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
(_b_) In respect to the other organic members such as neck, breast,
back, belly, arms, hands, thighs, and feet, we find here another type
of co-ordination. They can no doubt possess a beautiful form, but the
beauty is sensuous, vital, without expressing by virtue of their form
as such a spiritual significance as the countenance expresses it. The
ancients have shown for the form of these parts of the body the highest
sense of beauty; but in genuine sculpture they must not merely pass as
the beauty of a living organism, but as members of the _human_ form
it is their further function to present the appearance of a spiritual
effect, so far as this is compatible with what is purely bodily
presence. Otherwise the expression of the soul would be concentrated
wholly in the face, whereas in plastic sculpture what is spiritual must
appear as permeating nothing less than the entire configuration, and
must not be permitted to isolate itself independently and in contrast
to what is corporeal.
If we now inquire what are the means which enable the breast, the
torso, the back, and the extremities to contribute to the expression of
spirit and thereby to receive over and beyond a beautiful vitality, the
breath of a spiritual life, we shall find the following:
In the _first_ place there is the relation in which the limbs, in so
far as that relation proceeds from the ideality of Spirit, and is
freely determined by that ideality, are brought into juxtaposition.
_Secondly_, there is the motion and repose in their complete freedom
and beauty of form.
_Thirdly_, this type of position and motion in their definite
affiliation[165] and expression supplies the situation more closely,
in which the Ideal, which can never consist purely in the Ideal of
abstraction, is comprehended.
I will add yet further some general remarks on the above points.