CHAPTER III

DIFFERENT TYPES OF PRESENTMENT, MATERIAL, AND HISTORICAL STAGES IN THE EVOLUTION OF SCULPTURE.

We have hitherto in our inquiry in the first instance looked about us for the _general_ determinants, out of which it is possible to develop the most adequate content for sculpture and the form which best responds to it. We discovered the classical Ideal supplied this content, so that in the _second_ place we were called to establish the precise mode, in which sculpture among the particular arts is most readily adapted to give shape to this Ideal. Inasmuch as we found, moreover, that this Ideal is only to be comprehended in its essential import as _individuality_, not only did we find that the ideal outlook of the artist expand to a collective cyclus of ideal figures, but the external mode of representation and execution in actual works of art breaks up into _particular types_ of sculpture. In this latter direction we have still several points of view left us to discuss as follows:

_First_, there is the manner of representation, which, in so far as actual execution is concerned, either creates single statues, or groups, until finally in the relief we are confronted with the step of transition to painting.

_Secondly_, there is the external medium, in which these distinctions are given actual effect to.

_Thirdly_, we have to deal with the historical stages of evolution, or the process within which works of art are executed in the various types and material.

1. THE SINGLE STATUE, THE GROUP AND THE RELIEF

Just as, in the case of architecture, we made an essential distinction between independent building and that which was subservient we may also here establish a similar dividing line in sculpture, that is between such works that have an independent position and those which rather contribute to architectural decoration. In the case of the first the environment is nothing more than an artificially prepared locality, whereas in the latter cases their relation to the building which they adorn is of the first importance, and does not merely determine the form of the work of sculpture, but in a large measure even its content. Speaking in a summary way we may assert in this respect that single statues are set up on their own account, while groups and _a fortiori_ reliefs tend to lose this independence and are utilized by architecture for its own artistic purposes.

(_a_) As to the single statue their original function is that of sculpture generally, that is to supply temple images as they are set up in the shrine of the temple, and all that surrounds them is in direct association with them.

(_α_) In such a case sculpture retains its most adequate purity. It displays the figure of the god apart from all situation, in beautiful, unimpaired, and inactive tranquillity, or at least free, unmolested, without definite action and development, such as I have on several occasions depicted, that is, in unconstrained situations.

(_β_) The earliest departure from this austere loftiness consists in this that the entire pose suggests the beginning of an action, or the conclusion of the same, without the godlike repose being thereby disturbed, or the figure being presented as in struggle or conflict. We place under this type the famous Medicean Venus and the Belvedere Apollo. In the times of Lessing and Winckelmann the admiration of the critical world over these statues, as the highest Ideal of art, was unconditional; nowadays, since we have come to know works more vital and substantial in their configuration, and more profound in their expressive power, we must deduct somewhat from this estimate; critics, in fact, place them in an age somewhat subsequent to the great period, an age in which the smoothness of their elaborate workmanship already suggests that to please is the main object, and the genuine grand and severe style is not persisted in. An English traveller goes so far as to say that the Apollo is "a theatrical coxcomb," and while admitting that the Venus has extraordinary softness, sweetness, symmetry, and coy grace, yet only finds in this a spiritual quality that is wanting in much, a negative perfection, and--a good deal of insipidity. We may generally review that transition from the former more severe repose and holiness as follows. Sculpture is no doubt the art of lofty seriousness, but this elevated austerity of the gods, inasmuch as the same are no abstractions, but individual figures, brings with it the absolute blithesomeness, and thereby a reflex attitude to reality and finite life, in which the blithesomeness of the gods does not express the feeling of absorption in such finite content, but the feeling of reconciliation, of spiritual freedom and alertness.

(_γ_) In consequence of this Greek art is throughout permeated with all the blithesomeness of the Greek genius, and has found its satisfaction, delight, and an object for its activity in a countless number of gratifying situations. When it once had discovered a way from the constraint of the abstractions of its presentment to an appreciation of vital individuality, which is the unifying factor of the whole, its joy in all that is indicative of life and cheerfulness became a real thing, and artists became occupied with a great variety of subjects, which, without glancing aside at anything suggestive of pain, horror, distortion or injurious, fixed as its final limit unoffensive humanity and remained thus. The ancients have in this respect executed much of the greatest excellence. I will here only mention, among the many mythological subjects of playful, that is playful in the most innocent way, interest, the sports of Cupid, in which we already see a close approach to the ordinary life of mankind, just as there were others in which the vitality of the presentment is the main interest, and indeed the very attempt to secure and execute such subject-matter itself contributes this blithesomeness and innocence to the effect. In this kind of way we may point out that the dice-players and satellite of Polycleitus were thought quite as highly of as his Argive statue of Here. The discus-throwers and racers of Myron were equally famous. How dear to this folk, too, and admired is that youth in a seated posture who extracts a thorn from his foot? There were many others of the same type of production in great measure merely by name. We are face to face with the fleeting moment of natural existence, which is here arrested for ever by the sculptor.

(_b_) Beginning with examples such as the above of a movement towards external objects, sculpture proceeds further in the representation of situations, conflicts, and actions yet more involved with motion, and at last arrives at the group. For with an increase of specific detail in the action we have placed before us the more concrete animation, which expands in contradiction, reactions, and thereby, too, in the presence of several figures essentially related and intertwined with each other.

(_α_) At first we have, however, merely tranquil juxtapositions, such as, for example, the two colossal horse-tamers, which are set up in Rome on Mount Cavallo, and indicate Castor and Pollux. The one statue is commonly ascribed to Pheidias, the other to Praxiteles. There is, however, no strong evidence for this, although the extraordinary excellence of conception, and the no less exquisite thoroughness of the execution justifies names as famous. Such are entirely independent groups, which as yet express no real action, or the result of it, and are wholly appropriate as representations of sculpture and public exposition before the Parthenon, where it appears they were originally placed.

(_β_) Sculpture, however, is equally occupied in the group with the presentment of situations, which have as their content conflicts, discordant actions, pain, and other similar conditions. In this direction, too, we can only speak highly of the genuine artistic insight of the Greeks, which did not set forth such groups independently, and by themselves, but brought them, for the reason that sculpture has already made a departure from its peculiar, that is to say its self-subsistent, province, into closer relation to architecture. The temple figure, that is the isolated statue, stood in unimpaired tranquillity and sacredness within the inner shrine. The external pediment, on the contrary, was decorated with groups which represented definite actions of the god, and consequently admitted of more animated movement in its elaboration. The famous group of Niobe and her children is of this type. The general form for the co-ordination of each part is determined by the space which the group in question had to fill. The principal figure stood in the middle, and was thus able to be the largest in size and most prominent. The rest according as they were placed in the direction of the acute angle of the gable-end had to submit to other postures, the limit being reached by that of a reclining figure.

Of other famous works I will here only mention the Laocoon group. It has now for over forty years been the object of much inquiry and controversy. In particular it has been regarded as a matter of real importance, whether Virgil in his description followed this work of sculpture, or the sculptor adopted his work to the scene depicted by Virgil, whether Laocoon here is actually crying out, and whether it is appropriate in a work of sculpture to attempt to express such a cry, and many more criticisms of this kind. Critics have worried themselves up and down with such matters of psychological interest for the simple reason that they have not as yet secured the sort of enthusiasm and critical acumen which Winckelmann possessed; and, moreover, arm-chair professors are more readily disposed for such investigations for the reason that not unfrequently they have neither the opportunity granted them to see real works of art, nor the capacity to grasp them for what they are when they do so. The most essential thing which can occupy our attention in this group is this namely, that in the supreme pain, the supreme truth, the convulsive tension of the body, the distention of all the muscles, the noble aspect of beauty is still preserved, and the process has not been carried in the remotest degree to the extremes of grimace, distortion, and over-strain. Despite of this, however, the entire work belongs without doubt--we have only to consider its subject-matter, the artificiality of its coordinate grouping, the disposition of each posed figure and the type of its elaboration--to a much later period, which already seeks to pass beyond simple beauty and vitality by means of a deliberate obtrusion of science in the configuration and muscular development of the human body, and no less is anxious to please by refined excess in its executive elaboration. The step from the ingenuous ease and greatness of art to a mere mannerism is already taken.

(_γ_) Works of sculpture may be set forth in very various places, such as in the entrances to columned halls, forecourts, landings of staircases, niches, and so forth. It is just in this variety of local position and architectural setting, which, on its account too, is variously related to human circumstances and conditions, that the content and object of such works of art are for ever changing, approaching as such art does in the group yet more closely our humanity. It is, however, a serious defect to place groups that embody much movement and variety of figure on the top of a building without further background against the sky. In other words the colour of the sky may sometimes be gray, at others blue and dazzlingly bright, so that it is impossible to see the outlines of the figures. Yet these outlines, that is, the silhouette we find in them, is just what is most important; it is the main thing which we recognize, and which simply makes the rest intelligible. For in the case of a group we find that many portions stand in front relatively to others, an arm before the trunk of the body, or one leg in front of another. Now the fact of distance alone disturbs the clearness and intelligible articulation of such parts, or at least tends to do this more emphatically than in the case of outlined portions which are independent. We have only to imagine a group depicted on a piece of paper in which certain parts of a figure are strongly and sharply indicated, while others on the contrary are marked with lines of less defined and arresting definition. This is precisely the effect of a statue's lines, and yet more those of groups, which have no other background but that of the sky; in the latter case we only see a sharply indicated silhouette, in which, so far as what is within the compass of that outline, only relatively weaker articulation is visible.

This is the reason that, to take an example near home, the Victory on the Brandenburg gate in Berlin not only affects us strongly by virtue of its simplicity and repose, but can be readily followed through its separate figures. The horses, in fact, stand far from each other, without either of them impairing the view of the other; and similarly the figure of Victory rises sufficiently high above them. Conversely the Apollo drawn in a car by griffins, which we have on the Opera House, is less satisfactory from this point of view, however artistic the entire conception and technical work may be in other respects. By the favour of a friend I saw these figures before they were taken from the workshop. The effect promised was noble. But as we see them now at such a height, we have far too much of one outline partly obscuring another, which in its turn is backed by something else, and consequently is less freely and clearly silhouetted than would be the case were all the figures silhouetted in their simple outlines[187]. The griffins, which necessarily, on account of their shorter legs, do not stand up either so highly or so freely as horses, have wings into the bargain, and Apollo, too, has his tuft of hair and his lyre. All this detail is too much for the position, and only tends to make the outlines obscure.

(_c_) The final mode of representation, in which sculpture makes an important step in the direction of the principle of painting is the _relief_; in the first instance the high-relief, and after it the low-relief. The condition here is the surface, the figures standing on one and the same plane, so that the spatial totality of the figure, which is the point of departure of sculpture, more and more tends to disappear. The older form of relief, however, does not as yet approximate so closely to painting, which involves distinctions of perspective between the foreground and background, but rather holds fast to the surface or plane as such without permitting the different objects to project into or to retire within the distinctions of their spatial position by means of an artificial reduction of size. In the present case figures in profile are preferred, and they are placed side by side on an even surface. A simple treatment of this kind does not admit the content of complicated actions, but actions which in real life already adopt more or less of one and the same line of motion, processions of all kinds, whether those of sacrifice or Olympian victors or others. Add to this the relief is capable of the greatest variety of form. It not only fills up and decorates the friezes and walls of temples, but is attached to utensils of all kinds, sacrificial bowls, votive gifts, shells, goblets, urns, lamps, and so forth; it is the adornment of seats and tripods, and is closely allied to the skilled crafts. Here as nowhere else the ingenuity of invention receives the fullest scope in every kind of form and combination, and is no longer in position to retain the true object of independent sculpture.

2. THE MATERIAL OF SCULPTURE

We have, by our acceptance of the principle of individuality, which is fundamental to sculpture, been compelled not merely to emphasize in separation the different provinces of the divine, human and natural, from which plastic art accepts its subject-matter, but also to classify the several modes of presentation in the single statue, group, or relief. In the same way we have to discover a like variety of division in the _material_ which the artist can make use of in his works. For different kinds of content and mode of presentation are more

## particularly congenial to different kinds of sensuous material, and

betray a secret attraction to and affinity with such.

By way of generalization I will merely here permit myself the remark that the ancients, in addition to the extraordinary excellence of their invention, equally excite our astonishment by reason of the amazing elaboration and versatility of their technical accomplishment. Both aspects present an equal difficulty in sculpture, because the means at hand here for such presentation are without the ideal many-sidedness, which is at the disposal of the other arts. Architecture is no doubt poorer still in this respect; but it is not her province to embody spirit in its vitality, or what is actually alive in Nature in a material which is by itself wholly inorganic. This elaborate dexterity in the absolutely consummate treatment of pure material is, however, bound up with the notion of the Ideal itself, for its very principle is a complete entrance into the sensuous concreteness and the blending together of the Ideal with its external mode of existence. The same principle is therefore once again asserted, where the Ideal attains its executed form and realization. In this respect we have no reason to wonder, when it is asserted that artists, in periods distinguished by great executive ability, either executed their works of marble in clay without models, or, if they had recourse to them, set about their work in a much freer and unconstrained manner than is the case in our own times, where, to put the fact bluntly, it only makes copies which are now executed in marble after originals carried out in the clay[188]. The old artists retained in fact the vital enthusiasm, which is always to a more or less extent lost in the case of copies and replicas, although it is undeniable that now and again we meet with defective work in famous masterpieces, as, for example, eyes that are not of the same size, ears one of which is placed lower than the other, feet that are of unequal length and others of the same kind. They did not lay so much stress on the absolute precision of the compass in such things as ordinary production and art criticism, that mediocrity of talent which imagines itself so profound, is wont to do; and it can do little else.

(_a_) Among the different materials in which sculptors have executed images of gods, wood is one of the most ancient. A trunk, a post at the top of which a head can be indicated, such was the beginning. Among the earliest examples of the temple image many are of wood, but the material was also used even in the days of Pheidias. The colossal Minerva of Pheidias at Plataea was mainly carved from wood which was gilded, the head, hands, and feet being of marble[189]; Myron, too[190], executed a Hecate out of wood here with only one head and body, and no doubt for Aegina, where Hecate was most revered and a festival took place annually in her honour, a festival which the Aeginetans maintained the Thracian Orpheus had inaugurated for them.

Generally speaking, wood, when it is not covered over with gilding or some other precious material, by reason of its texture and the grain of it, appears too fine a material for works of importance and more appropriate to smaller figures, for which purpose it was frequently used in the Middle Ages, and is still thus utilized nowadays.

(_b_) Other materials of most importance are _ivory_, associated with _gold_, founded _bronze_ and _marble._

(_α_) As is well known, Pheidias employed ivory and gold for his masterpieces, such as his Olympian Zeus, and also for his famous colossal Athene in the Acropolis of Athens, who carried on her hand an image of Victory, itself being larger than life-size. The nude portions of the body were made out of sheets of ivory, the drapery and mantle from gold plates, which could be removed. This type of workmanship in yellowish ivory and gold dates from a period in which statues were coloured, a kind of representation which steadily approximated to the one colour tone of bronze and marble. Ivory is an extremely pure material, smooth and without the granular character of marble, and, moreover, costly. And among the Athenians the costliness of the statues of their gods was itself of importance. The Pallas at Plataea had merely a superficial gilding, that at Athens solid metal plates. The statues had to be both of colossal size and of the richest material. Quatremère de Quincy has written a masterly work upon these works, upon the "toreutic" of the ancients. "Toreutic"--τορεύειν, τόρευμα--is primarily applicable to figures whose lines are brought out by engraving in metal, or cutting of some kind such as cut stones; one uses the expression, however, to indicate entire works or parts of entire works in metal, which are executed by means of moulds and the founder's art, that is, not by means of engraving, then, still more remotely from the original meaning, of superb figures on earthenware utensils, and finally in the widest sense of mouldings[191] on bronze. Quatremère's researches have particularly been directed to the technical aspect of the execution; he calculates what must have been the size of the plates made of elephants' tusks, and, among other things, how much space, in proportion to the gigantic dimensions of the figure, they would leave covered. From another point of view he is equally concerned to reproduce for us from the sketches, or other evidence[192] we possess from antiquity, a drawing of the seated figure of Zeus, and, most of all, the great chair with its rich decorations of bas-reliefs, and by so doing to give us in every respect some conception of the splendour and perfection of the work.

In the Middle Ages ivory is mainly used for smaller works of very varied character, such as Christ on the Cross and the Virgin Mary, or yet again for drinking vessels with scenes of hunting and the like, in which cases ivory, on account of its smoothness and hardness, is in many respects preferable to wood.

(_β_) The material which was most favoured and most widely employed by the ancients was bronze, in the casting of which it attained a success of the highest mastery. Preeminently during the period of Myron and Polycletus it was the prevailing material utilized in statues of deities and other kinds of sculpture. The darker, less defined colour, the sheen, the smoothness of bronze generally, has not reached the abstract formality of the white marble, and it is at the same time warmed. The bronze which the ancients used was partly gold and silver,

## partly copper, varying considerably in the degrees of its component

parts. The so-called bronze of Corinth is, for example, a composition unique of its kind which originated after the burning of Corinth from the almost incredible wealth of this city in statues and vessels of bronze. Mummius had many statues carried off on his ships; and the excellent man was so full of anxiety for their safe deliverance in Rome that he informed the captain that in case of loss he must recreate the same exactly or suffer, such was the threat, heavy punishment. In the founding of bronze the ancients attained an incredible mastery, by aid of which it was possible to them to cast it securely despite its extreme thinness. It is possible to regard such a feat as merely a matter of technical dexterity which is unconnected with true art. Every artist, however, works upon a certain material, and it is an essential quality of genius to be complete master of the same. Dexterity and adaptability in matters which concern the technique and instruments of its work constitute one distinct aspect of genius. On account of this virtuosity in the founder's art a work of sculpture in this medium involved a less expensive process, and was in the reach of a larger number than the chiselling out of marble statues. A second advantage, which the ancients were able to attain in casting their work in bronze, was the purity thereby acquired, which they carried so far that their bronze statues did not require further enchasening, and consequently lost nothing of the finer marks of expression, which is almost inevitable where such a process is necessary. If we consider, then, the extraordinary number of works of art, which originated in this facility and mastery over technical matters, we cannot fail to be astonished and admit that the artistic sense for sculpture is a distinctive impulse and instinct of spirit, which can only, that is, in so overwhelming a degree, appear in one period and one people. In the whole of the Prussian State, for example, at the present time we can easily reckon up the number of bronze statues, the single bronze door of a church we find in Gnesen, and, with the exception of the standing figures of Blücher at Berlin and Breslau, and Luther at Wittenburg, we have merely a few more in Königsberg and Düsseldorf[193].

The very various tone and the infinite adaptability to form and fusibility of this material, which may accommodate itself to every kind of representation, gives to sculpture the pass into every conceivable variety of production, and makes its sensitive material suitable for a host of conceits, prettinesses, utensils, ornaments, and innocent trifles of all kinds. Marble, on the other hand, is limited in its suitability for the depicting of objects and their size; it is, for instance, possible to execute bas-reliefs in it of a certain size on urns and vases. It is, however, unsuitable for smaller objects. In the case of bronze, however, which is not merely cast into specific forms, but can also be beaten into shape and informed by the engraver's tools, there is hardly any type or size of representation which it does not command. We may here, by way of more definite example, instance the case of coinage minting. In this art, too, we find that the ancients executed masterworks of beauty, albeit in the technical aspect of the mere mintage[194] they stand as yet far behind our present elaboration of all that is mechanical in the design. The coins in fact were not really minted, but beaten but of pieces of metal closely resembling a globular form. This department of the art attained its culmination in the time of Alexander. The coins of the Roman Empire have already deteriorated. In our own time Napoleon endeavoured to revive the beauty of antique work in his medals and coinage, and they are of great excellence. In other states, however, the mere worth of the metal and accurate weight is mainly important in the mintage of coin.

(_γ_) The last kind of material exceptionally favourable to sculpture is stone, which possesses independently the external aspect of consistency and permanence. The Egyptians long before chiselled out their sculptured colossi with a labour that spared no pains from the hardest granite, syenite and basalt. _Marble_ is, however, most directly, as a material, in harmony with the aims of sculpture through its soft purity, whiteness, no less than by the absence of definite colour and the mildness of its sheen, and in particular possesses, by virtue of its granular texture and the soft interfusion of light which it carries, a great advantage over the chalk-like dead whiteness of gypsum, which is too bright, and easily kills with its glare the finer shadows. We find a distinct preference given to marble, only at a later epoch of the Greek school, that is during the period of Praxiteles and Scopas, who executed their most famous works in marble. Pheidias no doubt worked in marble, but for the most part only in the execution of head, hands, and feet. Myron and Polycletus mainly made use of bronze. Praxiteles and Scopas, on the other hand, appear to have sought to remove from sculpture that feature which is alien to its main principle, namely colour. No doubt it is undeniable that the beauty of the ideal of sculpture is capable of being embodied in bronze as in marble, with no diminution whatever of its purity. When, however, as was the case with Praxiteles and Scopas, art begins to approach the softer forms of grace and charm of figure, the marble asserts itself as the more congenial medium. For marble "encourages, by virtue of the transparency of its surface, a softness of outline, its gentle articulation[195] and mild conjunction; add to this that the tender and artificial elaboration of consummate work always appears more clearly on the soft whiteness of stone than on bronze, however noble it may be, which, in proportion as the transition of green is beautifully gradated, makes the lustres and the reflections all the more disturbing to the effect of repose[196]." For the same reason the careful attention, which at this period was paid to effects of light and shade, whose nuances and gradations are more clearly marked by marble than by bronze, was a further reason why stone should be preferred to metal.

(_c_) In conclusion we ought to associate with the above more important kinds of material _precious stones_ and _glass._

The ancient gems, cameos and pastes are invaluable. They repeat in fact on the smallest scale, yet with consummate finish, the entire survey of sculpture, from the simple figure of a god, through all the varied forms of grouping to every possible kind of conceit in dainty delight and prettiness. Winckelmann, however, observes with regard to the Stosch collection[197]: "It was while looking at this that I was made aware of a truth, which afterwards became to me of great value in elucidating monuments, very difficult to understand; and the truth is this, that on cut stones, no less than on imposing works of sculpture, we very rarely come across events which took place after the Trojan war, or after the return of Odysseus to Ithaca, if we only except the one case of the Heracleidae and the descendants of Hercules; for in this latter case the limits of history and fable still overlap, and fable is the main subject of these artists. Only one example of the tale of the Heracleidae, however, is known to me personally." As for gems, the genuine and most consummately executed figures are of the greatest beauty, fine as the work of organic Nature, and may be inspected through a magnifying glass without any loss to the purity of their delineation. I refer to this fact in proof that the technique of art in such cases is almost an art of intuition; the fineness is such that the artist is unable as the sculptor is to follow the work with his eyes, but is rather compelled to _feel after_ it. He holds the stone which is made fast on wax against tiny sharp wheels which are made to spin by means of a flying-wheel, and in this way cuts out the forms. By this process what we have is a kind of instinctive sense, which takes in and directs so consummately the conception, the intention of line and drawing, that we can almost fancy ourselves to have before us in these stones, when one sees them properly illuminated, a relief work.

The work on cameos is to be contrasted with the above. These represent figures finely cut in out of the stone. The onyx was particularly utilized as material for this kind of work. In dealing with these, the ancients were expert in setting off to advantage and with taste the various strata, in particular the white and yellow-brown. Aemilius Paulus had a number of such stones and other trinkets carried to Rome.

In the representations which were depicted upon all this varied material the Greek artists adapted as the basis of their work no situations which were poetically conceived by themselves, but selected their subject-matter invariably, if we only except examples of Bacchanals and dances, from myths about the gods and sagas. Even in the case of urns and representations of events relative to deceased persons they had definite facts before them, which were associated with the individual, whom it was thought right to honour by reason of his decease. The direct allegory, in fact, does not belong to the genuine Ideal, but only becomes perspicuous in art's later development.

3. THE HISTORICAL EVOLUTION OF SCULPTURE

We have hitherto regarded sculpture as the most adequate expression of the classical Ideal. The Ideal, however, has not merely an intrinsic forward development on its own account, by virtue of which it approximates to that which it is in virtue of its notion, and by doing so equally begins a forward movement beyond this absolute harmony with its own essential nature. Quite apart from this, as we have already seen in the second main division of this work during our review of the particular types of art as a process, it contains, putting on one side its mode of presentation under the symbolical type, a certain aspect presupposed, which it is bound to pass beyond in order generally to establish itself as Ideal, and moreover a further type of art, that is the romantic, from which it will once more pass away. Both types of art, the symbolical no less than the romantic, likewise seize upon the human figure as an element of their presentment, whose spatial outlines they adhere to, and consequently set forth as sculpture sets them forth. We have, therefore, when it is a question of drawing attention to the historical-development, not only to speak of Greek and Roman sculpture, but also Oriental and Christian. It was, however, the Egyptian people pre-eminently among all, among whom the _symbolical_ type sums up the fundamental character of their art-production, who first began to associate with their deities the human figure as it emerges from a mode of existence that is purely natural, and for this reason it is mainly among them that we meet too with sculpture, inasmuch as they gave as a rule to their general outlook an artistic existence in that which was simply material. The sculpture of Christianity is of wider range and richer development. We do not merely refer here to its uniquely romantic character in the Middle Ages, but also to that further elaboration, in which we find it made an effort once again to approach more closely the principle of the classical Ideal, and establish that type most specifically consonant with sculpture.

I will in concluding the present section of my work in its entirety, and following the above general observations, add a few words, _first_, upon Egyptian sculpture as contrasted with the Greek as the introductory stage of the true Ideal.

The characteristic elaboration of _Greek_ sculpture makes our _second_ stage, which closes with _Roman_ sculpture. On the present occasion what will mainly concern us will be to survey the stage which precedes the really ideal mode of presentation, because we have already in our second chapter considered at length ideal sculpture.

_Thirdly_, we have merely left us to indicate briefly the principle of Christian sculpture. I can only undertake in this place to refer to it in the most general terms.

(_a_) When we have the intention to investigate on the soil of Greece the classical art of sculpture from the _historical_ standpoint, we find ourselves already confronted with Egyptian art in the form of sculpture before we have arrived at our object; and we must add not merely is this so in regard to great works which bear witness to the highest technique and elaboration in an entirely unique artistic style, but as the point of departure and source for the forms of Greek plastic art. That this last result on the ground of historical fact amounts also to an external contact, an acceptance and an instruction to which Greek artists submitted, this must be left to the history of art to establish, whether it be in reference to the significance of figures of deities represented from the field of mythology, or to the particular methods of artistic treatment. The association between Greek and Egyptian ideas of the gods is a conviction set forth with proofs by Herodotus. Creuzer is of the view that we find this external association of these arts most clearly demonstrated on coins, and he lays exceptional stress on ancient Attic examples. He has showed me one in his own possession in which without question the face, a profile possessed quite the outline of the physiognomy of Egyptian figures in every respect[198]. We must, however, here leave this purely historical aspect to stand on its own merits, and confine ourselves to the inquiry whether apart from it a more ideal and necessary bond of connection cannot be established. This bond of intrinsic causality we have already adverted to above. It is necessary that the art which is incomplete must precede the complete form of art, the Ideal, by means of the negation of which, that is by the stripping off of that aspect which adheres to it as a defect, the Ideal is first realized. In this respect unquestionably classical art is a _becoming_ or a process, which, however, apart from it must necessarily possess an independent existence, inasmuch as _quâ_ classical it must leave all deficiency, all the mere becoming behind it, and be essentially rounded in "completion." This process as such consists in this, that the form of the presentation first begins to run counter to the Ideal, and yet remains incapable of an ideal grasp, belonging as it does to the symbolical synthesis, which is unable to embody in union the universal aspect of the significance, and the individual embodiment as it appears to sense. That _Egyptian_ sculpture possesses such a fundamental character, is the single point that I will now briefly touch upon.

(_α_) The primary fact that calls for attention is the deficiency we find here in ideal and creative _spontaneity_, despite the greatest technical perfection. The source of works of Greek sculpture is the vitality and freedom of the imagination, which builds up individual figures from the religious ideas which are prevalent, and in the individuality of this its production makes an actual fact of its own ideal outlook and classical perfection. The Egyptian figures of deities, on the contrary, receive an inherited[199] type. As Plato long ago observes[200], the representations were long before fixed by the priestly caste, and it was neither permitted to painter nor any master of sculpture to introduce novelty, nor indeed to invent anything at all, but to accept instead what was already among them and traditional; neither is such permission conceded now. We consequently find that what was made and fashioned, it may be myriads of years before (to allow oneself a hyperbolical expression for the great number that is actual verity), is neither more beautiful nor more ugly than the work of to-day. The circumstance must also be associated with this scholastic accuracy, that in Egypt, as appears clear from Herodotus[201], artists did not enjoy the same respect as other citizens, but were forced with their children to defer to all who were not engaged in artistic work. Add to this art among the people was not followed according to natural inclination; the institution of caste was paramount, and the son walked after his father, not merely in the matter of profession, but also in the way in which he made himself efficient in his duties and his art. One man simply placed his feet in the steps of another, so that, as Winckelmann has already observed[202], "Not a soul appears to have left behind him a footmark, which he can appropriate as his own." Consequently art, when fully confronted with this enforced serfdom of Spirit--in conjunction with which the mobility of free and artistic genius, in other words, not the mere impulse after external honour and reward, but the more elevated impulse to be _artist_, is banished--maintained itself simply as the mere craftsman working in a purely mechanical and abstract way according to forms and rules ready to hand, rather than with the vision of the artist of his own individuality in his work, viewed in this way as his own unique creation.

(_β_) Coming now in the _second_ place to the actual works of art, here, too, we may borrow from Winckelmann, whose descriptions attest once more his exceptional acuteness of observation and distinction, and whose account of the character of Egyptian sculpture is in its main lines as follows[203].

Speaking generally we may say that both grace and vitality, which are the result of the genuine sweep and balance of organic line, are absent from the entire figure and its detailed parts; the outlines are straight or in lines that show less deviation from it, the pose appears constrained and stiff, the feet are thrust close together, and in cases of figures in the upright position where one foot is placed before the other, both point in the same direction instead of having the toes turned outwards. In the same way, in masculine figures, the arms hang down straight and glued to the body. Further, the hands, such is Winckelmann's view, are shaped much as we find them in men who possess hands not badly shaped originally, but deteriorated and neglected; feet, on the other hand, are too flat and spread out, the toes are of equal length and the little toe is neither crooked nor curved inwards: in other respects hands, nails, and toes are not badly shaped, although neither the joints of fingers nor toes are indicated. And similarly we may say of all the rest of the nude figure the muscles and bones are but slightly indicated, and the nerves and veins not at all. In short, so far as detail is concerned, despite the laborious and able execution, just that aspect of the elaboration is absent which alone communicates to the figure its true animation and vitality. The knees, however, bones, and elbows are traceable in relief, as we find them in Nature. Masculine figures are conspicuous for their exceptionally narrow waist above the hips. The backs of figures, on account of their position against columns and their being sculptured from one block with them, are not visible.

Together with this lack of mobility, which is not entirely due to the technical inferiority of the artists, but must be regarded as a result of their primitive conception of the figures of deities and their mysterious repose, is nearly associated the absence of any true situation and any sort or kind of action, which are asserted in sculpture by means of the position and motion of the hands and the demeanour and expression of delineation. No doubt we do find among Egyptian representations on obelisks and walls many figures in movement, but these are purely reliefs and are for the most part painted.

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.

(_γ_) Consequently the works of art, which carry on their face this character, remain at the stage where the breach between significance and form is not yet bridged over. For such a stage significance is still of main importance, and what is aimed at is rather the conception of that in its general aspect, than the vitalization of any one individual figure and the artistic enjoyment derived from such presentment. Sculpture proceeds here from the genius of an entire people, about which we may on the one hand affirm, that it has in the first instance arrived at the point where the need of _imaginative_ conception is disclosed; and it is satisfied to find that indicated in the work of art, which is present in the conception, and here of course is a conception which is _religious._ We are not therefore entitled, taking into consideration the great strides they have made in laborious

## activity upon and actual perfection in technical execution, to call

the Egyptians uneducated in their sculpture merely on the ground that, despite all this, they did not as yet in great measure seek to attach truth, vitality, and beauty to their results, by virtue of which qualities the free work of art receives a soul. Doubtless from another point of view the Egyptians did advance beyond the mere idea and its necessary demand. They sought further to envisage and embody the same in human and animal forms, nay, they knew how to comprehend and set forth the forms, which they reproduced, clearly, without distortion and in their just relations. They failed, however, to impart to them the breath of vitality, which the human form in its natural state already possesses, and to infuse with them that more exalted life, by virtue of which an active and fluent motion of spirit could be expressed in a created image that was adequate to its significance. Their works rather attest a seriousness that is entirely lifeless, an unsolved riddle, so that the configuration does not so much embody their own individual ideality as permit us to surmise a further significance which is still alien to it. I will here only adduce one example, namely, the frequently recurring figure of Isis, holding Horus on her knees. Here we have, so far as externals are concerned, the same subject-matter that we meet with in Christian art as the Madonna and her Child. In the symmetrical, straight-lined, and immovable pose of the Egyptian example we discover, to quote a recent description[204], "neither a mother, nor a child; there is no trace of affection, smile, or endearment, in a word there is no real expression at all. Tranquil, unperturbed, and immovable is this divine mother, who suckles her divine babe; or rather we have here neither goddess nor mother, nor son, nor god. It is simply the sensuous sign of a thought, which is capable of no result and no passion; it is not the genuine presentation of a real action, still less the just expression of a natural emotion."

And it is precisely this which constitutes the breach between signification and determinate being, which creates the absence of figurative expression in the artistic results of the Egyptian people. Their ideality or spiritual sense is still so imbruted, that it has no imperative desire to possess the precision bound up in a true and vital representation carried through with detailed accuracy, to which the onlooker has nothing to add, but may simply surrender himself to the attitude of reception and translation, because everything is already a gift of the artist. We must have a more lofty feeling of the individual's self-respect aroused than the Egyptians possessed, before we cease to be content with the indefinite and superficial features of art, and make valid in its products a claim to reason, science, motion, expression, soul, and beauty.

(_b_) We find this artistic self-consciousness, so far as sculpture is concerned, first wholly alive among the Greeks. By its presence all the defects of the Egyptian phase of art vanish. Yet in this further development we do not have to make a wide leap from the imperfections of a type of sculpture still symbolical to the perfected result of the classical Ideal. Rather the Ideal has, in its own distinctive province--I have noticed this more than once--although lifted to a higher range, to remove the defects whereby in the first instance its onward path of perfection is obstructed.

(_α_) I will here very briefly refer to _Aeginetan_ and ancient _Etruscan_ works of art as examples of such beginnings within the sphere itself of classical art. Both these stages, or rather styles, already pass beyond that point of view, which is satisfied, as was the case with Egypt, in repeating forms, we will not say absolutely opposed to Nature, but at least forms that are lifeless, precisely as they have been received from others, and is further content to place before the imagination a figure, from which the same can abstract its own religious content and recover the same for memory, without, however, attempting to work it out under a mode, by virtue of which the work is made apparent as the individual conception and vitality of the artist himself.

But along with this and to the same degree this preliminary stage of ideal art fails as yet to force its way entirely to the true classical ground, and this, first, because it is still clearly constrained within the bonds of the type and therewith the lifeless; secondly, because though it makes an advance in the direction of vitality and motion, yet in the first instance all that it attains to is the vitality of what is wholly of _Nature_, rather than that beauty, whose animation is Spirit's own gift, and which manifests the life Spirit inseparably conjoint within the living presentment of its natural form, accepting the individual modifications of this fully completed union with equal impartiality from present vision of actual fact and the free creation of genius. It is only in recent times that we have obtained a more detailed knowledge of Aeginetan works of art, over which it has been a matter of controversy, whether they belonged to Greek art or no. In considering their artistic quality, as representations, we must at once make an essential distinction between the head and the rest of the body. The whole of the body, if we except the head, attests the most faithful apprehension and imitation of Nature. Even accidental features of the skin are copied and excellently executed with an extraordinary manipulation of the marble's surface; the muscles are set forth in full relief and the skeleton framework of the body well indicated; the figures are thickset in their severity of line[205], but are reflected with such knowledge of the human organism, that they appear alive to a limit of actual deception, ay, to an extent, so Wagner assures us[206], that we are almost scared at the sight and hardly like to touch them.

On the other hand, in the execution of heads all attempt to represent Nature is abandoned. One uniform design of face is throughout apparent in all the heads despite every divergence of action, character, and situation; the noses are pointed; the forehead is still the retreating type, which fails to rise up straight and with freedom; the ears are set high in the head; the long slit eyes are flat and oblique; the closed mouth ends in corners which are pursed outwards; the cheeks are stretched flat-shaped; the chin, however, is strong and angular[207]. Of a similar uniformity is the form of the hair and the fall of the drapery, in which symmetry, a principle which is also uniquely conspicuous in the pose and groupings, and second to that, a peculiar kind of exquisiteness are the prevailing characteristics. This uniformity has been in part imputed to a lack of the sense of beauty in seizing national traits, and in part traced to the fact that reverence for the ancient traditions of an art still immature has fettered the hands of the artists. An artist, however, whose life is that of his personality, and who lives in his work, does not suffer his hands to be thus shackled; consequently we can only explain this type of work, associated as it is with great ability in other respects, by assuming some bondage of spirit, as yet not wholly conscious of its freedom and independence of its creative powers.

The pose of these figures is of the same kind of uniformity, not so much a quality of stiffness as uncouthness, lack of enthusiasm, and in a measure, where we have the attitudes of warriors, resembling what we sometimes find from artisans at their trade, such as the rough work of joiners with the plane[208].

The net result, which we gather from the above description, we may affirm to be that, however interesting they may be for the history of art, what is wanting in such works of art, in the conflict they disclose between tradition and the imitation of Nature, is _spiritual_ animation. For we must remember that, in accordance with what I have already explained in the second chapter of this part of my work, spiritual significance is exclusively expressed in the countenance and the pose of the figure. The other parts of the body no doubt indicate natural distinctions of soul, sex, and age, but what is spiritual in the full sense can only be reflected by the general pose. But it is precisely the traits of countenance and the posture which in Aeginetan sculpture is the relatively spiritless.

The _Etruscan_ works of art, that is, such whose genuineness is fully authenticated by inscription, display the same imitation of Nature in a yet higher degree; they are, however, freer in their pose and facial characteristics, and, in fact, some of them approximate closely to the portrait. Winckelmann, for example[209], mentions the statue of a man which appears to be simply a portrait, though it would also appear to date from a later period of art. It is a man of life-size, representing some kind of orator, a magisterial, worthy sort of person. It is executed with an extraordinary spontaneity and naturalness both of pose and expression. Remarkable and significant it would indeed be, if we did not recollect that on Roman soil it is not the Ideal but actual and prosaic natural fact which is from the first at home.

(_β_) In the _second_ place truly _ideal_ sculpture, in order to reach the highest point of classical art, has above all, to abandon the mere type and the respect for what is traditional, and to give free scope to the principle of spontaneity in artistic production. It is alone possible to a freedom of this kind entirely to incorporate the significance in its generality in the individual presentment of the form; or, from another point of view, to elevate the sensuous forms to the high level of a true expression of their spiritual import. Only after doing this do we find the rigid and inflexible aspect which is native to the origins of the more ancient art, no less than the emphatic prominence of the significance over the individuality, by means of which the content ought to be expressed, liberated as that vital creation, in which the bodily forms also on their part equally lose the abstract uniformity of a traditional, character, and an illusive realism, and by doing so move in the direction of the classical individuality, which quite as much makes, vital the universality of the form in the particularity of its object as, on the other hand, it makes the sensuousness and actuality of the same throughout interfused with the expression of a soul's inspiration[210]. A vitalization of this type affects not only the form, but also the pose, movement, drapery, grouping, in short every aspect of the sculptured figure to which I have already drawn attention. What here communicates unity are these two principles of universality and individualization. They have, however, not merely to be brought into harmony in respect to the spiritual content, but also in relation to the material form, before they can be participant in the indissoluble association which is the classical type in its full flavour. This identity, however, has itself a series of stages. In other words, under one extreme we find that the Ideal still somewhat inclines to the aspect of _loftiness_ and severity, which it is true does not deprive the individual object of its living impulse and movement, yet does tend to concentrate it more securely under the lordship of the general type. At the other extreme we find that the universal aspect more and more tends to dissolve in the individual; and while it pays the penalty for doing so in loss of depth it can only replace this loss by further elaboration of this sensuous individuality. Consequently it descends from the heights to the lower levels of that which _gives pleasure_, is exquisite, blithesome, and displays the charm which flatters. Between these two there is a _further_ phase, one, namely, which carries forward the severity of the first to increased individualization, without reaching that point where mere charm of aspect is held to be the supreme object.

(_γ_) _Thirdly_, in the art of _Rome_ we have indications of the dissolution of classical sculpture. In this art it is no longer upon the true Ideal that the entire conception and execution depends. The poetry inherent in the vital action of Spirit, the breath and nobility of the soul apparent in the essentially perfected presentment, these peculiarly emphasized excellences of Greek plastic art disappear, and give place, as a rule, to a preference for portraiture studies. And this insistence on realistic truth in art is carried out in all possible modifications. Notwithstanding, this Roman sculpture maintains so lofty a position in this its own province, that it is only in so far as it withdraws from that which brings a work of art to its full perfection, in other words, the poetry of the Ideal in the true sense of the word, that it essentially falls behind Greek art.

(_c_) Fixing now our attention on _Christian_ sculpture we shall find that the principle of artistic conception and its mode of embodiment is from the commencement one that does not so directly commend itself to the material and forms of sculpture as we find to be the case in the classical Ideal of the Greek imagination and art. The romantic Ideal in short is essentially concerned, as we discovered in the second portion of this work, with a personal withdrawal of the self into its own realm from the external world, with a self-absorbed individuality, which no doubt possesses its external reflection, but which permits this external appearance to issue independently from it in its aspect of

## particularity, without enforcing a fusion between it and its ideal and

spiritual self. Pain, torture of body and soul, martyrdom and penance, death and resurrection, the personality of the individual soul, inner life, love, and emotional life in general--this characteristic content of the romantic imagination, in a religious sense, is no object, for which the external form taken simply for what it is in its spatial entirety, and the material which belongs to it in its more sensuous existence unrelated to ideality, can supply either a form that is wholly relevant to it, or one similarly congruent with it. It is therefore not in romantic art sculpture contributes the fundamental type and the affiliating quality of membership in a system[211] to all the other arts as in Greece, but yields the palm in this respect to painting and music, as arts more adequate to express the life of the soul, distinct from the external world of particularity which is withdrawn from it. No doubt we find also in Christian art repeated examples of sculpture in wood, marble, bronze, and both silver and gold work, examples of the greatest excellence. Yet for all that sculpture is not here the art which, as in Greek art, is most fitted to reveal the Divine image. Religious romantic sculpture, on the contrary, is to a larger extent than in the case of the Greek, an embellishment of architecture. The saints are placed as a rule in the niches of towers and buttresses, or at the entrance doors. Likewise the birth, baptism, the histories of the passion and resurrection, and many other incidents in the life of Christ, the day of Judgment and so forth, accommodate themselves naturally by the multiplicity of their subject-matter to reliefs over church doors, on church walls, and stalls in the choir, and readily approximate to the character of arabesques. All such sculpture contains, for the reason that it is the life of the soul which is herein pre-eminently expressed, characteristics suggestive of the painter's art in a higher degree than is permitted in the plastic of ideal sculpture. And from another point of view, for the same reason, such a sculpture seizes more readily upon aspects of ordinary life, and therewith inclines to portraiture, which, as in the case of painting, it is quite prepared to associate with religious representations. The goose-seller, for example, in the Nürnberg marketplace, which is highly prized by Goethe and Meyer, is an ordinary rustic of very realistic appearance in bronze (it would be impossible in marble), who carries a goose under either arm to market. There are, too, the many sculptured figures, which we find upon the St. Sebaldus Church and on many other churches and buildings, especially dating from the period previous to Peter Vischer, and which in their representation of religious subjects such as the Passion, make clear to us with great vividness this particular type of individualized form, expression, mien and attitude, more particularly in their reflection of every degree of sorrow.

As a rule, then, romantic sculpture, which has deviated only too frequently into every kind of confusion, remains most loyal to the genuine principle of plastic art in those cases where it approaches most nearly the Greek, and either is concerned to treat in the mode of sculpture ancient subject-matter, much as the ancients would have done, or to model the standing figures of heroes and kings, and portraits, with an intention to imitate the antique. This is exceptionally the case nowadays. Much of the most excellent work, however, has been accomplished by sculpture, even in the religious field. It is only necessary here to mention the name of Michelangelo. We can hardly admire sufficiently his dead Christ[212], of which we have a plaster cast in our Royal Museum. The authenticity of the sculptured figure of the Madonna in the Frauenkirche at Bruges, a consummate work, is disputed by certain critics. Speaking for myself, nothing has ever more impressed me than the tomb of the Count of Nassau at Breda[213]. The Count reposes with his lady, life-size figures both in alabaster, on a slab of black marble. At the angles of this are placed Regulus, Hannibal, Caesar, and a Roman warrior in a bowing posture, and they support above their heads a black slab similar to the one beneath. Could anything be more interesting than to see a character such as that of Caesar placed before our eyes by Michelangelo. Even when dealing with religious subjects the genius, the power of imagination, the force, thoroughness, boldness, in short all the extraordinary resources of this master tended, in the characteristic production of his art, to combine the plastic principle of the ancients with the type of intimate soul-life which we find in romantic art. But as we have seen, the direction as a rule of the Christian emotion, where the religious point of view and idea are paramount, is not towards the classical form of ideality, which primarily and with highest results is the determinant factor of its sculpture.

From this point we may now fix the transition from sculpture to another principle of artistic apprehension and presentment, which requires for its realization another sensuous material. In classical sculpture it was the objective and _substantive_ individuality in its human shape, which constituted the vital core, and the human form was placed thereby at such a lofty level, that it was in fact retained in its abstract simplicity as the beauty of form, and as such converted to the Divine image. Under such a one-sided aspect of content and representation man is not fully himself in his _concrete humanity._ The anthropomorphism of art remains in its incomplete state in ancient sculpture. For that which fails us here is humanity in its _objective universality_, a universality which we identify at the same time with the principle of _absolute personality_, quite as much as that aspect of it which in common parlance is called human, in other words the phase of _subjective singularity_, human weakness, contingency, caprice, immediate sense life, passion, and so forth, a phase or factor which must be taken up into that universality in order that the _entire individuality_, the subject of conscious life, that is, in its entire range, and in the infinite compass of its reality, may appear as the vital principle both of the mode of presentment and its content.

In classical sculpture one of these phasal aspects, that is the human from the side of immediate Nature, is in part only brought before us in animals, quasi-animals, fauns and the like, without being reflected back again into the personal life of soul, and stated as a negation of that; and also in some measure this type of sculpture only accepts the factor of particularity, only directs its interest to external things in the _pleasing style_, in the countless sallies of delight and conceits, in which the antique plastic lives and moves. Owing to this we wholly fail to meet here the profundity and infinity which lies at the root of man's personal life, that inmost reconciliation of Spirit with the Absolute, that ideal union of humanity with the humanity of God. No doubt Christian sculpture is the instrument which makes visible the content which here enters the domain of art more consonant with the above disregarded principle. But it is precisely its modes of art's embodiment which expose to us the fact that sculpture is insufficient for such a content, that other modes of art will infallibly arise able to reach in very truth the mark which sculpture failed in its work to achieve. We may collectively unite these new arts under the title of the _romantic arts._ They are indeed the modes most adequate to express the romantic type of art.

[Footnote 111: _Sein subjektives Fürsichseyn._ Subjective independence of material conditions. Self-consciousness.]

[Footnote 112: _Rückkehr in sich._ Into itself, its own ideal world of conscious thought and emotion.]

[Footnote 113: _In seine innerliche Subjektivität._ That is, what is essentially the world of soul. Spirit here stands for mind and _Gemüth_ or emotional life.]

[Footnote 114: _Ein Sichzeichen des Geistes_, _i.e._, are signs of itself which mind evolves in a mode of externality.]

[Footnote 115: Here called generically _Baukunst._]

[Footnote 116: _Die plastische Deutlichkeit._]

[Footnote 117: _Das subjektive Innere, i.e._, spiritual experience of a personality.]

[Footnote 118: That is in comparison with the fully independent arts.]

[Footnote 119: That is to say it must be a distinct object of the senses.]

[Footnote 120: _In sich materiell particularisirt._ We see Hegel's false notions of the theory of colour influencing his expression. It is really false to say that sculpture has nothing to do with colour. Light and shadow at least are necessary and colour is implied.]

[Footnote 121: That is, lets fall some of its aspects.]

[Footnote 122: _Das Gemüth._ Strictly the more emotional part.]

[Footnote 123: Between the extremes of architecture and poetry or music.]

[Footnote 124: Lit., "Without being manifested in its return to itself as ideal substance."]

[Footnote 125: Unparticularized, that is in its essential experience.]

[Footnote 126: He explains this lower down. The concentrated point is in the flash of the eye. Perhaps here he merely refers to it generally.]

[Footnote 127: _Als Innerlichkeit._]

[Footnote 128: This is only partially true of bronze, and any marble that has had weathering.]

[Footnote 129: By _grosse geistige Sinn_ Hegel means no doubt more than "taste." He refers to the deep-rooted instinct in the genius of the race.]

[Footnote 130: Meyer, "History of the Plastic Arts among the Greeks," vol. I, p. 119.]

[Footnote 131: _Die acht plastische Mitte._ Hegel means that plastic art comes to its most important focus, as it were, between the arts that either incline too much to the material as in architecture, or to ideality as in poetry.]

[Footnote 132: _Näheren._]

[Footnote 133: The reader must always bear in mind that Spirit (_Geist_) includes intelligence. It might no doubt in some places be better translated as "mind."]

[Footnote 134: _Substantielle._ That is what is the concrete fulness of real spiritual content.]

[Footnote 135: _Als Subjekt._]

[Footnote 136: _Besonderheit._ The isolated self of the _Aufklärung._]

[Footnote 137: _Zufälligen Selbstischkeit._ Contingent selfness. The ego above described.]

[Footnote 138: _Ohne innere Subjektivität als solche._ That is, in the wholly abstract sense.]

[Footnote 139: _Begriff_ appears to refer here to the notion of animal life generally, rather than the generic notion in its narrow sense.]

[Footnote 140: _Innern Strukture._ The structure that ideally motives the whole.]

[Footnote 141: _Dieses ideelle einfache Fürsichseyn des leiblichen._ Apparently this includes the vegetable world.]

[Footnote 142: _Macht sich._ That is an operative principle in the working out of.]

[Footnote 143: _Als Seele_, _i.e._, in the narrow sense of the expression above defined.]

[Footnote 144: _Pathognomik_, _i.e._, the science, that is, of the expression of the passions, together with that of their physiological aspect.]

[Footnote 145: Lit., contingent subjectivity.]

[Footnote 146: Hegel's expression _Mienen_ is not easy to translate by a single English equivalent. It signifies the passing look--the general variety of facial expression as contrasted with the permanent expression of substantive character.]

[Footnote 147: _Den eigentlichen Mienen._ The definite aspects of the face which express relatively permanent states of soul-life.]

[Footnote 148: Persists in the line of direction of the Ideal.]

[Footnote 149: _Die schöne freie Nothwendigkeit._]

[Footnote 150: By _Witzigkeit_ I presume Hegel means oddity and funniness of every kind--perhaps "humorous eccentricity" would interpret it.]

[Footnote 151: I think this gives the sense, though the language is rather confused because his image is that of invention attaching itself to what is already presented rather than creating a form that is based on external suggestion.]

[Footnote 152: The celebrated courtesan. She entered the sea with dishevelled hair at a celebrated festival at Eleusis. She had a statue of gold at Delphi.]

[Footnote 153: _Eigentlich Vorstellung ist._]

[Footnote 154: _Statarisch._ That is, modelled on historical associations or the results of former work; perhaps "eclectic" would be a better word.]

[Footnote 155: _Der geistige Ton._]

[Footnote 156: _De varietate nationum_, § 60.]

[Footnote 157: As in savage animals.]

[Footnote 158: The word _system_ is used, which is not readily translated in this context, though I have adopted the literal translation lower down.]

[Footnote 159: _Mildrung._ The softening of its severe lines.]

[Footnote 160: Werke, vol. IV, bk. 5, c. 5, § 20, p. 198.]

[Footnote 161: It is difficult to see what Hegel means exactly here by _Schnitte._ I suppose he means the external lines of the eye-socket.]

[Footnote 162: _L.c._ § 29.]

[Footnote 163: _Flügeln_ must here refer to the orifices of the nose.]

[Footnote 164: Winck, _l.c._ § 37, p. 218.]

[Footnote 165: Hegel's word is _habitus._ Customary attitude and mode of connection appears to be included.]

[Footnote 166: _Gebehrde_, a word somewhat difficult to translate here. It seems to combine the ideas of gesture and pose.]

[Footnote 167: The reference is, of course, to painting and indirectly to poetry.]

[Footnote 168: _Ein in sich versunkenes Dastehn oder Liegen._]

[Footnote 169: _Gediegenheit._]

[Footnote 170: See vol. I, pp. 268-272.]

[Footnote 171: _Das höhere Innere._]

[Footnote 172: _Das geistige Bewusstseyn._]

[Footnote 173: Her. I, _c._ 10.]

[Footnote 174: This vitality.]

[Footnote 175: Vol. V, bk. 2, p. 503.]

[Footnote 176: Vol. V, bk. 6, ch. 2, p. 56.]

[Footnote 177: Mus. Pio-Clement. Tom. 2, pp. 89-92.]

[Footnote 178: Winck., vol. II, p. 491.]

[Footnote 179: Vol. IV, bk. 5, ch. I, § 29.]

[Footnote 180: I am not sure what is exactly meant by _gekrümmt_ here. The description is not very lucid.]

[Footnote 181: IV, 5, 2, § 10.]

[Footnote 182: Winck., vol. VII, p, 78.]

[Footnote 183: Winck., vol, VII, p. 80.]

[Footnote 184: Vol. IV, p. 78.]

[Footnote 185: Vol. II, § I.]

[Footnote 186: Winck., vol. IV, p. 116.]

[Footnote 187: Such is, I think, the general meaning, though the literal translation of the words _als den Figuren sämmtlich die Einfachheit abgeht_ is not quite clear. I take the word _sämmtlich_ to mean "taken collectively as separate units."]

[Footnote 188: Winck., Werk., vol. V, p. 389. Anmerk.]

[Footnote 189: Meyer's _Gesch. der bild. Künste bei den Griechen_, vol. I, p. 60.]

[Footnote 190: Pausanias, II, 30.]

[Footnote 191: I presume this is the meaning of _Bildnerei._]

[Footnote 192: I am not sure whether _Angaben_ refers to actual sketches, or merely other evidence handed down.]

[Footnote 193: In the year 1829.]

[Footnote 194: That is in the accuracy of mechanical line as the result of machine.]

[Footnote 195: _Sanftes Verlaufen, i.e._, passage from one plane surface to another. _Zusammen-stossen_ appears to me the melting together of lines, _i.e._, conjunction, fusion.]

[Footnote 196: Meyer's _Gesch._, vol. I, p. 279.]

[Footnote 197: Vol. III, Vorr. XXVII.]

[Footnote 198: That is in 1821.]

[Footnote 199: _Statarischen_, scholastic, eclectic.]

[Footnote 200: "De Leg.," Lib. II, ed. Bekk., III, 2, p. 239.]

[Footnote 201: Herod, II, _c._ 167.]

[Footnote 202: Vol. III, bk. 2, ch. I, p. 74.]

[Footnote 203: Vol. III, bk. 2, ch. 2, pp. 77-84.]

[Footnote 204: "Cours d'Archéologie par Raoul-Rochette, 1-12me leçon," Paris, 1828.]

[Footnote 205: I am not sure if this rightly gives the sense of the words _Die Gestalten bei strenger Zeichnung gedrungen._]

[Footnote 206: Ueber die Aeg. Bildwerke mit kunstgesch. Anmerk. von Schelling, 1817.]

[Footnote 207: That is, it does not approach Egyptian type so nearly.]

[Footnote 208: Hegel's words mean this, I suppose, though the German is somewhat compressed and not very clear as it stands.]

[Footnote 209: Vol. III, ch. 2, § 10, p. 188 and Pl. VI, A.]

[Footnote 210: Hegel uses the unusual word _Begeistigung_, I presume somewhat in the sense of _Begeisterung_, signifying the personal inspiration of the artist.]

[Footnote 211: This appears to be the meaning of the difficult phrase that sculpture supplies _das gesammte Daseyn_, _i.e._, is the affiliating link of the collective body. All the different arts are stamped with its characteristics.]

[Footnote 212: I presume the Pietà in St. Peter's.]

[Footnote 213: Hegel's "Vermisch. Schriften," vol. II, p. 561.]

SUBSECTION III

THE ROMANTIC ARTS

The source of the general transition from sculpture to the other arts is, as we have seen, the principle of _subjectivity_, which now invades art's content and its manner of exposition. What we understand here by subjectivity is the notion of an intelligence which ideally exists in free independence, withdrawing itself from objective reality into its own more intimate domain, a conscious life which no longer concentrates itself with its corporeal attachment in a unity which is without division.

There follows from this transition, therefore, that dissolution, that dismemberment of the unity which is held together in the substantive and objective presence of sculpture, in the focus of its tranquillity and all-inclusive rondure and as such is apprehended in fusion. We may consider this breach from two points of view. On the one hand sculpture, in respect to its _content_, entwined what is substantive in Spirit directly with the individuality, which is as yet not self-introspective, in the exclusive unit of a personal consciousness, and treated thereby an _objective_ unity in the sense in which objectivity suggests what is intrinsically infinite, immutable, true--that substantive aspect, in short, which has no part in mere caprice and singularity. And from another point of view sculpture failed to do more than discharge this spiritual content wholly within the corporeal frame as the vital and significant instrument of the same, and by doing so create a _new objective_ unity in _that_ meaning of the expression, under which objectivity, as contrasted with all that is wholly ideal and subjective, indicates real and external existence.

When we find, then, that these two aspects, at first thus reconciled in one another by sculpture, are separated, that which we call _self-introspective_ spirituality is not merely placed in opposition to that which is _external_, but also, in the domain of what is _spiritual_ throughout, what is substantive and objective in that medium, in so far as it no longer continues to be retained in what is substantial individuality simply, is dissevered from the vital

## particularity of the conscious life, and all these aspects which have

been hitherto held together in perfect fusion are relatively to each other and independently free, so that they can be treated too by art as free in this very way.

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.

2. _Secondly_, if we consider the aspect of the representation on its _external_ side, we find that it is by virtue of its particularity at once self-subsistent and possesses a claim to stand forth in this independence, and this for the reason that the principle of subjectivity excludes that correspondence in its immediacy, and disallows to itself the absolute interfusion of the ideal and external aspects in every part and relation of it. For the subjective principle is here precisely that which comes to be, in self-subsistent seclusion, that inward life which retires from real or objective existence into the realm of the Ideal, the world of emotion, soul, heart, and contemplation[216]. This ideal life is manifested no doubt in its external form, under a mode, however, in which the external form itself appears, that is to say it is _merely_ the outer shell of a conscious subject that is growing _independently_ within. The hard and fast association of the bodily form and the life of Spirit in classical sculpture is not therefore carried to the point of an all-dissolving unity[217] but in so light and slack a coalescence that both aspects, albeit neither is present without the other, preserve in this connection their separate independence relatively to the other, or at least, if a profounder union is really secured, the spiritual aspect as that inward principle, which asserts its presence over and beyond its suffusion with the objective or external material, becomes the essentially illuminating focus of all. And it results from this that, to promote the enhancement of this relatively increased self-subsistency of the objective and material aspect,--we have in our mind mainly, no doubt, the extreme case of the representation of external Nature and its objects, even in their isolated and most exclusive particularity,--yet even in such a case and despite all realism in the presentment it is necessary that such counterfeits should permit a reflection of the artist's soul to be visible on their face. They should in other words suffer us to see the sympathy of Spirit in the manner of their artistic realization, and therewith discover to us the life of soul, the ideal life which is the vital breath of their co-ordination, the penetration of man's emotional life itself into this extreme type of external environment.

Speaking, then, generally, we may affirm that the principle of subjectivity carries with it as its inevitable result, on the one hand, that the wholly unconstrained union of Spirit with its corporeal frame should be given up, and the bodily aspect be asserted in a more or less negative relation over against the former, in order that the ideality of Spirit may be emphasized on the front of that external reality, and, on the other hand, in order to procure free scope for every separate feature of the variety, division, and movement of what is spiritual no less than what directly appeals to man's senses.

3. And, _thirdly_, this new principle has to establish itself in the sensuous material, of which art avails itself in its new manifestations.

(_a_) The material hitherto was matter simply, that is, the material of gravity in the content of its spatial extension, and no less was it form under its simplest and most abstract definition of configuration. Now that the _subjective_ and at the same time the essentially

## particularized content of the soul is imported into this material,

the spatial totality of such material will without question in some measure suffer loss in order that the former content may appear upon its face with its ideal mintage[218], and contrariwise will be converted from its immediately material guise to an appearance which is the product of _mind_ or spirit; and, on the other hand, both in respect to form and its externally sensuous visibility, all the detail of what appears will be necessarily emphasized in the way that the new content requires. Art is, however, even now compelled in the first instance to move in the realm of the visible and sensuous, because, following the above course of our inquiry, though no doubt the inward or ideal is conceived as self-introspection[219], yet it has further to appear as a return of its own quality to itself from this very realm of _externality_ and _material shape_, in short, as a return of itself to itself, which can only from the earliest point of view be portrayed in the objective existence of Nature and the corporeal existence of Spirit's life.

The _first_ among the romantic arts will consequently have as its proper function to assert its content in the visible forms of the external human figure and the natural shape wherever disclosed, without, however, remaining bound to the sensuous ideality and abstract range of sculpture. This is the task and province of _painting._

(_b_) In so far, however, as we find in painting for its fundamental type, not as in sculpture the entirely perfected resolution of the spiritual idea and the bodily form in one content, but rather the predominant exposition of the self-absorbed ideality of soul, to that extent the spatial figure in extension is not a truly adequate medium of expression for the inward life of Spirit. Art therefore abandons the previous medium of configuration, and in the place of spatial forms employs the medium of _tone_ in the limited duration of its sounds; tone in fact by its assertion of the material of Space under a purely negative relation secures for itself a finite existence nearer to ideality, and corresponds to that soul-life, which in accordance with its own inward experience conceives and grasps that life as emotion, and then expresses that content, as it enforces its claim in the unseen movement of heart and soul, in the procession of tones. The second art, therefore, which follows this principle of exposition is that of _music._

(_c_) Thereby, however, music merely is placed at the opposite extreme, and, in contrast to the plastic arts, both in respect to its content and relatively to its sensuous material, and the mode of its expression, cleaves fast to the formless content of its pure ideality. It is, however, the function of art, in virtue of its essential notion, to disclose to the senses not _merely_ the soul-life, but the manifestation and actuality of the same in its _external reality._ When, however, art has abandoned the process of veritably informing the real and consequently visible form of objective existence, and has applied its activity to the element itself of soul-life, the objective reality, to which it once more recurs, can no longer be the reality as such in itself, but one which is merely _imagined_ and prefigured to the mind or sensitive soul. The presentment, moreover, as being the communication to Spirit of creative mind working in its own domain is compelled to use the _sensuous_ material united to its disclosure simply as a mere means for such communication. It must consequently lower its denomination to that of a sign which of itself is without significance. It is at this point that _poetry_ or the art of speech, confronts us, which now incorporates its art-productions in the medium of a speech elaborated to an instrument of artistic service, precisely as intelligence already in ordinary speech makes intelligible to spiritual life all that it carries in itself. And, moreover, for the reason that it is able thus to unfold the _entire_ content of Spirit in its own medium, it is the _universal_ art, which belongs indifferently to all the types of art, and is only excluded in that case where the spiritual life which is still unrevealed to itself in its highest form of content is merely able to make itself aware of its own dim presentiments in the form and configuration of that which is external and alien to itself.

##