The Philosophy of Fine Art, volume 2 (of 4): Hegel's Aesthetik — Georg Hegel — John Shaqi
The Philosophy of Fine Art, volume 2 (of 4): Hegel's Aesthetik
Georg Hegel · en
its genuine worth when the soul has made itself a home in it, and it is
taken to express not merely the ideal, but _spiritual inwardness_[222]
itself, which, instead of blending itself with the exterior thing,
appears simply to have attained its own reconciliation with itself. The
ideality thus brought home to a point is that mode of expression which
is without externality, invisibly declaring itself, and only itself,
in other words, a tone of music simply, which is neither an object nor
possesses form, a wavelet over waters[223], a ringing sound over a
world, which, in sounds such as this, and the varied phenomena which
are united with it, can only receive and reflect one reverberation of
this self-absorption of the soul.
To sum up, then, in a word, this relation of content and form in the
romantic type, where it remains true to its distinctive character, we
may affirm that the fundamental note of the same, for this very reason
that its principle constitutes an ever expanding universality and the
restlessly active depths of heart and mind, is that of _music_, and
when combined with the definite content of imagination, lyrical. This
_lyrical_ aspect is likewise the primary characteristic of romantic
art, a tone which gives the key-note also to the epic poem and drama,
and which is wafted as a breath of soul even around the works of the
plastic arts, since here, too, spirit and soul are desirous of speaking
by means of the plastic shape to soul and mind.
As regards the _division_ of our subject, which we must now in
conclusion determine for the examination of this our third extensive
domain of artistic production on the lines of its development, we
shall find that the basic notion of the romantic relatively to
its substantive and progressive articulation is comprised most
conveniently in three branches of division we may define as follows.
The _first_ sphere is the province of _religion_ strictly, in which
the redemption history, the life, death, and resurrection of Christ
constitute the central interest. The principle which is emphasized as
all-important here is that self-involution which mind accomplishes by
negating its immediacy and finitude, overcoming the same, and by means
of this liberation secures its own self-possessed infinity and absolute
self-subsistence in its own kingdom.
This self-subsistence passes, then, in the _second_ place from the
Divine dwelling of essential Spirit, surrenders its pure exaltation
of finite man to God, in order to enter the _temporal world._ Here it
is, in the first instance, the subject of consciousness simply, which
has become self-affirmative, and which possesses as the substantive
material of its content, no less than as the interest of its existence,
the virtues of this positive subjectivity, such as honour, love,
fidelity, and bravery, the aims and obligations, in short, of romantic
chivalry.