The Philosophy of Fine Art, volume 3 (of 4): Hegel's Aesthetik
Georg Hegel · en
In the application of positions as significant pose[166], it is
necessary, however, that sculpture proceed with great circumspection,
and it has thereby many a difficulty to overcome. On the one hand,
no doubt, the reciprocal relation of the members is to be derived
from the ideal principle of Spirit; on the other hand, however, this
determination from the ideal side ought not to place the particular
parts under a mode which contradicts the corporeal structure and the
laws of the same, and thereby produce the impression of a constraint
imposed on the members, or come into collision with the material of
substance, in which sculpture is set the task to execute the artist's
conceptions. And, in the third place, the pose must appear wholly
spontaneous, as though the body received it of its own initiative,
otherwise body and spirit have the appearance of being distinct and
separable from each other, and are involved in the relative position
of mere direction from one side and purely abstract obedience from the
other, whereas both in sculpture ought rightly to constitute one and
the same immediately congruent totality. This absence of constraint
is here of the first importance. Spirit, as the ideal principle, must
throughout transfuse the members, and these latter must in like degree
essentially accept spirit and its determination as to the content of
its own soul. As to the pose itself and its character, which we may
empower to express the just attitude in ideal sculpture, we can readily
infer from our previous exposition that it ought not be one wholly
referable to change or instantaneous action. The representation of
sculpture must produce no effect such as is seen in the case where men,
while in the art of motion and action, were turned to stone or frozen
by means of Hüon's horn. On the contrary, it is necessary that the
posture, although it may without question point to some characteristic
action, express for all that merely a beginning and preparation, an
intention, or it must indicate the close of an action and a return from
the same to the state of repose. The repose and self-subsistency of a
spiritual life, which potentially encloses in itself an entire world,
is the most suitable aspect for the ideal form of sculpture.