The Philosophy of Fine Art, volume 3 (of 4): Hegel's Aesthetik
Georg Hegel · en
(_β_) This province of the subjective life must be excluded in its
entirety and without hesitation from the content of sculpture. The art
is exclusively co-extensive with the objectivity of Spirit. And by
the term objectivity we mean in this connection what is substantive,
genuine, not transitory, the essential nature of Spirit, apart from
its involvement in that which is accidental and evanescent, for which
the individual person is responsible simply in his unmediated state of
self-relation.
(_γ_) Spirit, however, even in its truly objective sense, can
only realize itself as Spirit when associated with _explicit
self-identity._ Spirit is only Spirit as self-consciousness[135]. The
position, however, of this aspect of individual consciousness in the
spiritual content of sculpture is of such a character that it is not
independently expressed, but displays itself as throughout interfused
with this substantive content, and not formally reflected back upon
itself apart from it. We may consequently affirm that though such a
mode of objectivity possesses a type of self-subsistency, yet it is a
self-knowledge and volition which is not released from the content it
fulfils, but forms an inseparable unity with it.
The presentment of Spirit in this complete and independent seclusion
of what is essentially substantive and true, this unperturbed and
unparticularized being of Spirit, is that which we name divinity in
its contrast to finitude, which is the process of disruption into
contingent existence, a world that is broken into complex forms and
varied movement. From this point of view the function of sculpture is
to present the Divine simply in its infinite repose and sublimity,
timeless, destitute of motion, entirely without subjective personality
in the strict sense and the conflict of action or situation. And
in proceeding to the more detailed definition of our humanity in
shape and character, it must, nevertheless, exclusively rivet its
attention on what is unalterable and permanent, in other words what
is truly substantive in its characterization, and merely select such
aspects for its content, passing over what it finds there of an
accidental or evanescent nature; and it must do so for the reason
that the objectivity which it presents does not rightly include
a differentiation of this fluctuating and fleeting kind, and one
which comes into being by virtue of a subjective consciousness whose
conception of itself is that of pure insulation. In a biography, for
instance, which gives an account of the motley incidents, events, and
exploits of some individual, we find as a rule the course of varied
developments and fortuities finally closed by a character sketch which
summarizes the entire breadth of detail in a few general qualities
such as goodness, honest dealing, courage, exceptional intelligence,
and so forth. Characteristics such as these we may term the permanent
features of a personality; the remaining peculiarities it possesses