The Philosophy of Fine Art, volume 3 (of 4): Hegel's Aesthetik
Georg Hegel · en
To add a few more examples of even more intimate detail, the eyes are
not deeply set as in the Greek ideal, but are almost on a level with
the forehead; they are flattened and extended obliquely. The eyebrows,
eyelids, and rims of the lips are mainly suggested by the graver's
lines, or the brows are indicated by a stroke in relief, which extends
as far as the temples and is at that point cut off angular wise. What
we above all find wanting here is the projection of the forehead, and
along with this, together with uncommonly high placed ears and arched
noses, as is the rule with vulgar natures, we have the retreating form
of cheekbones, which in contrast to other parts are strongly indicated
and emphasized, whereas the chin is always retiring and small; the
rigidly closed mouth, too, draws its corners in an outward rather than
an under-ward direction, and the lips appear to be separated from each
other by a mere slit. Speaking generally, then, such figures are not
only wanting in freedom and vitality, but more than anything else the
head fails to show us the expression of spiritual significance; the
animal aspect is the prevailing one, and Spirit is not as yet suffered
to appear in its self-poise and independence.
The execution of _animal_ figures is, on the contrary, according to the
same authority, carried through with much knowledge and an exquisite
variety of gently gradated outlines and of parts that flow one into the
other without a break. And if in the human figures spiritual life is
not as yet liberated from the animal type and the interfusion of the
Ideal with what is sensuous and of Nature on a new and free model is
absent, yet we find here that the specifically symbolical significance
of the human no less than the animal figures is directly expressed by
means of sculpture in these embodiments of forms, in which human and
animal shapes pass into one mysterious union.