The Philosophy of Fine Art, volume 1 (of 4): Hegel's Aesthetik
Georg Hegel · en
4. In contrast to these two previous divisions of our subject the
_third_ part presupposes the notional concept of the Ideal, and the
universal art-types. It in other words consists in their realization
through specific sensuous media. We have consequently no longer to deal
with the inner or ideal evolution of the beauty of art in conformity
with its widest and most fundamental determinations. What we have
now before us to consider is how these ideal determinants pass into
actual existence, how they are distinguishable in their external
aspect, and how they give an independent and a realized shape to every
element implied in the evolution of this Idea of beauty as _a work of
art_, and not merely as a _universal type._ Now it is the peculiar
differences immanent in the Idea of beauty which are carried over by
it into external existence. For this reason in this third fundamental
division these general art-types must themselves supply the basic
principle for the articulation and definition of the _particular
arts._ Or, to put the same thing another way, the several species
of art possess in themselves the same essential differences, which
we have already become acquainted with as the universal art-types.
_External_ objectivity, however, to which these types are subjected
in a sensuous and consequently _specific_ material, necessitates the
differentiation of these types into diverse and independent modes of
realization, in other words, those of particular arts. Each general
type discovers its determinate character in one determinate external
material or medium, in which its adequate presentation is secured
under the manner it prescribes. But, from another point of view, these
types of art, inasmuch as their definition is none the less consistent
with the fact of the _universality_ of their typical import, break
through the boundaries of their _specific_ realization in some definite
art-species, and achieve an existence in other arts no less, although
their position in such is of subordinate importance. For this reason,
albeit the particular arts belong specifically to one of these general
art-types respectively, the _adequate_ external embodiment whereof
they severally constitute, yet this does not prevent them, each after
its own mode of external configuration, from representing the totality
of these art-types[152]. To summarize, then, in this third principal
division we are dealing with the beauty of art, as it unveils itself in
a world of realized beauty by means of the arts and their creations.
The content of this world is the beautiful, and the true beautiful,
as we have seen, is spiritual being in concrete form, the Ideal; or
apprehended with still more intimacy it is the absolute mind and truth
itself. This region of divine truth artistically presented to sensuous
vision and emotion forms the centre of the entire world of art. It
is the independent, free and divine Image[153], which has completely