If the imaged concept, which the work of art has to arouse in us, is that of the divine nature, and if this has to receive recognition from an entire people, this object is especially attainable when no _alteration_ is allowed in the mode of presentation. For this reason art is on the one hand conventional, and on the other scholastic[154]; and this is so not merely in the case of the more ancient Egyptians, but also in that of more ancient Greek and Christian art. The artist in such case was bound to restrict himself to definite forms and to repeat their type. The crucial point of transition, where fine art wakes from its sleep, must consequently be sought there, where at last the artist is creative by virtue of his own free conception, where the flash of genius strikes into the material presented, and communicates freshness and vitality to the presentment. Then for the first time the atmosphere of mind[155] enfolds the work of art, which is no longer restricted to merely calling up in a general way some idea before the mind, and recalling to it some deeper significance which the spectator already is essentially possessed of, but which proceeds to make visible this significance as throughout made vitally present in some individualized creation, and which consequently neither makes no further advance beyond the purely superficial generality of its forms, nor binds itself on the other hand, in respect to the detail of its delineation, to the characteristics of all that common reality offers it. In the rise of ideal sculpture we presuppose perforce a complete passage to such a sphere of creation. In establishing the facts of this appearance we may emphasize the following points of view. _First_, we have to address ourselves to the general character of the ideal form in its contrast to the stages previously discussed. _Secondly_, we shall have to adduce specific aspects of it, the importance of which is most obvious, such as the way in which facial characteristics, drapery, and pose are modelled or treated. _Thirdly_, we have to enforce the position that the ideal figure is not merely a general type of beauty in the formal sense of type, but includes, by virtue of its principle of individuality, which belongs to the really living Ideal, essentially, too, the aspect of differentiation and specific definition within its own sphere, and by this means the province of sculpture is expanded in a cycle of particularized images of gods and heroes. 1. THE GENERAL CHARACTERIZATION OF THE IDEAL FIGURE OF SCULPTURE