The Philosophy of Fine Art, volume 3 (of 4): Hegel's Aesthetik
Georg Hegel · en
1. If we examine the content, then, we have through the above process,
on the one hand, the substantive being of what is spiritual, the world
of truth and eternity, the _Divine_ in fact, which however here, in
accordance with the principle of particularity, is comprehended and
realized by art as a subject of consciousness, or as personality, as
the Absolute, which is self-conscious in the medium of its infinite
spiritual substance, as God in His Spirit and Truth. And in contrast to
Him we have asserted the worldly and _human_ condition of soul-life,
which, regarded now as no longer in direct union with the intrinsic
substance of Spirit, can unfold itself in all the fulness of that
particularity which is simply human, and thereby permits the heart of
man wherever and whenever represented[214], the entire wealth of our
human mortality, to be open to art's acceptance.
The meeting-ground upon which these two aspects once more coalesce is
the principle of _subjectivity_, which is common to both. The Absolute
is, in virtue of this, disclosed to us to the full extent a living,
actual, and equally human subject of consciousness, as the human and
finite conscious life, viewed as spiritual, makes vital and real the
absolute substance and truth, or in other words simply the Divine
Spirit. The new bond of unity which is thus secured no longer, however,
supports the character of that former immediacy, such as sculpture
disclosed it; rather it is a union and reconciliation which asserts
itself essentially as a mediation of opposed factors, and whose very
notion makes its apprehension only possible in the realms of _the
soul_ and ideal life.
I have already, when the general subdivision of our science in its
entire compass offered an opportunity for doing so, laid it down, that
if the Ideal of sculpture sets forth in a sensuously present image the
essential solidity[215] of the individuality of the God in the bodily
form alone able to express that substance, the community thereupon
essentially confronts such an object as the intelligent reflection of
that unity. Spirit, however, that is wholly self-absorbed can only
present the substance of Spirit under the mode of Spirit, in other
words as a conscious subject, and receives thereby straightway the
principle of the spiritual reconciliation of individual subjective
life with God. As particular self, however, man also possesses his
contingent natural existence, and a sphere of finite interests, needs,
aims, and passions, whether it be more extensive or restricted, in
which he is able to realize and satisfy his nature quite as much
as he can in the same be absorbed in those ideas of God and the
reconciliation with God.