The Philosophy of Fine Art, volume 1 (of 4): Hegel's AesthetikHegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich
Philosophy
The Philosophy of Fine Art, volume 1 (of 4): Hegel's Aesthetik
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich
Aesthetics
very quickly crops up the question in what _unity_ these manifold
manifestations are to be concentrated, and what _single end_ they must
have for their fundamental concept and ultimate end. Just as in the
case of the notional concept of the human State so too there arises in
that of human art the need, as to a part thereof, for an end _common_
to the particular aspects, no less than in part for one which is more
exalted and _substantive_ in its character[90].
As such a substantive end the conclusion of reflection is readily
brought home to us that art possesses at once the power and function to
mitigate the savagery of mere desires.
(_α_) With regard to this first conception we have merely to ascertain
what characteristic peculiar to art implies this possibility of
eliminating this rawness of desire, and of fettering and instructing
the impulses and passions. Coarseness in general has its ground-root
in an unmitigated self-seeking of sensuous impulses, which take their
plunge off and are exclusively intent on the satisfaction of their
concupiscence. Sensual desire is, however, all the more brutal and
domineering, in proportion as, in its isolation and confinement, it
appropriates the _entire man_, so that he does not retain the power to
separate himself in his universal capacity from this determinacy and to
maintain the conscious presence of such universality[91]. Even if the
man in such a case exclaims, "the passion is mightier than myself,"
though it is true no doubt that for that man's mind the abstract ego is
separate from the particular passion, yet it is purely so in a formal
way. All that such a separation amounts to is that as against the force
of the passion the ego, in its universal form or competency, is of no
account at all. The savageness of passion consists therefore in the
fusion[92] of the ego as such a universal with the confined content
of its desire, so that a man no longer possesses volitional power
outside this single passion. Such savageness and untamed force of the
possibilities of passion art mitigates in the first instance to the
extent that it brings home to the mind and imagination of man what he
does actually feel and carry into effect in such a condition. And even
if art restricts itself to this that it places before the vision of
the mind pictures of passion, nay, even assuming such to be flattering
pictures, yet for all that a power of amelioration is contained
therein. At least we may say, that by this means is brought before a
man's intelligence what apart from such presentment he merely _is._ The
man in this way contemplates his impulses and inclinations; and whereas
apart from this they whirl him away without giving him time to reflect,
he now sees them outside himself and already, for the reason that they
come before him rather as objects than a part of himself, he begins
to be free from them as aliens. For this reason it may often happen
that an artist, under the weight of grief, mitigates and weakens the
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