The Philosophy of Fine Art, volume 3 (of 4): Hegel's Aesthetik
Georg Hegel · en
The line of distinction between _heroes_ and gods is a very fine one;
and much the same interval separates them from ordinary human life.
Winckelmann observes with regard to a Battus on a coin of Cyrene, "With
a single glance of tender jollity we could make a Bacchus of it, and
one trait of godlike greatness would leave us an Apollo." And yet even
in such cases human forms, where the object is to envisage the force
of the will and bodily strength, tend in certain directions to make
for greatness; the artist gave to the muscular development a vital
activity and movement, and in violent actions set in motion all the
springs of Nature's workmanship. Inasmuch as, however, we find the same
hero subject to an entire series of conditions not merely distinct,
but opposed to each other, the masculine forms here also frequently
approximate to the feminine. This is, for example, the case where
Achilles first appears among the maidens of Lycomedes. Here we do not
find him in his full heroic strength such as he displays before Troy,
but in drapery resembling that of a woman and a fascination of figure
which almost conceals his sex. Hercules, too, is not always depicted
in the gravity and power suggestive of the tedious labours which he
performed, but in the milder impersonation of his service to Omphale,
as also in the repose of his deification, and generally in a variety of
situations. In other relations heroes possess the closest affinity for
the figures of the deities themselves, Achilles for that of Mars, for
instance; it is consequently only after the most profound study that we
can recognize the specific meaning of a piece of statuary merely from
the characterization without further suggestion from attributes. Really
expert connoisseurs can, however, deduce the character and shape of the
entire figure from isolated pieces and supply what is missing; from
which fact we again are instructed to admire the fine insight and the
consequential character the individualization of Greek art displays to
us, whose masters knew how to preserve and execute even the smallest
detail in consonance with the entire effect.
Coming now to _satyrs_ and _fauns_ we find in them made visible what
is throughout excluded from the lofty Ideal of the gods, the needs
of mankind, the jollity of life, sensuous pleasure, satisfaction of
excessive desire, and the like. Yet we find in particular young satyrs
and fauns so remarkable for the beauty in which they are represented
by the ancients that, to adopt a phrase of Winckelmann[184], "Every
example of such figures may be exchanged, if we except the head, for a
statue of Apollo, I refer to that one which is styled Sauroktonos, and
possesses the same stansion of the legs." The heads of fauns and satyrs
may be known by their pointed ears, their stiffly erected hair, and
their little horns.