The Philosophy of Fine Art, volume 3 (of 4): Hegel's Aesthetik
Georg Hegel · en
draping, for although men as a rule do not permit themselves to chatter
much over fashion in their clothes, the kind of cloth, border, cut,
and every other such detail, yet they find ample justification from
the antiquarian standpoint for treating these trifling matters also as
important, and of talking about them with even greater prolixity than
is permitted to woman herself in her unchallenged field of supremacy.
(_γγ_) It is, however, a totally different problem we have to consider
when the question is asked whether modern clothing, that is, the kind
so greatly to be contrasted with the antique, is in all cases to be
rejected. This question is of particular importance when we examine the
case of portrait statues; and inasmuch as its main interest closely
touches a principle of importance to art as we have it now, we will
consider it at rather greater length. When nowadays we have to create
a portrait of some contemporary it becomes necessarily a part of it
that the drapery and the environment are both accepted from the actual
facts of their individual existence, for, inasmuch as it is just this
actual person which is here made the object of art, this external
framework, to which the clothing essentially belongs, is in its reality
and truth precisely that which is most important. And this is more
especially to be observed when what is aimed at is the presentment
before our vision in our individuality of well-defined characters whose
greatness and activity in any _particular_ sphere have been remarkable.
Whether it be in a picture, or in the marble, an individual is, in
fact, exhibited to our immediate vision in a bodily mode, in other
words under external conditions, and to seek to carry the portrait
beyond such a restriction would virtually imply the self-contradiction
that the individual was associated with that which was essentially
untrue, and this for the reason that the service, what is peculiar
and distinguished in actual men, consists precisely in their active
relations to the real, that is in their life and action in definite
professional spheres. And if this individual activity is to be made
clear to us the environment must exhibit nothing that is foreign to or
tends to impair the effect. A famous general, for example, has lived
in respect to his professional surroundings with cannon, rifles, and
powder before his eyes. If we intend to depict him in his professional
activity we recur most naturally to the way he gives orders to his
adjutants, commands the line of battle, and advances against the enemy.
And with yet more detail such a general is not merely one of a class,
but is distinguished by the particular style of his uniform. He is
either a leader of infantry or a stalwart hussar, and so forth. In
every example of this kind we have some exceptional form of habiliment
which is appropriate to the circumstances. Moreover a famous general
is simply a famous general, not necessarily a law-giver, poet, or