The Philosophy of Fine Art, volume 3 (of 4): Hegel's AesthetikHegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich
Philosophy
The Philosophy of Fine Art, volume 3 (of 4): Hegel's Aesthetik
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich
Aesthetics
Approaching now, after these general observations we have made with
reference to the distinctions of style common to all the arts, the
division of the third fundamental section of our inquiry we may observe
that the one-sided understanding has looked about in many directions
for various principles of differentiation in its classification of
the specific arts severally. The true division can, however, only
be deduced from the nature of the work of art, which in the entire
complexus of its forms[15] explicitly unfolds the totality of the
aspects and phases which are referable to its own notion. And the
first thing which asserts itself in this connection as important is
the consideration that art, in accordance with the fact that its
presentments now have definitely to pass into sensuous reality, becomes
on account of this also art for the _senses_, so that the definition of
this sense and the material medium which is applicable to it, and in
which the work of art is made objective, must necessarily furnish us
with the principles of subdivision in the several arts. Now the senses,
for the reason that they are senses, or in other words, are related
to a given material, a disparate exterior medium[16] and an essential
multiplicity, are themselves different, namely, feeling, smell, taste,
hearing, and sight. It is not our business in this place to demonstrate
the ideal necessity of this totality and its disparate parts; that is
the function of the philosophy of Nature. Our problem is limited to the
inquiry whether all these senses, or if not, which of them are capable,
by virtue of their notional significance, of being organs for the
reception of works of art. We have already at a previous stage excluded
feeling, taste, and smell. Botticher's mere feeling with the hand of
the effeminately smooth portions of statues of goddesses is not a part
of artistic contemplation or enjoyment at all. By the sense of touch
the individual merely comes, as an individual endowed with sense, into
contact with the purely sensuous particular thing and its gravity,
hardness, softness, and material resistance. A work of art is, however,
not merely a sensuous thing, but Spirit manifested through a sensuous
medium. As little can we exercise our sense of _taste_ on a work of
art as such, because taste is unable to leave the object in its free
independence, but is concerned with it in a wholly active way, resolves
it, in fact, and consumes it. A cultivation and refinement of taste is
only possible and desirable in connection with dishes of food and their
preparation, or the chemical qualities of objects. An object of art,
however, should be contemplated in its independent and self-contained
objective presence, which no doubt is there for the mind that perceives
it, but only as an appeal to soul and intelligence, not in some active
relation, and with none whatever to the appetites and volition. As for
the sense of _smell_ it is just as little able to become an organ of
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