The Introduction to Hegel's Philosophy of Fine Arts

again meet with two opposite ways of treating the subject, each of which appe

he outside, arranging them in series as a history of art, initiating discussions about extant works, or sketching ou

n the beautiful, and producing mere generalities which do not touch the work of ar

n the present day every one, even though he is not busied with natural science, yet pretends to be equipped with the essentials of physical knowledge, so it has become more o

withdrawn from one's own observation. Moreover, every work belongs to its age, to its nation, and to its environment, and depends upon particular historical and other ideas and aims. For this reason art-scholarship further requires a vast wealth of historical information of a very special kind, seeing that the individualized nature of the work of art is related to individual detail

ries of the arts. This is not the place to go into detail about literature of this kind, and it may, therefore, suffice to mention a few writings in the most general way. For instance, there is Aristotle's "Poetics," the theory of tragedy contained in which is still of interest; and to speak more particularly, among the ancients, Horace's "Ars Poetica" and Longinus's "Treatise on the Sublime" suffice to give a general idea of the way in

a very limited circle of artistic productions, which passed for the genuinely beautiful ones, but yet always belonged to a but narrow range of art. And again, su

ions, and, therefore, is a book for all men, but one which fo

nctum qui misc

ctando parite

s reader." This is just like so many copybook headings,[32] e.g. "Stay at home and earn an honest liveliho

gement and treatment, the harmony and finish of what belongs to the external aspect of a work of art. Besides, they brought in among the principles of taste views that belonged to the psychology that was then in vogue, and that had been drawn from empirical observation of capacities and activities of the soul, of the passions and their probable heightening, succession, etc. But it remains invariably the case that every man judges works

ls itself for closer determinations, which are also found in our idea of the matter, and drawn from it to be fixed in definitions. But in so doing, we find ourselves at once on uncertain and debatable ground. It might indeed appear at first as if the beautiful were a perfectly simpl

ged in the defining process, nor for the sake of the historical interest; but we will simply produce by way of illustration, some of the more interesting modern views which come pretty close in their purport to what in fact the idea of the beautiful

ovement and gesture, bearing and expression, local colour, light and shade, chiaroscuro[37] and attitude distinguish themselves, in conformity, of course, with the requirements of an object previously selected." This formula gives us at once something more significant than the other definitions. If we go on to ask what "the characteristic" is, we see that it involves in the first place a content, as, for instance, a particular feeling, situation, incident, action, individual; and secondly, the mode and fashion in which this content is embodied in a representation. It is to this, the mode of representation, that the artistic law of the "characteristic" refers, inasmuch as it requires that every particular element in the mode of expression shall subserve the definite indication of its content and be a member in the expression of that content. The abstract formula of the characteristic thus has reference to the degree of appropriateness with which the particular detail of the artistic form sets in relief

he work of art as belongs to the display[39] and, essentially, to the expression of

rt, without meaning to give rules for guidance. Apart from this, if we examine the criticism, we find it to be true, no doubt, that Hirt's definition includes caricature, for even a caricature may be characteristic; but, on the other hand, it must be answered at once that in caricature the definite character is intensified to exaggeration, and is, so to speak, a superfluity of the characteristic. But a superfluity ceases to be what is properly required in order to be characteristic, and becomes an offensive iteration, whereby the characteristic itself may be made unnatural. Moreover, what is of the nature of caricature shows itself

iple, however, must include the essential attribute[A] of beauty. In dealing with this subject he is led to speak of Mengs and Winckelmann's principle[40] of the Ideal, and pronounces himself to the effect that he desires neither to r

cients was the significant, but the highest r

r in hand, and the mode and fashion of representation. In looking at a work of art we begin with what

something else; as does the symbol for instance, and still more obviously the fable, whose moral and precept constitutes its meaning. Indeed every word points to a meaning and has no value in itself. Just so the human eye, a man's face, flesh, skin, his whole figure, are a revelation of mind and soul, and in this case the meaning is always something other than what shows itself within the imm

of art amounts to hardly anything beyond or diff

content, and something outer which has that content as its significance; the inner shows itself in the ou

into detail

e long been in existence, whether those of the modern world,[43] of the middle ages, or even of peoples of antiquity quite alien to us (e.g. the Indian productions); works which by reason of their antiquity or of their alien nationality have, no doubt, a foreign element in them, yet in view of their content-common to all humanity and dominating their foreign character-could not have been branded as products of bad and barbarous taste, except by the prejudices of theory. This recognition, to speak generally, of works of art which depart from the sphere and form of those upon whi

n consists in the ?sthetic appreciation of individual works of art, and in acquaintance with the historical circumstances that externally condition such works; an appreciation which, if made with sense and mind, supported by the requisite historical information, is the only power that can penetrate the entire individuality of a work of art. Thus Goethe, for instance, wrote much about art and particular works of art. Theorizing proper is not the purpose of this mode of

irst mode of the study of art, start

t, the wholly theoretical reflection, which made an effort to understand

essence and conception, this is only possible by help of the thinking idea, by means of which the logico-metaphysical nature of the Idea as such, as also that of the particular Idea of the beautiful enters into the thinking consciousness. But the study of the beautiful in its separate nature and in its own idea may itself turn into an abstract Metaphysic, and even though Plato is accepted in such an inquiry as foundation and as guide, still the Platonic abstraction must not satisfy us, even for the logical i

urces, in contrast to the barrenness of one-sided reflection. For it has in accordance with its own conception to develop into a totality of attributes, while the conception itself as well as its detailed exposition contains the necessity of its particulars, as also of their progress and transition one into another. On the other hand, again, these particulars, to which the transi