The Philosophy of Fine Art, volume 3 (of 4): Hegel's Aesthetik — Georg Hegel — John Shaqi
The Philosophy of Fine Art, volume 3 (of 4): Hegel's Aesthetik
Georg Hegel · en
In opposition to external Nature we find the _ideal_ realm of
_consciousness_[19], the human soul as the medium[20] for the existence
and manifestation of the Absolute. Together with this subjectivity
is conjoined the multiplicity and differentiation of individuality,
particularization, distinction, action, and development, that is, in
general terms the full and varied world of the reality of Spirit[21],
in which the Absolute is known, willed, experienced, and actively
present. We may already infer from what we have indicated above that
the differences under which the total content of art is differentiated
are in essential consonance, both for our grasp and presentation of
them, with what we have previously in the second portion of our
inquiry examined as the symbolical, classical, and romantic types of
art. In other words symbolic art only carries the art-process to the
point of marking an affinity between content and form, instead of their
identity, of only suggesting the ideal significance in itself and the
content which that suggestion purports to express, in other words the
external appearance[22]. It furnishes consequently the fundamental type
to that specific art, whose function it is to elaborate the objective
world as such, Nature's environment in the beautiful conclusion
given by Art to Spirit (mind), and to image by suggestion the ideal
significance of what is spiritual in this external medium. The
classical Ideal, on the contrary, meets the case of the presentation
of the Absolute as such, in its self-subsistent external reality, its
essential self-repose, while the romantic Spirit (mind) type of art
is, both in content and form, identical with the internal life of the
soul, and the emotional life both in its infinite aspect and its finite
particularity.
It is, then, on a principle such as the above that the system of the
particular arts is differentiated as follows:
_First_, we have _architecture_, the beginning of all, whose
foundation reposes in the very nature of its subject-matter. It is
the commencement of art for this reason, that art at the start has in
general terms neither discovered for the presentation of its spiritual
content the adequate material, nor the forms that fully express it, and
is consequently compelled to rest content in the mere _search_ after
such true satisfaction, and to do so in the externality of its content
and its mode of presentation. The medium of this primary art is that
which is essentially unspiritual, gross matter, that is, only capable
of configuration according to physical laws of gravity. Its form is
the image of external Nature, united by its regularity and symmetry in
the whole of a work of art to express merely an external reflection of
Spirit.