The Philosophy of Fine Art, volume 3 (of 4): Hegel's Aesthetik
Georg Hegel · en
the seat of human speech, the organ for the free communication of
self-conscious life, just as the eye is that of the emotional spirit.
Moreover, according to the ideals of sculpture, the lips are not
tightly closed; rather in the works of art in its blooming season the
mouth is set slightly open without suffering the teeth, however, to be
visible, which have nothing to do with the expression of a spiritual
significance. This attitude is so far supported by the fact that when
the organs of sense are strongly active, as, for example, when we gaze
intently at an object, the mouth is closed; when, on the contrary, we
are absorbed in visionless thought it opens slightly and the angles of
the mouth are to an appreciable extent inclined downwards.
Last in our review of the objects above named, the _chin_, in its
ideal form, completes the spiritual expression of the mouth, that is,
assuming it is not wholly absent, as in the case of animals, or only
retained in a retreating and meagre condition as in works of Egyptian
sculpture, but as rather lengthened out even beyond the degree which is
usual, receiving thus in the rounded fulness of its arched curve, more
particularly where we have shorter underlips, yet further increase of
size. To sum up in fact a full chin conveys the impression of a certain
satiety and repose. Odd fussy wenches wag with their withered-up chins
and meagre muscles. Goethe, for example, likens their chops to a pair
of tongs that will be snatching at something. All restlessness of this
kind disappears with a full chin. The dimple, however, which nowadays
is held to have some claim to beauty is, as an accidental grace itself,
no essential accompaniment of beauty. In its place, however, a rounded
chin of considerable proportions is an infallible sign of antique
heads. In the case of the Medicean Venus it is not so noticeable, but
it is proved on good evidence that the statue has suffered a loss in
this respect.