THE PHILOSOPHY OF

FINE ART

BY

G. W. F. HEGEL

TRANSLATED, WITH NOTES, BY

F. P. B. OSMASTON, B.A.

AUTHOR OF "THE ART AND GENIUS OF TINTORET," "AN ESSAY
ON THE FUTURE OF POETRY," AND OTHER WORKS

VOL II

LONDON

G. BELL AND SONS, LTD.

1920

CONTENTS OF VOL. II

SECOND PART

INTRODUCTION

[Evolution of the Ideal in the Particular Types of Fine Art, namely, the Symbolic, the Classical, and the Romantic. Symbolic Art seeks after that unity of ideal significance and external form, which Classical art in its representation of substantive individuality succeeds in securing to sensuous perception, and which Romantic art passes beyond, owing to its excessive insistence on the claims of Spirit]

SUBSECTION I

THE SYMBOLIC TYPE OF ART

INTRODUCTION

OF THE SYMBOL GENERALLY

[1. Symbol as a sign simply in language, colours, etc. 8

2. Not a mere sign to represent something else, but a significant fact which presents the idea or quality it symbolizes 9

3. Thing symbolized must have other qualities than that accepted as symbol. Term symbol necessarily open to ambiguity 10

(a) Ambiguity in particular case whether the concrete fact is set before us as a symbol. Difference between a symbol and a simile. Illustrations 10

(b) Ambiguity extends to-entire worlds of Art, e.g, Oriental art. Two theories with regard to mythos discussed and contrasted 14

(c) The problems of mythology in the present treatise limited to the question, "How far symbolism is entitled to rank as a form of Art?" Will only consider symbol in so far as it belongs to Art in its own right and itself proceeds from the notion of the Ideal, the unfolding of which it commences] 19

DIVISION OF SUBJECT

[1. The artistic consciousness originates in wonder. The effects that result from such a state. Art the first interpreter of the religious consciousness. Conceptions envisaged in plastic forms of natural objects 23

2. The final aim of symbolic art is classical art. Here it is dissolved. The Sublime lies between the two extremes 26

3. The stages of symbolical art classified according to their subdivisions in the chapters of this. Second Part of the entire treatise] 29

CHAPTER I

UNCONSCIOUS SYMBOLISM

A. Unity of Significance and Form in its immediacy 36

1. The religion of Zoroaster 37

2. No true symbolical significance in the above 42

3. Equally destitute of an artistic character 44

B. Fantastic Symbolism 47

1. The Hindoo conception of Brahmâ 50

2. Sensuousness, measurelessness, and personifying activity of Hindoo imagination 51

3. Conception of purification and penance 64

C. Genuine Symbolism 65

1. Nature no longer accepted in its immediate sensuous existence as adequate to the significance. Art and general outlook of ancient Egypt 75

[(a) The inward import held independent of immediate existence in the embalmed corpse 76

(b) Doctrine of immortality of the soul as held by Egyptians 76

(c) Superterranean and subterranean modes of Egyptian art. The Pyramids] 77

2. Worship of animals, as the vision of a secreted soul. Symbolical and non-symbolical aspects of this cult 78

3. Works of Egyptian art are objective riddles. The Sphinx symbolic of the genius of Egypt. Memnons, Isis, and Osiris 79

CHAPTER II

THE SYMBOLISM OF THE SUBLIME

A. Pantheism of Art 89

1. Hindoo poetry 90

2. Persian and Mohammedan poetry. Modern reflections of such poetry as in Goethe 92

3. Christian Mysticism 97

B. The Art of the Sublime 97

1. God as Creator and Lord of a subject World. He is Creator, not Generator. His Dwelling not in Nature 100

2. Nature and the human form cut off from the Divine (entgöttert) 101

3. Nullity of objective fact a source of the enhanced self-respect of man. Man's finiteness and immeasurable transcendency of God. No place for immortality. The Law 103

CHAPTER III

THE CONSCIOUS SYMBOLISM OF THE COMPARATIVE TYPE OF ART

A. Modes of Comparison originating from the side of externality 110

1. The Fable. Aesop 113

2. The Parable, Proverb, and Apologue 122

3. The Metamorphosis 125

B. Comparisons, which in their imaginative presentation originate in the Significance 128

1. The Riddle 130

2. The Allegory 132

3. The Metaphor, Image, and Simile 137

C. The Disappearance of the Symbolic Type of Art 161

1. The Didactic Poem 163

2. Descriptive Poetry 165

3. Relation of both aspects of internal feeling and external object in the ancient Epigram 165

SUBSECTION II

THE CLASSICAL TYPE OF ART

INTRODUCTION

THE CLASSICAL TYPE IN GENERAL

1. Self-subsistency of the Classical type viewed as the interfusion of the spiritual and its natural form 175

[(a) No return of the ideal principle upon itself. No separation of opposed aspects of inward and external 175

(b) Symbolism absent from this type except incidentally 176

(c) Reproach of anthropomorphism] 179

2. Greek art as the realized existence of the classical type 181

3. Position of the creative artist under such a type 183

[(a) His freedom no result of a restless process of fermentation. Receives his material as something assured in history or belief 183

(b) His plastic purpose is clearly defined 184

(c) High level of technical ability 185

Classification of subject-matter] 186

CHAPTER I

THE FORMATIVE PROCESS OF THE CLASSICAL TYPE OF ART

Introduction and Division of subject 189

1. The Degradation of Animalism as such 191

(a) The sacrifice of animals. How regarded by the Greeks 192

(b) The Chase, or examples of such in heroic times 194

(c) Tales of metamorphosis. Illustrations both from Greek and Egyptian traditions 194

2. The Contest between the older and later Dynasties of Gods 201

(a) The oracles whereby the gods attest their presence through natural existences 205

(b) The ancient gods in contradistinction from the new 208

[(α) The Titan natural potences included among the older régime 208

(β) They are the powers of Earth and the stars 208 without spiritual or ethical content. Prometheus. The Erinnyes 209

(γ) The order of these gods is a succession] 215

(c) The conquest of the older régime of gods 217

3. The Positive Conservation of the conditions set up by Negation 220

(a) The Mysteries 220

(b) Preservation of old régime still more obvious in artistic creations. Illustrations from Greek poetry 221

(c) The Nature-basis of the later gods. Nature not in itself divine to the Greek. Illustrations of both points of view 223

CHAPTER II

THE IDEAL OF THE CLASSICAL TYPE OF ART

Introduction and Division of subject-matter 229

1. The Ideal of Classical Art generally 230

(a) The Classical Ideal is a creation of free artistic activity, though it reposes on earlier historical elements 230

[(α) The Greek gods are neither the appearance of mere external Nature, nor the abstraction from one Godhead 232

(β) The Greek artist is a poet. But his productive power is concretely spiritual, not merely capricious 233

(γ) The relation of the Greek gods to human life. Illustrations from Homer, etc.] 233

(b) What is the type of the new gods of Greek art? 235

[(α) Their concentrated individuality, or substantive characterization 236

(β) Their beauty not merely spiritual, but also plastic 237

(γ) Removal of them from all that is purely finite into a sphere of lofty blessedness exalted above mere sensuous shape] 238

(c) The nature of the external representation. Sculpture, in its secure self-possession, most suited as the medium 241

2. The Sphere or Cycle of the Individual Gods 242

(a) What is called the "divine Universum" is here broken up into particular deities 242

(b) Absence of an articulate system 243

(c) The general character of their distinguishing attributes 244

3. The particular Individuality of the Gods 246

(a) The appropriate material for such individualization

[(α) The natural religions of symbolism a primary source. Illustrations 247

(β) That of local conditions 250

(γ) That of the world of concrete fact. Illustrations from Homer, etc.] 254

(b) Retention of a fundamental ethical basis 258

(c) Advance in the direction of grace and charm 259

CHAPTER III

THE DISSOLUTION OF THE CLASSICAL TYPE

1. Fate or Destiny 261

2. Dissolution through the nature of the anthropomorphism of the gods 263

[(a) Absence or defect of the principle of subjectivity as here asserted 263

(b) The transition to Christian conceptions only found in more modern art. The prosaic art of the Aufklärung. Illustrations 266

(c) The dissolution of classical art in its own province] 270

3. Satire 273

(a) Distinction between the dissolution of classical and symbolic art 274

(b) The Satire 276

(c) The Roman world as the basis of the satire with illustrations ancient and modern 277

SUBSECTION III

THE ROMANTIC TYPE OF ART

INTRODUCTION OF THE ROMANTIC IN GENERAL

1. The Principle of inward Subjectivity 282

2. The steps in the Evolution of the content and form of the Romantic Principle 283

[(a) Point of departure deduced from the Absolute viewed as the determinate existence of a self-knowing subject of thought and volition. Man viewed as self-possessed Divine. History of Christ 286

(b) This process of self-recognition and reconcilement viewed as a process in which strain and conflict arise. Death as viewed by Christian and Greek art contrasted 287

(c) The finite aspect of subjective life in the secular interests, the passions, collisions, and suffering, or enjoyment of the earthly life] 290

3. The romantic mode of exposition in relation to its content 291

(a) The content of romantic viewed relatively to the Divine extremely restricted. Nature divested of its association, symbolic or otherwise, with Divinity 291

(b) Religion the premiss of romantic art in a far more enhanced degree than in symbolic art. Influence of the romantic principle on the medium adopted 293

(c) Two worlds covered by the romantic principle, viz., the soul-kingdom of Spirit reconciled therein, and the realm of external Nature from which even the aspect of ugliness is not excluded. Latter world only portrayed in so far as soul finds a home therein] 293

Division of subject-matter 295

CHAPTER I

THE RELIGIOUS DOMAIN OF ROMANTIC ART

1. The Redemption history of Christ 302

(a) The principle of Love as paramount in this religious sphere. How far Art in such a sphere is a superfluity 303

(b) From a certain aspect the appearance of Art is necessary 303

(c) The aspect of contingency in the particularity of an individual Person as such Divine 304

[(α) The presentment by artists of the exterior personality of Christ 304

(β) The conflict inherent in the religious growth, viewed as a process, though determining that process universally, is concentrated in the history of one person in the first instance 306

(γ) The feature of death only regarded here as a point of transition to self-reconcilement] 308

2. Religious Love 309

(a) Conception of the Absolute as Love 309

(b) Form of Love as self-concentrated emotion. Affiliation of such with sensuous presentment 310

(c) Love as the Ideal of romantic art 310

[(α) Christ as Divine Love 311

(β) Form most compatible with Art the love of mother. Mary, mother of Jesus 311

(γ) Love of Christ's disciples and the Christian community] 313

3. The Spirit of the Community 313

(a) The Martyrs 315

(b) Penance and conversion within the soul 320

(c) Miracles and Legends 323

CHAPTER II

CHIVALRY

Introduction 325

1. Honour 332

(a) Notion of same. Contrast between Greek and modern art in this respect 332

(b) Vulnerability of same 335

(c) Reparation demanded. Honour a mode of self-subsistency which is self-reflective 336

2. Love 337

(a) Fundamental conception of. Illustrations from poetry 337

(b) Collisions of the same 341

[(α) That between honour and love 341

(β) That between the supreme spiritual forces of state, family, etc., and love 342

(γ) Opposition between love and external conditions in the prose of life and the prejudice of others] 342

(c) Limitation of contingency inherent in the conception itself 343

3. Fidelity 345

(a) Loyalty of service 346

(b) The nature of its co-ordination with a social order either in the world of Chivalry or the modern 347

(c) Nature of its collisions. Illustrations. The "Cid," etc. 348

CHAPTER III

THE FORMAL SELF-STABILITY OF PARTICULAR INDIVIDUALITIES

Introduction 350

1. The Self-subsistence of individual Character 354

(a) The formal stability of character 355

(b) Character viewed as an inward but undisclosed totality. Illustrations from Shakespeare 359

(c) The substantial interest in the display of such formal character. Shakespeare's vulgar characters, and the geniality of their presentment 365

2. The Spirit of Adventure 367

(a) The contingent nature of ends and collisions 368

[(α) Christian Chivalry in its conflict with Moors, Arabs, and Mohammedans. Crusades. Holy Grail 369

(β) The universal spirit of adventure in the personal experience of individuals. Dante and the "Divine Comedy" 371

(γ) The contingency within the soul due to love, honour, and fidelity] 371

(b) The comic treatment of such contingency. Ariosto and Cervantes, contrast between 372

(c) The spirit of the novel or romance 375

3. The Dissolution of the Romantic type 377

(a) The artistic imitation of what is directly presented by Nature 379

[(α) Naturalism in poetry. Diderot, Goethe, and Schiller 381

(β) Dutch genre painting 382

(γ) Interest in objects delineated related to artistic personality] 385

(b) Individual Humour 386

(c) The end of the romantic type of Art 388

[(α) Conditions under which it is possible for the artist to bring the Absolute before the aesthetic sense 389

(β) The position of Art at the present day. Analogous position of modern artist and dramatist 391

(γ) General review of previously evolved process of Art's typical structure. What is possible for modern art and the conditions necessary. Illustration of the terminus of romantic art with the nature of the Epigram. Supreme function of Art] 394

INDEX

SECOND PART

EVOLUTION OF THE IDEAL IN THE PARTICULAR TYPES OF FINE ART

THE PHILOSOPHY OF FINE ART

INTRODUCTION

All that has hitherto been the object of our examination in the first part of this inquiry referred to the reality of the Idea of the beautiful as Ideal of art. In whatever direction, however, we developed the notion of the ideal art-product, we throughout applied to it a meaning of purely general signification. But the idea of the beautiful implies a totality likewise of essential differences, which as such must in veritable form assert themselves. These differences we may broadly describe as the particular modes of art, as the evolved content of that which is implied in the notion of the Ideal, and which secures actual form through art. When, however, we speak of these forms of art as of distinct species or grades[1] of the Ideal, we do not accept the term in the ordinary usage of it as though we found here in external guise particular classes of objects related to and modifying the Ideal respectively as their common genus. Species in the sense used here simply expresses the various and continuously expanding determination of the idea of the beautiful and the Ideal of art itself. The universality of the ideal representation is in the case posited not determined on the side of external existence, but is assumed to be the closer determination of itself in the explication of its own notion; or, in other words, it is the notion itself which unfolds itself in a totality of particular types of art.

More closely regarded, then, the specific types of art have their origin, as the unfolded realization of the Idea of the beautiful, in the very nature of the Idea itself, which by means of them presses forward to real and concrete appearance. Moreover, just in so far as it ceases to expand[2] in the abstract determination or concrete fulness of any one of them, it manifests itself in some other form of realized expression. For the Idea is only Idea in its essential truth in so far as it proceeds in this self-evolution by means of its own activity. And inasmuch as it is, as Ideal, immediate appearance, and moreover with each mode thereof is still identical as the idea of the beautiful, we find that in every particular phase which reveals the Ideal in its process of self-explication we have another actual manifestation which is immediately related to the essential characterization of those diverse types of yet further expansion. It really is a matter of no consequence whether we regard this process as a process of the Idea within its own substance, or that of the form under which it attains determinate existence, inasmuch as both aspects are immediately bound up with each other, and the perfecting of the Idea as content, and the perfecting of its form are but two ways of expressing the same process. Or, to put the matter in the reverse way, the defects of a given form of art of this kind betray themselves as a defect of the Idea, in so far as such defects give a limited significance to the essential nature of the Idea in external form, and as such invest it with reality. When we consequently compare such still inadequate forms of art with what most obviously presents itself for comparison, that is, the true Ideal, we must be careful not to use expressions commonly applicable to works of art that are failures, which either express nothing at all, or have discovered an incompetence to express what ought to have been expressed. Rather for every form of the Idea there is a definite mode of appearance, which clothes it precisely in one of those particular forms of art to which we have adverted, adequate in every respect thereto, and the defective or perfected character of which consists entirely in the relative truth or untruth of the determinate form, under which and through which the Idea is actually realized. For the content must first be clothed with reality and concreteness before it can attain to the form wholly adequate to its essential truth. As we have already indicated in the previous division of our subject-matter, we have three fundamental forms or types of art to examine.

First, we have the symbolical. In this the Idea is still seeking for its true artistic expression, because it is here still essentially abstract and undetermined, and consequently has not mastered for itself the external appearance adequate to its own substance, but rather finds itself in unresolved opposition to the external objects in physical Nature and the world of mankind. And inasmuch as in this crude relation to objective existence it immediately surmises its own isolation, or is carried into some form of concrete existence by means, of universal characteristics which are void of all true definition, it vitiates and falsifies the actual forms of reality which it has found, and which it seizes in a wholly capricious way[3]. And, consequently, instead of being able to identify itself completely with the object, it can only assert a kind of accord, or rather a still abstract reflection of significance and figure, a mode of representation which, being neither complete in its artistic fusion, nor capable of being completed, suffers the object to emerge as reciprocally external, strange, and inadequate to itself as it was before.

Secondly, we have the form in which the Idea, here in accordance with its true notional activity, is carried beyond the abstraction and indeterminacy of general characterization[4], is conscious of itself as free and infinite subjectivity, and grasps that self-conscious life in its real existence as Spirit (Mind). Spirit, as the free subject of consciousness, is self-determined through its own resources, and even in this its conscious grasp of self-determination possesses a form of externality adequate to express it, and one in which the essential import of that consciousness can be united with an explicit reality entirely appropriate. This second type of art, the classical, is based upon such absolutely homogeneous unity of content and form. In order, however, to make this unity complete the human spirit, in so far as it makes itself the object of art, must not be taken as Spirit in the absolute significance we refer to it, where it discovers its adequate subsistence wholly in the spiritual resources of its own essential domain, but rather as a still individualized spirit, and as such charged with a certain aspect of isolation. In other words, the free individual which classical art unites to its forms appears, it is true, as essentially universal, and consequently freed from all the mere contingence and particularity both of the subjective world of mind and the external world of Nature. But it is at the same time permeated by a universality which is itself essentially individualized. For the external form is necessarily both defined and singular by virtue of its externality, which it is only capable of completely fusing with an artistic content by representing that content as itself defined, and consequently of a limited character; and, moreover, it is only Spirit that is thus particularized which can pass into an objective shape and unite itself with the same in an inseparable unity.

In this form Art has reached the fulness of its own notion to this extent, namely, that the Idea, which is here spiritual individuality, brought into immediate accord with itself in the form of its bodily presence, receives from it a presentation so complete, that external existence is no longer able to preserve its consistency as against the ideal significance which it serves to express; or, to put it in the reverse way, the spiritual content is exclusively manifested in the elaborated form within which Art clothes it for sensuous perception, and thereby affirmatively asserts itself in the same.

Thirdly, we have the form in which the Idea of beauty grasps its own being as absolute Spirit, Spirit, that is to say, in the full consciousness of its untrammelled freedom. But for this very reason it is unable any more to obtain complete realization in forms which are external; its true determinate existence is now that which it possesses in itself as Spirit. That unity of the life of Spirit and its external appearance which we find in classical art is unbound, and it flees from the same once more into itself. It is this recoil which presents to us the fundamental type of the romantic type of art. Here we find, by reason of the free spirituality which pervades the content, such content makes a more ideal demand upon expression than the mere representation through an external or physical medium is able to supply; the form on its external side sinks therefore to a relation of indifference; and in the romantic form of art we consequently meet with a separation between content and form as we previously found it in the symbolic form, with this difference that it is now due to the subordination of matter to spiritual expression rather than the predominance of externality over ideal significance. It is in this way that symbolic art seeks after that perfected unity of ideal significance and external form, which classical art in its representation of substantive individuality succeeds in communicating to sensuous perception, and which romantic art passes over and beyond through its overwhelming insistence on the claims of Spirit.