The Philosophy of Fine Art, volume 3 (of 4): Hegel's Aesthetik
Georg Hegel · en
There are two points of departure to this later type. There is on the
one hand _symbolic_ architecture, and on the other practical necessity
and the _impulse of purpose_ to subserve that necessity. In the case
of symbolical forms, as we have already had occasion to observe,
architectonic purpose is merely an incidental feature, merely an
external mode of co-ordination. The dwelling-house, on the contrary,
erected as necessity itself, requires posts of wood, or just walls
standing up straight with beams, which are laid across them at right
angles, and a roofing, and constitutes, the other extreme. There can be
no question that the necessity of this real and effective expediency
makes its appearance as the result of its own demand. The distinction
that may be raised, however, in answer to the question, whether genuine
architecture--as we shall shortly have to consider it as the classic
art of building--takes its rise solely in this necessity, or is to
be deduced from independent and symbolical works, which conducted us
of their own accord to buildings devoted to service, is the point in
essential dispute.
(_α_) It is the force of circumstances which brings to the fore forms
in architecture which are wholly stamped with a useful purpose, and
the abstract deductions of science, such as the rectilinear line, the
right angle, and the smooth surface. For in serviceable architecture
that which constitutes the real object, is, in its independence, as
a statue, or more closely as human individuals, that is community, a
people, brought together for objects of general significance, which no
longer have as their aim the satisfaction of physical wants, but are
such in a religious and political sense. In a special degree the need
asserts itself to shape an enclosure for the image, the statue of the
gods, or generally for that which is independently placed before us and
actually present as sacred. Memnons, Sphinxes, and the like stand up in
the open, or in a grove, that is in the external environment of nature.
Images of this kind, however, and still more human images of gods,
are borrowed from another realm than that of immediate Nature. They
belong to the world of imagination, and come into existence through the
artistic powers of mankind. The purely natural environment is therefore
not sufficient; they require for their external frame a ground and an
enclosure, which shall be derived from the same source as their own,
in other words, such as are the product of the imagination, and have
received their form by means of artistic effort. It is only in an
environment created by art that the gods find themselves at home[67].
In such a case, however, this external frame does not possess its
object in itself, but it subserves something other than itself, and is
subject to the principle of purpose or expediency.