The Philosophy of Fine Art, volume 3 (of 4): Hegel's Aesthetik
Georg Hegel · en
(_β_) Accessories of this incidental nature are more in place with
works which, already departing from the simple repose of the gods,
represent actions, groups, or the series of figures such as we find on
reliefs, and for this reason are able to make more extensive use of
a variety of external indications and suggestions. On gifts dedicate
to a devout purpose, which are frequent in all kinds of works of art
and nowhere more frequent than, in the case of statuary, on statues of
Olympic victors, but more particularly on coins and cut stones, the
rich and prolific invention of the Greek found ample scope for the
presence of symbolical references of this type, such as that to his
city's locality and others like it.
(_γ_) Other signs are more removed from purely external significance,
and penetrate deeper within the individuality of such deities. These
themselves are a part of the particular type in question, and are
an integrating factor in it. Among such we may mention the specific
type of the drapery, armour, adornment of the hair, and other attire
of a similar nature, in respect of which I must here content myself
in elucidation with a few examples borrowed from Winckelmann, who
exercised great acuteness in such matters. Among the several gods Zeus
was pre-eminently recognizable by the general treatment of his hair,
and our authority maintains[179], that any particular head can at once
be determined as one intended for this deity or no by the hair over his
forehead, or his beard, even though there be nothing else significant
to arrest us. In other words he asserts that, "the hair is elevated
in an outward curve on the brow, and its different divisions fall
in a narrow curve with broken lines[180] down again." This type of
hair-treatment was so rigorous, that we even find it persisted in among
the sons and grandchildren of Zeus. So, for example, the head of Zeus
is barely to be distinguished from that of Aesculapius in this respect,
who consequently receives another kind of beard, more particularly
over the upper lip, where the same is more depressed in its curve,
whereas that of Zeus is rather folded over the angle of the mouth and
intermingled with the beard on the chin. Winckelmann further recognizes
the fine head of a statue in the Villa Medici, later in Florence, by
means of the more curled beard, which, moreover, folds over the upper
lip, and is of greater thickness, and must be distinguished from the
heads of Zeus with their greater tendency to curled locks. Pallas,
in direct contrast to Diana, wears her hair long, bound together in
its downward fall from the head, and then beneath the fillet flowing
in a series of locks. Diana, on the contrary, wears hers thrown up
from all sides, and fastened in a knot on the crown of the head. The
head of Ceres is up to the back portion covered with her veil. Add to
this, in addition to the corn she carries, she holds a diadem as Juno
does, in front of which, to quote our authority once more[181], the