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
_Thirdly_, we have the form in which the Idea of beauty grasps its
own being as _absolute_ Spirit, Spirit, that is to say, in the full
consciousness of its untrammelled freedom. But for this very reason
it is unable any more to obtain complete realization in forms which
are external; its true determinate existence is now that which it
possesses in itself as Spirit. That unity of the life of Spirit and
its external appearance which we find in classical art is unbound,
and it flees from the same once more into itself. It is this recoil
which presents to us the fundamental type of the _romantic_ type of
art. Here we find, by reason of the free spirituality which pervades
the content, such content makes a more ideal demand upon expression
than the mere representation through an external or physical medium
is able to supply; the form on its external side sinks therefore to
a relation of _indifference_; and in the romantic form of art we
consequently meet with a separation between content and form as we
previously found it in the symbolic form, with this difference that
it is now due to the subordination of matter to spiritual expression
rather than the predominance of externality over ideal significance.
It is in this way that symbolic art _seeks_ after that perfected unity
of ideal significance and external form, which classical art in its
representation of substantive individuality succeeds in _communicating_
to sensuous perception, and which romantic art _passes over and beyond_
through its overwhelming insistence on the claims of Spirit.
[Footnote 1: _Art._ Hegel takes the ordinary scientific sense to
describe the meaning. The word "type" would more truly express it.]
[Footnote 2: _Für sich selber ist._ That is, having arrived at one form
of determination, returns upon itself and throws off another form, just
as the plant germ after arriving at the leaf expands into the bud, and
so on.]
[Footnote 3: That is, with no reference to intelligent principle.]
[Footnote 4: _Allgemeiner Gedanken._ Hegel means the bare
generalizations or abstract conceptions of thought.]
SUBSECTION I
THE SYMBOLIC TYPE OF ART
INTRODUCTION
OF THE SYMBOL GENERALLY