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
The characteristic trait, however, which the
heroes of the Middle Ages possess in common with those of antiquity
is that of _bravery._ Yet even this receives a totally different
complexion. It is not so much a natural courage, which reposes on the
character that is sane and sound, and flows forth from the growth of
an unimpaired robustness of body and will, assisting the execution of
objective interests. Rather it is the outcome of the secret wealth of
the soul, its honour and chivalry, and is in the main a creation of
the phantasy, which undertakes adventures that have their origin in
individual caprice and the chance intricacies of external circumstance
or the impulses of mystical piety, and we may add generally the
personal attitude of the individual.
This romantic type of art finds a home, then, in two hemispheres, in
the Western world as this penetration into the more intimate shrine of
Spirit, in the Eastern this its first expansion of the self-absorbed
consciousness as it frees itself from the finite environment. In the
West poetry reposes on a soul which is withdrawn upon its resources,
which has become the centre of its activity, yet possesses this flavour
of secularly merely as one part of its complexion, as one aspect, over
which is superposed a yet loftier world of belief. In the East it is
the Arab above all, who as a solitary,[245] who in the first instance
has nothing before his eyes but his dried-up desert and his heavens,
stands forth in the full strength of life as the proclaimer of the
splendour and primary extension of the world of Nature, and thereby
still preserves at the same time the freedom of his soul. And generally
we may say that in the Orient it is the Mohammedan religion, which
has cleared the ground, made an end of all idolatry in the service
of finite things or the imagination, and given the soul at the same
time the personal freedom, which wholly floods the same, so that the
secularity does not here only constitute another province, but runs
beyond it into the universal licence, where heart and mind, without
ascribing any objective reality to God, find their reconciliation in
the jubilant lust of living just like beggars by throwing the glory
of their fancy on the objects around them: enjoy their loves and are
happy, blessed, and contented.
1. HONOUR