

theirs. For in Christianity God is con- ',:��"",..w his truth, and therefore concrete, as a a subject, and, more precisely still, as ;· iilUlIIl,,·Whot he is as spirit appears to the reli­ ·conscio usness as a Trinity of persons, at the sam e time is One. Here the essence reconc iled unity of universality and such .unity alone being concrete. a content in order to be true must be this sense, art demands the same con­ because a mere abstract idea, or an ab­ cannot manifest itself in a partic­ �en:S UOI1S unifie d form. If a true and therefore concrete content is to have its adequate sensuous form and shape, this sensuous form must -this being the third re­ quirement -also be something individual, com­ pletely concrete, and one. The nature of concrete­ ness belonging to both the content and the representation of art, is precisely the point in which both can coincide and correspond· to each other. The natural shape of the human body, for example, is.a sensuous concrete object, which is perfectly adequate to represent the spiritual in its concreteness; the view should therefore be aban­ doned .that an existing object from the external world is accidentally chosen by art to express .a spiritual idea. Art does not seize upon this or that form either because it simply finds it or because it can find no .Qther, but the concrete spiritual content itself carries with it the element of exter­ nal, real, yes, even sensuous, representation. And this is the reason why a sensuous concrete object, which bears the impress of an essentially spiri­ tual content, addresses itself to the inner eye; the outward shape whereby the content is rendered visible and imaginable aims at :an existence only in our heart and mind. For this reason alone are content and artistic shape harmoniously wrought.

The mere sensuously concrete external nature as such has not this purpose for its only origin. The gay and :variegated plumage of the birds shines unseen, and their song dies away unheard; the torch�thistle which blossoms only fora night withers without having been admired in the wilds of southern forests; and these forests, groves of the most beautiful.and luxuriant vegetation, with the most odorous and fragrant perfumes, perish and waste, no more enjoyed. The work of art is not so unconsciously self-irnmersed, but it is es­ sentially a question, an address to the responsive soul, an appeal to the heart and to the mind.

Although the sensuous form in which art clothes its content is not accidental, yet it is not the highest form whereby the spiritually concrete may be grasped. A higher mode than representa­ tion through a sensuous form, is thought. True and rational thinking, though in a relative sense abstract, must not be one-sided, but . concrete.

How far a definite content ·can be adequately treated by art and how far it needs, according to its nature, a higher and more spiritual form, is a INTRODUCTION TO THE PHILOSOPHY OF ART distinction which we see at once, if, for example, the Greek gods are compared with God as con­ ceived in accordance with Christian notions. The Greek god is not abstract but individual, closely related to the natural. human form. The Christia n God is also a concrete personality, but he is purely spiritual, and can be known only as spirit and in spirit His sphere of existence is therefore essentially inner knowledge, and not the outer natural shape through which he can be repre­ sented but imperfectly and not in the whole depth of his essence.

But the. task of art is to' represent a spiritual idea to· direct contemplation in sensuous form, and not in the form of thought or of pure spiritu­ ality. The value and dignity of such representa­ tion lies in the correspondence and unity of the two sides, of the spiritual content and its sensu­ ous embodiment, so that the petfection and ex­ cellency of art must depend upon the grade of inner harmony and union with which the spiritual idea and the sensuous form interpenetrate.

, The requirement of the conformity of spiritual idea and sensuous form might at first be inter­ preted as meaning that any idea whatever would suffice, so long' as the concrete form represented this idea and no other. Such a view, however, would confound the ideal of art with mere cor­ rectness, which consists in the expression ,of any meaning in its appropriate form. The artistic ideal is not to be thus understood. For any content whatever is capable, according to the standard of its own nature, of adequate representation, but yet it does not for tl;Iat reason lay claim to artistic beauty in the ideal sense .. Judged by the standard of ideal beauty, even such correct representation will be defective. In this connection we may re­ mark that the defects of.a work of art are not to be considered simply as always due to the inca­ pacity of the artist; defectiveness of form has also its root in . defectiveness of content. Thus, for in­ stance, the Chinese, Indians, Egyptians, in their artistic objects, their representations of the gods, and their idols, adhered to formlessness, or to a vague and inarticulate form, and were not able to arrive at genuine beauty, because their mytholog­ ical ideas, the content and conception of their works of art, were as yet vague and obscure. The more perfect in form works of art are, the more profound is the inner truth of their cont ent thought. And it is not merely a ques tion 0 greater or lesser skill with which the obj external nature are studied and copied , � certain stages of artistic consciousne ss and tic activity, the misrepresentation and dist of natural objects are not unintentional tee inexpertness and incapacity, but consci ous ation, which depends upon the content that consciousness, and is, in fact, demanded We may thus speak of imperfect art, which, own proper sphere, may be quite perfect technically and in other respects. When pared with the highest idea and ideal of art,' indeed defective. In the highest art alone idea and its representation in perfect con because the sensuous form of the idea is in the adequate form, and because the which that form embodies, is itself a ge content.

The higher truth of art consists, then, in spiritual having attained a sensuous form quate to its essence; And this also .

principle of division for the philosophy For the Spirit, before it wins the true no meaning of its absolute essence,has to through. a series of stages which cons .,_ very life. To this universal evolution there co rre::i sponds a development of the phases of art, undei1 the form of which the Spirit -as artist -attainS� to'a comprehension of its own meaning. "'-%) This evolution within the spirit of art has- � sides. The development is, in the first placei a� spiritual and universal one, insofar as a gradual' series of definite conceptions of the univer se ""i' of nature,. man, and God -finds artistic repler' sentation. In-the second place, this universaLde·:

velopment of art, embodying itself in sensu ous form, determines definite modes of artisticex� pression and a totality of necessary distinctionS within the sphere of art. These constitute the par;' ticular arts.

We have now to consider three definite relll· tions of the spiritual idea to its sensuous expres; sion.

SYMBOLIC ART Art begins when the spiritual idea, being its elf still indefinite and obscure and ill-comprehended, GEORG WILHELM FRIEDRICH HEGEL is made the content of artistic forms. As indefi­ nite, it does not yet have that individuality which the artistic ideal demands; its abstractness and one-sidedness thus render its shape defective and whimsical. The first form of art is therefore ra ther a mere search after plasticity than a capac­ ity of true representation; The spiritual idea has not yet found its adequate form, but is still en­ gaged in striving and struggling after it. This fOml we may, in general, call the symbolic form of art; in such form the abstract idea assumes a shape in natural sensuous matter which is for­ eign to it; with this foreign matter the artistic creation begins, from which, however, it seems unable to free itself. The objects of external na­ ture are reproduced unchanged, but at· the same time the meaning of the spiritual idea is attached to them. They thus receive the vocation of ex-' pre ssing it, and must be interpreted as if the spir­ it ual idea were actually present in them. It is in­ deed true that natural objects possess an aspect which makes them capable of representing a uni­ versal meaning, but in symbolic art a complete corres pondence is not yet possible. In it the cor­ Iespondence is confined to an abstract quality, as when. for example, a lion is meant to stand for :strength.

�'l::ThiS abstract relation brings also to conscious­ �sthe foreignness of the spiritual idea to nat­ :ural phenomena. And the 'spiritual idea, having Moth er reality to express its essence. expatiates malLthe se natural shapes, seeks itself in their un­ l�stand disproportion, but finds them inadequate :�illtthenexaggerates these natural phenomena � 'shapes them into the huge and the boundless.

':� spiritual idea revels in them, as it were, and ferments in them, does violence to ·distorts and disfigures them into grotesque and endeavors by the diversity, hugeness, of such forms to raise the natural to the spiritual leveL For here it is the idea which is more or less vague and wh ile the objects of nature have a IV "'_'''.6 fonn.

JC Oll 1mlltv of the two elements to each relation of the spiritual idea to a negative one. The spiritua l as a ele ment and as the universal sub­ all th ings, is conceived unsatisfied with all externality, and in its sublimity it triumphs over the abundance of unsuitable forms. In this conception of sublimity the natural objects and the human shapes are accepted and left unaltered, but at the same time recognized as inadequate to their own inner meaning; it is this inner meaning which is glorified far and above every worldly content.

These elements constitute, in gen eral; the character of the primitive artistic pantheism of the Orient, which either invests even the lowest objects with absolute significance, or'forces all phenomena with violence to assume the expres­ sion of its world-view. This art becomes there­ fore bizarre. grotesque, and without taste, or it represents the infinite substance in its abstract freedom turning away with disdain from the illu­ sory . and perishing mass of appearances. Thus the meaning can never be completely molded into the expression, and, notwithstanding all the aspi­ ration and effort, the incongruity between the spiritual idea and the sensuous form remains in­ superable. This is, then, the first form of art - symbolic art with its endless quest, its inner struggle, its sphinxlike mystery, and its sub­ linllty.

CLASSICAL ART In the second form of art, which we wish to des­ ignate as the classical, the double defect of sym­ bolic art is removed. The symbolic form is im­ perfect, because the spiritual meaning which it seeks to convey enters into consciousness in but an abstract and vague marmer, and thus the con­ gruity between meaning and form must always remain defective and therefor e abstract. This double aspect disappears in the classical type of art; in it we find the free and adequate embodi­ ment of the spir itual idea in the form most suit­ able to it, and with it meaning and expression are in perfect accord. It is classical art,therefore, which first affords the creation and contempla­ tion ofthe completed ideal, realizing it as a real fact in the world.

But the congruity of idea and reality in classi­ cal art must not be taken in the formal sense of the agreement of a cont ent with its external form; otherwise every photograph of nature, INTRODUCTION TO THE PHILOSOPHY OF ART every picture of a countenance, landscape, flower, scene, etc., which constitutes the aim of a representation, would, through the conformity of content and form, be at once classical. The peculiarity of classical art, on the contrary, con­ sists in its content being itself a concrete idea, and, as such, a concrete spiritual idea, for only the spiritual is a truly classical content. For a worthy object of such a content, Nature must be consulted as to whether she contains anything to which a spiritual attribute really belongs. It must be the World-Spirit itself that invented the proper form for the concrete spiritual ideal; the subjective mind -in this case the spirit of art - has only found it, and given it natural plastic existence in accordance with free individual spirituality. The form in which the idea, as spiri­ tual and individual, clothes itself when revealed as a temporal phenomenon, is the human fo-,:m.

To be sure, personification and anthropomor­ phism have frequently been decried as a degra­ dation of the spiritual; but art, insofar as its task is to bring before direct contemplation the spiri­ tual in sensuous form, must advance to such an­ thropomorphism, for only in its body can mind appear in an ad7:\ uately sensuous fashion. The migration of souls is, in this respect, an abstract notion, and physiology should make it one of its fundamental principles that life has necessarily, inits evolution, to advance to the human shape as the only sensuous phenomenon appropriate to the mind.

The human body as portrayed by classical art is not represented in its mere physical existence, but solely as the natural and sensuous form and garb of mind; it is therefore divested of all the defects that belong to the merely sensuous and of all the finite contingencies that appertain to the phenomenal. But if the form must be thus puri­ fied in order to express the appropriate content, and, furthermore, if the conformity of meaning and expression is to be complete, the content which is the spiritual idea must be perfectly capa­ ble of being expressed through the bodily form of 'Hegel means the transmigration of souls into the bodies of other animals; this notion is "abstract" because it presumes that the soul has an ideal reality that allows it to be put into any earthly envelope. [Ed.] man, without projecting into anothe r sp he re: yond the physical and sensuous represen .

The result is that Spirit is characterize d as a ticular form of mind, namely, as human and not as simply absolute and etern al; but absolute and eternal Spirit must be able to and express itself in a manner far more spi This latter point brings to light the de£ classical art, which demands its dissoluti on.

its transition to a third and higher form, tO'i the romantic form of art.

ROMANTIC ART The romantic form of art destroys the unity .

spiritual idea and its sensuous form, and back, though on a higher level, to the differ and opposition of the two, which symbolic left unreconciled. The classical form of art tained, indeed, the highest degree of per£ which the sensuous process of art was capa realizing; and, if it shows any defects, the de£ are those of art itself, due to the limitation 0 sphere. This limitation has its root in the gen attempt of art to represent in sensuous con· .

form the infinite and universal Spirit, and .

attempt of the classical type of art to blend completely spiritual and sensuous existence· .

the two appear in mutual conformity. But in suchr� a fusion of the spiritual and sensuous aspec��:

Spirit cannot be portrayed according to its true:� essence, for the true essence of Spirit is its infi;j nite subjectivity; and its absolute internal me . ing does not lend itself to a full and free e sion in the confinement of the bodily formasits.� only appropriate existence. I ��� Now, romantic art dissolves the insepar able;� unity which is the ideal of the classical type, 1J6;'� cause it has won a content which goes beyond tbe� classical form of art and its mode of expressi on;; This content -if familiar ideas may be recal led, - coincides with what Christianity declares ito', be true of God as Spirit, in distinction to the' Greek belief in gods which constitutes the essen' .� tial and appropriate subject for classical art. The; concrete content of Hellenic art implies the unity; of the human and divine nature, a unity which,;' just because it is merely implied and immediaie; permits of a representation in an irnmediatel( GEORG WILHELM FRIEDRICH HEGEL visibl e and sensuous mold. The Greek god is the object of na"ive contemplation and sensuous imagination; his shape is, therefore, the bodily shape of man; the circle of his power and his essence is individual and confined. To man the Greek god appears as a being and a power with whom he may feel a kinship and unity, but this kins hip and unity are not reflected upon or raised into definite knowledge. The higher stage is the knowledge of this unconscious unity, which un­ derlies the classical form of art and which it has rendered capable of complete plastic embodi­ ment. The elevation of what is unconscious and implied into self-conscious knowledge brings a bo ut an enormous difference; it is ,the infinite diff erence which, for example, separates man from ,the, animal. Man is an animal, but, even in his animal functions, does not rest satisfied with the potential and the unconscious as the animal does,but becomes conscious of them. reflects upon them, and raises them -as, for instance, the process of digestion -into self-conscious science; And it is thus that man breaks through the boundary of his merely ,immediate and un­ conscious existence, so that, just because he knows himself to be animal. he ceases in virtue of such knowledge to be animal, and, through sucbself- knowledge only, can characterize him­ self as mind or spirit.

' •. '. If in the manner just described the unity of the hum an and divine nature is raised from an imme­.diate to a conscious unity, the true mold for the �aIity of this content is no longer the sensuous, ¥JIIll ediate existence of the spiritual, the bodily frame of man, but self-conscious and internal ,con�� platio n. For this reason Christianity, in ��IC �g God as Spirit -not as particularized mdiVl dual mind, but as absolute and universal '�i?t-:- re tires from the sensuousness of imagi­;�on mto the sphere of inner being, and makes t� .and no t the bodily form, the material and � qOf its ��ntent; an� thus the. unity .of the 'J;", an and dIVIDe nature IS a conscIous unIty ca- �le f ' ;.m:

r ea lization only by. spir �tual knowledge. �.' w content, won by thIS UUlty, IS not depen­ <,.

, upon sensuous representation; it is now ex- :llfrom su ch imm �diate existence. In �is .' Ow ever, romantIc art becomes art WhICh nds itself , carr ying on this process of self- transcendence within its own artistic sphere and artistic form.

Briefly stated, the essence of romantic art con­ sists in the artistic object being the free, concrete, spiritual idea itself, which is revealed in its spiri­ tuality to the inner, and not the outer, eye. In con­ formity with such a content, art can, in a sense, not work for sensuous perception, but must aim at the inner mood, which completely fuses with its object, at the most subjective inner shrine, at the heart, the feeling. which, as spiritual feeling, longs for freedom within itself and seeks and finds reconcili ation only within the inner recesses of the spirit This inner world is the content·of ro­ mantic art, and as such an inner life, or as its re­ flection, it must seek embodiment. The inner life thus triumphs over the outer world -indeed, so triumphs over it that the outer world itself is made to proclaim its victory, through which the sensuous appearance sinks into worthlessness.

On the other hand, the romantic type of art, like every other, needs an external mode of ex­ pression. But the spiritual has now retired from the outer mode into itself, and the sensuous ex­ ternality of form assumes again, as it did in sym­ bolic art, an insignificant and transient character.

The subjective, finite mind and will, the particu" larity and caprice of the individual, of character, action or of incident and plot, assume likewise the character they had in symbolic art The exter­ nal side of things is surrendered to accident and committed to the excesses of the imagination, whose caprice now mirrors existence as it is, now chooses to distort the objects of the outer world into a biz arre and grotesque medley, for the ex­ ternal form no longer possesses a meaning and significance, as in classical art, on its own ac­ count and for its own sake. Feeling is now every­ thing. It finds its artistic refiection, not in the world of external things and their forms, but in its own expression; and in every incident and ac­ cident of life, in every misfortune, grief, and even crime, feeling preserves or regains its heal­ ing power of reconciliation.

Hence, the indifference, incongruity, and an­ tagonism of spiritual idea and sensuous form, the characteristics of symbolic art, reappear in the ro­ mantic type, but with this essential difference. In the romantic realm, the spiritual idea, to whose INTRODUCTION TO THE PHILOSOPHY OF ART defectiveness was due the defective forms of symbolic art, now reveals itself in its perfection within mind and feeling. It is by virtue of the higher perfection of the idea that it shuns any ad­ equate union with an external form, since it can seek and attain its true reality and expression best within itself.

This, in general terms, is the character of the symbolic, classical, and romantic forms of art, which stand for the three relations of the spiritual idea to its expression in the realm of art. They consist in the aspiration after, and the attainme nt and transcendence of, the ideal as the true idea of beauty.

THE PARTICULAR ARTS But, now, there inhere in the idea of beauty dif­ ferent modifications which art translates into sensuous forms. And we find a fundamental principle by which the several particular arts may be arranged and defined -that is, the species of art contain in themselves the same es­ sential differences which we have found in the three general types of art. External objectivity, moreover, into which these types are molded by means of a sensuous and particular material, ren� ders them independent and separate means of re­ alizing different artistic functions, as far as each type finds its definite character in some one defi­ nite external material whose mode of portrayal determines its adequate realization.2 Further­ more, the general types of art correspond to the several particular arts, so that they (the particular arts) belong each of them specifically to one of the general types of art. It is these particular arts which give adequate and artistic external being to the general types.

ARCHITECTURE The first of the particular arts with which, ac­ cording to their fundamental principle, we have lHegel's point is that while the art forms of architecture, sculpture. and poetry have intrinsic correspondences with the symbolic, the classical. and the romantic modalities of art. re­ spectively. there nevertheless exist classical and romantic forms of architecture. symbolic and romantic forms of sculp­ ture, symbolic and classical forms of poetry. [Ed.] to begin, is architecture. Its task consistsinilll shaping external inorganic nature that it � comes homogeneous with mind, as an artis tib1 outer world. The material of architect ure is mall:

ter itself �n its immediat� externality a� a hea� mass subject to mechanIcal laws, and Its fonilS� remain the forms of inorganic nature,. but � merely arranged and ordered in accord ance witii' the abstract rules of the understanding, the rulei:

of symmetry. But in such material and in suel forms the ideal as concrete spirituality carinoi be realized; the reality which is represented:iJ{ them remains, therefore, alien to the spiritu al idea, as something external which it has not penetrated or with which it has but a remote and!

abstract relation. Hence the fundamental type of architecture is the symbolical form of art. Forai is architecture that paves the way. as it were, fot' the adequate realization of the God, toiling and wrestling in his service with external nature; and seeking to extricate it from the chaos"{)f finitude, and the abortiveness of chance. By thiS means it levels a space for the God, framesM external surroundings, and builds him his tern; pIe as the place for inner contemplation andfm:

reflection upon the eternal objects of the spirit It raises an enclosure around those gathered to-:

gether, as a defense against the threatening ,of the wind, against rain, the thunderstorm, and wild beasts, and reveals the will to assemble, though externally, yet in accordance with the artistic form. A meaning such as this, the art of architecture is able to mold into its material and its forms with more or less success, according as the determinate nature of the content whichit seeks to embody is more significant or more trivial, more concrete or more abstract, more deeply rooted within its inner being or more dim and superficiaL Indeed, it may even ad­ vance so far as to endeavor to create for such meaning an adequate artistic expression with its material and forms, but in such an attempt it has already overstepped the bounds of its own sphere, and inclines towards sculpture, the higher phase of art. For the limit of architecture lies precisely in this, that it refers to the spiritual as an internal essence in contrast with the exter­ nal forms of its art, and thus whatever is en- GEORG WILHELM FRIEDRICH HEGEL do wed with mind and spirit must be indicated as something other than itsel[ SCULPTURE Architecture, however, has purified the inorganic exte rnal world, has given it symmetric order, has impressed upon it the seal of mind, and the temple of the God, the house of his community, stands ready. Into this temple now enters the God himself. The lightning-flash of individuality strikes the inert mass, permeates it, and a form no longer merely symmetrical, but infinite and ,spiri­ tual, concentr ates and molds its adequate bodily snape. This is the task of sculpture. Inasmuch as iil it the inner spiritual element, which architec­turecan no more than hint at, completely abides With the sensuous form and its external matter, Ellas 'both sides are so merged into each other that 'neither predominates, sculptUre has the clas­ �ictiJforrn of art as its fundamental type. In fact.

:thesehsuous realm itself can command no' ex­ p res sion which cOllld not'be that of tlie spmtual Sphere, jiist'as, conversely, no spiritual content , 'can attain perfect plasticity in sculpture which is , l'n"Cap able of being adequately presented to per" , iception in bodily form. It is sculpture whichcir­ ;�tslBr:our vision the spirit in its bodily 'frame, ·in'memate unity with it, and in an attitude of ' �"" ,''',",' l,� J !' , , . .

� I ;peace and 'repose; and the form in' tum is ani- ' maffi a;by the' content of spiritual individuality. ,� reforeihe external senSllOUS matter is here " wroug ht, either according to its mecharucal , . alone, as heavy mass. orin forms peculiar . nature, or as indifferent' to color, ideal forms of the human shape, and .

of the spatial dimensions. In this last '�"".I_ ... _- should be credited with having , . the inner and spiritual essence in its repose and essential self-possessio n. To , . and unity with itself corresponds e�temal element which itself persists ' in repose. Such an element is the form .

'abstract spatiality. The spirit which replrese:nts is that which is solid in it- , broken up in the play of con- and passions; nor does itS external of the portray al of such a manifold play, but it holds to this one side only, to the ab­ straction of space in the totality of its dimen­ sions.

THE DI!:VELOPMENT OF THE ROMANTIC ARTS After' architecture has built the temple and the hand of sculpture has placed inside it the statue of the God, then this sensuously visible God faces in the spacious halls of his house 'the com­ munity. The community is the spiritual, self­ reflecting element in this sensuous realm, it is the animating subjectivity and inner life. A new prin­ ciple of art begins with it. Both the content of art and 'the medium which embodies it in outward form now demand particularization, individual­ ization, andthe subjective mode of expressing these. The solid unity which the God possesses in sculpture breaks up into the plurality of inner in­ dividual lives,' whose unity is not sensuous, but essentially ideal.

And now God comes to assume the aspect which makes him truly spiritual. As a hither-and­ thither, as an alteration between the unity within himself and his realization in subjective knowl­ edge and individual consciousness, as well as in the common and unified life of the man individu­ als, he is genuinely Spirit ..:... the Spirit in his community. ·Inhis community God is released from the abstractness of a mysterious self­ identitY, as well as from '·the naIve imprisoninent in a bodily shape, in which he is represented by sculpture. Here he is exalted into spirituality, subjectivity, and knowledge. Forthis reason the higher content of art is now this spirituality in 'its absolute form. But since what chiefly reveals it­ self' in this stage is not the serene repose of God in himself, but rather his' appearance, his being, and his manifestation to others, the objects of artistic representation are now the most varied subjective expressions of life and activity for their own sake, as human passions, deeds, events, and, in general, the wide range of human feeling, will, and resignation. In accordance with this con­ tent, the sensuous element must differentiate and show itself adequate to the expression of subjec­ tive feeling. Such different media are furnished INTRODUCTION TO THE PHILOSOPHY OF ART by color, by the musical sound, and finally by the sound as the mere indication of inner intuitions and ideas; and thus as different forms of realizing the spiritual content of art by means of these media we obtain painting, music, and poetry. The sensuous media employed ill these arts being in­ dividualized and in their essence recognized as ideal, they correspond most effectively to the spiritual content of art, and the union between spiritual meaning and sensuous expression devel­ ops, therefore, into greater intimacy than was possible in the case of architecture and sculpture.

This intimate unity ,however, is due wholly to the subjective side.

Leaving, then, the symbolic spirit and archi­ tecture and the classical ideal of sculpture be­ hind, these new arts in which form and content are raised to an ideal level borrow their type from the romantic form of art, whose mode of expres­ sion they are most eminently fitted to voice. They' form, however, a totality of arts, because the ro­ mantic type is the most concrete in itself.

PAINTING The first art in' this totality, which is akin to sculpture, is painting. The material which it uses for its content and for the sensuous expression of that content is visibility as such, in so far as it is .

indiv idualize!f, viz., specified as. color. To be sure, the media employed in archit ecture and sculpture are also visible and colored, but they are not, as.in painting, visibility as such, not the simple light which contrasts itself with darkness and in combination with it becomes color. This visibility as' a subjective and ideal attribute, re­ quires . neither, like architecture, the. abstract me­ chanical form of mass which we find in heavy matter, nor, like sculpture, the three dimensions of sensuous space, even though in concentrated and organic plasticity, but the visibility which ap­ pertains to painting has its differences on a more ideal level, in the particular kind of color; and thus painting frees art from the sensuous. com­ pleteness in space peculiar to material things only, by confining itself to a plane surface.

On the other hand, the content also gains in varied particularization. Whatever. can find room in the human heart, as emotion, idea, and' pose, whatever it is able to frame into a d this variety of material can constitute the colored content of painting. The whole of particular existence, from the highes t tions of the mind down to the most isolated jects of nature, can obtain a place in this art even finite nature, in its particular scenes and peets, can here appear, if only some allusion spiritual element makes it akin to thoughL feeling.

MUSIC The second art in which the romantic form realizatioIl, . on still a higher leyel than in ing, is music. Its material, though still sen su advances to a deeper subjectivity andgr specification. The idealization of the se music brfugs about by negating space: In .

the indifferent extension of space whose a' ance painting admits and consciously imi c0!lcentrated and idealized into, a singh� p But in the form of a motion and tremor ilf material body within itself,this single POint�; co Illes a concrete and active process.

withln:ti\f idealization of matter. Such an incipie�t id�aIi j� of matter which no longer appears under the spa; tial fOrm. but as. temporal ideality, is sound --'�� sensuous acknowledged as ideal, whoseabs tJ:i# visibility is transformed into audibility.

Sound; ai' it were, exempts th� ideal from its absorptio�;� matt yr. .' . .

". i':�, This earliest animation and inspiration of mat:.

ter furnishes .the medium for the inner and ,ifltlf· mate life, of. the spirit,. as yet on an indefinill) level; it is through the tones of music that th,�, heart pours out its whole scale of feelings and.

passions. Thus as sculpture constitutes the central point between architecture and the arts of roman· tic subjectivity, so music forms the center ofth�, romantic arts, and represents the point of trap< sition, between abstract spatial sensuous ness, which belongs. to painting, and the abstract sp iri: ' tuality of poetry. Within itself music has, like ar, chit ecture, an abstract quantitative relation, as a contrast to its iriward and emotional quality;. ¥ also has as its basis a permanent law to which me GEORG WILHELM FRIEDRICH HEGEL ton es with their combinations and successions must confonn.3 POETRY For the third and most spiritual expression of the rom antic fonn of art. we must look to poetry. Its chara cteristic peculiarity lies in the power with which it sub jugates to the mind and to its ideas the sensu ous element from which music and painting began to set art free. For sound. the one external medium of which poetry avails itself, is in it no longer a fe eling of the tone itself . but is a sign which is, by itself, meaningless. 'This sign, moreover, is a sign of an idea which has become concret e, . and not merely of indefinite feeling and of its nuances and grade s. By this means the tone becomes the word. an articulate voice, whose function it is to indicate thoughts and ideas. The negative point to which music had advanced now reveals itself in poetry as the .

oompletely concrete point, as the spirit or the self .consci ousnes s of the individual, which spontaneo usly unites the infinite space of its ide� with the time-element of sound. But this se �uous element which, in music. was still in '� ediate union with inner feelings and moods.

�. m poetry, divorced from the content of con- �ousnes s, for in poetry the mind determ ines ·' �s. £antent on its own account and for the sake ,� ,ifs ideas , and while it employs sound to ex­ �ss �em, yet sound itself is reduced to a sym- ,�� 'Wlthou t value or meaning. From this point of ,� sound may just as well be considered a '.'il\ere

'. to a mere suggestion of mind .. . � genuine mode of poetic representation mner perc,eption and the poetic imagina­ ·"''l;(l� ��· ''' ,;ll. And smce all types of art share in this poetry runs through them all, and devel­ ,mclep(� ndent:lv in each. Poetry, then. is art of the spirit which has attai ned and which does not depend for its refers to the mathematical basis of the diatonic laws of harmony and counterpoint that derive realization upon external sensuous matter, but expatiates only in the inner space and inner time of the ideas and feelings. But just in this, its highest phase, art oversteps the bounds of its own sphere by abandoning the hannoniou sly sensuous mode of portray ing the spirit and by passing from the poetry of imagination into the prose of thought.

SUMMARY Such, then, is the organic totality of the several arts; the external art of architecture, the objective art of scu lpture, and the subjective arts of paint­ ing, music, and poetry. The higher principle from which these are derived we have found in the types of art, the symbol ic, the classical, and the rom antic, which form the universal phases of the idea of beauty itself. Thus symbolic art finds its most adequate reality and most perfect applica­ tion in architecture, in which it is self -complete , and is not yet reduced, so to speak, to the inor­ ganic medium for another art. The classical fonn of art, on the other hand, attains its most com­ plete realization in sculpture, while it accepts ar­ chitecture only as fonningan enclosure round its products and is as yet not capabl e of developing painting and music as absolute expressions of its meaning. The romantic type of art, finally, seizes upon painting, music, and poetry as its essential and adequate modes of expression. Poetry, how­ ever, is in confor mity with all types of the beauti­ ful and extends over them all, because its charac­ teri stic element is the aesthetic imagination, and imagination is necessary for every product of art, to whatever type it may belong.

Thus what the particular arts realize in indi­ vidual artistic creations are, according to the philosophic conception, simply the universal types of the self-unfolding idea of beauty. Out of the external realization of this idea arises the wide Pantheon of art, whose architect and builder is the self-developing spirit of beauty, for the completion of which, however, the his­ tory of the world will require its evolution of countless ages.

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