The Journal of Speculative Philosophy, Vol. I, Nos. 1-4, 1867Various
Philosophy
The Journal of Speculative Philosophy, Vol. I, Nos. 1-4, 1867
Various
Philosophy -- Periodicals
These five arts form the complete and organized system of the arts.
Others, such as the _art of gardening, dancing, engraving, etc._, are
only accessories, and more or less connected with the preceding. They
have not the right to occupy a distinct place in a general theory; they
would only introduce confusion, and disfigure the fundamental type which
is peculiar to each of them.
Such is the division adopted by Hegel. He combines it, at the same time,
with his general division of the forms of the historic development of
art. Thus architecture appears to him to correspond more particularly to
the _symbolic_ type; sculpture is the _classic_ art, _par excellence_;
painting and music fill the category of the _romantic_ arts. Poetry, as
art universal, belongs to all epochs.
I. ARCHITECTURE.—In the study of architecture, Hegel follows a purely
historic method. He limits himself to describing and characterizing its
principal forms in the different epochs of history. This art, in fact,
lends itself to an abstract theory less than the others. There are here
few principles to establish; and when we depart from generalities, we
enter into the domain of mathematical laws, or into the technical
applications, foreign to pure science. It remains, then, only to
determine the sense and the character of its monuments, in their
relation to the spirit of the people, and the epochs to which they
belong. It is to this point of view that the author has devoted himself.
The division which he adopts on this subject, and the manner in which he
explains it, are as follows:
The object of architecture, independent of the positive design and the
use to which its monuments are appropriated, is to express a general
thought, by forms borrowed from inorganic nature, by masses fashioned
and disposed according to the laws of geometry and mechanics. But
whatever may be the ideas and the impressions which the appearance of an
edifice produces, it never furnishes other than an obscure and enigmatic
emblem. The thought is vaguely represented by those material forms which
spirit itself does not animate.
If such is the nature of this art, it follows that, essentially
symbolic, it must predominate in that first epoch of history which is
distinguished by the symbolic character of its monuments. It must show
itself there freer, more independent of practical utility, not
subordinated to a foreign end. Its essential object ought to be to
express ideas, to present emblems, to symbolize the beliefs of those
peoples, incapable as they are of otherwise expressing them. It is the
proper language of such an epoch—a language enigmatic and mysterious; it
indicates the effort of the imagination to represent ideas, still vague.
Its monuments are problems proposed to future ages, and which as yet are
but imperfectly comprehended.
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