The Philosophy of Fine Art, volume 2 (of 4): Hegel's Aesthetik
Georg Hegel · en
Unfortunately she had on one occasion tasted a pomegranate,
and was therefore only able to remain in the upper world during spring
and summer. In this tale, too, we find that the symbolical content has
not been retained, but has been converted into a human event, which
suffers only the more general sense to penetrate through many external
traits. In the same way the supplementary names of the gods point
frequently to symbolical ground-strata of a similar character, from
which, however, the symbolical form has vanished, and which only serve
now to give individuality a more complete characterization.
(_β_) Local conditions supply a further source for the positive
particularities of individual divinities, no less by presenting us with
the origin of the conceptions of godhead, than by pointing to the modes
under which their services were originally obtained and secured, and
the particular places which were in a special sense devoted to their
worship.
(_αα_) Although, however, the demonstration of the Ideal and its
universal beauty is exalted over the particular locality and its
unique claims for recognition, and, moreover, has drawn together the
specific external aspects in the more general range of the artistic
imagination into one comprehensive picture which is throughout adequate
to the substantive significance, yet for all that, when the art of
sculpture associates the gods, regarded as individuals, with isolated
relations and conditions, these particular traits and local colours
come frequently also to the fore, in order to reproduce something
of that individuality, although it is only thus more defined in
its external aspect. An illustration of this is the way Pausanias
adduces a mass of ideas, images, pictures, and myths, which he met
with in temples, public places, temple treasuries, in any place where
anything of importance was to be found or otherwise was in the range
of his experience. In the same way and on the same lines the ancient
traditions and local suggestions which have been borrowed from foreign
sources run along with the home ones in Greek myth; and to all of
them more or less a relation has been attached which unites them to
the history, creation, and foundations of States, more particularly
by means of colonization. Forasmuch, however, as this many-sided
and specific material in the universality of the gods has lost its
original significance, we necessarily come across stories, which
in their motley and intricate character fail to convey any meaning
whatever. As an example we may instance the case where Aeschylus in
his "Prometheus" presents to us the wanderings of Io in all their
severity and external garb without admitting the least suggestion of an
ethical or traditional story, or a natural significance. We find just
the same difficulty when we approach the stories of Perseus, Dionysos,
and others. The most varied and confused kind of material is also run