The Philosophy of Fine Art, volume 2 (of 4): Hegel's AesthetikHegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich
Philosophy
The Philosophy of Fine Art, volume 2 (of 4): Hegel's Aesthetik
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich
Aesthetics
(_b_) The most obvious way in which Hindoo art endeavours to mitigate
this disunion is, as we have already suggested, by the _measureless_
extension of its images. Particular shapes are drawn out into colossal
and grotesque proportions in order that they may, as forms of sense,
attain to universality. The particular form of sense, which is taken
to express not itself and its own characteristic meaning as a fact of
external existence, but a universal significance which lies outside
it, fails to satisfy the imagination until it has been torn out itself
into vastness which knows neither measure nor limit. This is the cause
of all that extravagant exaggeration of size, not merely in the case
of spatial dimension, but also of measurelessness of time-durations,
or the reduplication of particular determinations, as in figures with
many heads, arms, and so on, by means of which this art strains to
compass the breadth and universality of the significance it assumes.
The egg, for example, contains the bird within it. This particular fact
is enlarged to the measureless conception of a world-egg secreting the
universal life of all creation, and in which Brahmâ, the procreating
God, accomplishes without effort the year of creation, until by virtue
of his thought alone the the two halves of the egg fall asunder. And,
in addition to natural objects, human individuals and events are
exalted that they may express the significance of truly Divine action
in such a way that we can neither hold fast the Divine or the human
in their independence, but both seem to run in a continual confusion
backwards and forwards into one another. As a striking illustration
of such a mode of conception, we have the incarnations of certain
Hindoo gods, principally Vishnu, the conserver of life, whose exploits
figure largely in the great epic poems. Râmas is, for instance, himself
the seventh incarnation of Vishnu (Râmatshandra). From a review of
particular demands, actions, circumstances, modes of appearance, and
traits of demeanour, we are led to infer from these poems that this
content is in great measure borrowed from actual events, that is from
the exploits of ancient kings who exercised a powerful influence in
creating new conditions of law and order; we find ourselves surrounded
by a thoroughly human atmosphere and on the firm ground of reality. But
then again, in a converse direction, the entire scene expands, reaches
out into the nebulous, playing over and beyond it with universal
conceptions, so that we lose the vantage ground we had gained and are
robbed of all our bearings. We are treated in just the same way in the
Sakuntala. At first we have set before us the most gentle and odorous
realm of Love, in which everything goes on its way in an entirely human
fashion; and then we are all at once snatched from the wealth of this
genuine world, and transported into the clouds of the heaven of Indra,
where everything suffers change, and our formerly circumscribed sphere
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account