The Philosophy of Fine Art, volume 3 (of 4): Hegel's Aesthetik — Georg Hegel — John Shaqi
The Philosophy of Fine Art, volume 3 (of 4): Hegel's Aesthetik
Georg Hegel · en
before us in its transparent vitality, the spectator is at the same
time freed from the thing in its baldness, in so far as he possesses
and is wholly face to face with its concrete life. By virtue, however,
of the last mentioned fact, this ideal style, so soon as it carries
this modification in its external aspect to yet further lengths, passes
over into the so-called _agreeable_ or pleasing style. Here we have the
assertion of another intent than the mere vitality of the fact[10].
The giving of pleasure, the active elaboration in the direction of
externality is asserted as itself an object, and is a matter of
independent concern. As an example we may take the famous Belvedere
Apollo, not indeed as itself belonging to this latter style, but at
least marking the transition from the lofty style to that of sensuous
attraction. And inasmuch as in an art of this kind it is no longer the
single actuality itself to which the entire embodiment is referable,
the particular details become under this mode, even though in the first
instance still deducible from the central object itself and rendered
necessary by means of it, more and more for all that independent.
We feel that they are introduced, or interpolated, as ornaments,
intentional additions of episodical import. And yet for the very reason
that they are only related to the object accidentally and only receive
their essential definition in a personal relation to the spectator or
reader, they flatter the individual taste[11] of such, to which their
workmanship is primarily directed. Virgil and Horace, for example,
delight us in this respect by an educated style, in which we can trace
a variety of things aimed at, and an effort deliberately made to give
pleasure. In architecture, sculpture, and painting, owing to this
spirit of complaisance, simple and imposing effects of size disappear,
and we find on every side small pictures standing by themselves,
ornamentation, fineries, dimples on cheeks, elegant hair-dress, smiles,
all the varied folding of draperies, enchanting colours and shapes,
exceptional, difficult, but for all that unconstrained movements in
the pose of the figure[12]. In the so-called Gothic or German art of
building, where the same is carried in the direction of this spirit, we
find decoration elaborated without limit, so that the whole appears to
be little more than a collection of little columns with all the utmost
variety of ornamentations, diminutive towers, spires, and so forth,
which, in their isolation, please us, without, however, destroying
the impression of the larger connections of the whole and the still
insistent masses of the same.