The Philosophy of Fine Art, volume 1 · Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
III. THE EXTERNAL DETERMINATION OF THE IDEAL
Our consideration of the determination of the Ideal was in the _first_ instance occupied with the general inquiry why it was and how it came about that the Ideal ever received at all the definite embodiment of a particular form. Following after this we arrived at the conclusion that inherent process was essential to our notion of it, that in fact the element of difference was only by this means asserted within it, and that this process viewed as a whole is presented us in the action. We discovered, however, that in virtue of the action the Ideal passes over into actual relations with the external world; we have therefore, and this is the _third_ important step, to solve the further question what kind of form this its final aspect, as associated with external reality, the Ideal will receive under adequate artistic representation. We would recall the fact that the Ideal is the Idea under a form which is in union with its own _actuality._ Up to the present point of our inquiry our attention has been exclusively occupied with that aspect or phase of this actuality which we may call in general terms human individuality and its character. Man is, however, also in possession of a concrete and _external existence._ In separation from this it is true he concentrates his spiritual life to a point in self-consciousness, but he remains for all that, even in this subjective unity, immediately related to the external world. To the actual existence of mankind the surrounding sphere of a world is as indispensable as the protection of a temple is to the statues of the god it contains. And for this very reason we must now advert to all or some of those many diverse threads, whereby the Ideal is woven in with this external environment and is shown in relief against it[365].
This opens to our view a practically immeasurable expanse of relations and modes under which the process of the external and relative world is determined. For in the first place we are confronted at once with the bare facts of external Nature such as particular locality, situation, whether habitable or not, temporal condition, the nature of the prevailing climate, whether in our earth's northern or southern hemispheres, and in fact in whatever direction we advance we have a fresh picture before us. Moreover, external Nature is made use of by man to satisfy his own needs and purposes; and all the ways under which he converts her to that use, that is to say the adroitness with which he discovers and then equips himself with tools and a home to live in, with weapons, with seats to recline upon, carriages to ride in, nay, all that the art of cooking may bring with it for his food, the entire apparatus of his luxury no less than his comfort, all this and much more fall within the limits of our inquiry. Add to this the further and yet more important consideration that every man lives within a comprehensive and equally real world of spiritual relations, which itself, too, presents to his view all the different modes under which command and submission is maintained, that is to say the family, blood-relationship, property, country and town life, the _cultus_ of religion, the organization of defence and offence, civic and political associations, private society, in short every conceivable form under which ethical customs and usages are organized in the institutions and permanent activities which contribute to the actual environment of human existence.
In all the directions enumerated above the Ideal is in immediate contact with the reality of the practical world in its everyday dress, or in other words, with the commonplace prose of life. And impressed by this fact we may easily be led to the conclusion, if we have already accepted the nebulous conception of idealism elaborated recently, that art can have no alternative but to dissever herself absolutely from all connection with this world of relative appearances. Such at least can only be logically inferred from a theory which assumes that this relation of externality is one of pure indifference, or rather, in contrast to the subjective world of spirit, is of no substantive significance or worth. Agreeably to this view art is a spiritual dominion, whose sole object is to exalt us above the sphere of material wants, necessities, and dependence, and to liberate us from the logic, and we may add the comedy, of facts, which in this field claim the exclusive attention of our humanity.
For, apart from any other consideration, all that meets us upon this _terra firma_ of life's prose is for the most part of a purely conventional character, and, conditioned as it is by time, space, and custom, simply a congeries of contingent facts, which it is derogatory to the nature of art to accept. This view of ideality, which is really an illusive one, is in part due to one of those highly flavoured abstractions of our latter-day thinking, in which we merely find that the thinker's courage has failed him to come to terms with the external world in question; in part also it is due to that type of prepossession which drives a man to assert summarily his independence of practical necessities when the advantages of birth, status, and social position have not already effected this for him. For such a man the only relief available is a complete withdrawal into the secret world of the emotions, a prison-house of unreality he steps out of never. Here he remains in what he conceives to be the temple of wisdom gazing ecstatic at what he takes to be the stars, and naturally values at the price of a nutshell all that is found on the Earth.
The real Ideal, however, is not confined to the shadow-like world of the emotions, but in its perfected whole must freely borrow from the definite structure of external objects of sight in every direction. And the reason of this is that man himself, whose nature is the central source that gives to that Ideal all its significance, is alive, and his life is only actual in a particular place and time, as one with the Present, as the individualized type of infinity[366]; and in short the opposition of an external garland of Nature is a fundamental characteristic of his life and its association with him and his activity is imperative. It follows that if this activity is to be apprehended by art, not merely as belonging to man alone, but in the specific form it may take in that world of appearance, the mode of its existence there will assert itself, as the mobility, reaction, and animating force of life itself in contact and transfusion with the material complex which surrounds it. Man is, however, in virtue of his self-consciousness a world in himself[367], and as such is differentiated from the external world of Nature which confronts him; and this external world is equally with himself a rounded whole whose unity asserts itself in the principle of causality. This self-exclusion of these two worlds is, however, only apparent; they are in their separation essentially related, and it is precisely this association which constitutes concrete reality, whose artistic embodiment is the content of the Ideal. And this brings us once more to the question already mooted, namely, in what semblance or form the external material which we find in this mutually related world we have referred to as concrete reality[368] can be presented to us by art in a manner consistent with the Ideal of art.
The Ideal in passing out of the bare image of its essential form into external or determinate existence secures for itself a reality which presents two distinct aspects. From one point of view we see that a work of art discloses necessarily in the content of the Ideal the concrete semblance of reality, that is to say it presents that content as a definite situation or particular circumstance, action, event or character, and presents it moreover in the mode of external existence. From another it is equally obvious that art makes some specific and sensuous material the vehicle of the particular content in its entirety of all that we have above summarized; it creates in short a new world sensible to eye and ear, the world of art. Under both these aspects we may further observe that art penetrates to the remotest limits of externality which are compatible with its form as the self-including unity of the Ideal and conformable to its appearance as a concrete whole permeated with the energy of spirit[369]. A work of art moreover itself may, as an object qualified by externality, be viewed in two distinct ways. We may regard it simply as an external thing, and as such only conformable to a unity that is external in the sense external objects are such. In considering it from this latter point of view we have once more to consider that relation of externality which we found it necessary to discuss in our examination of the beauty of Nature. And for this reason we shall again have to make use of those specific determinants which we previously discussed, and even then primarily in their connection with art. The modes under which external form was in the previous section exhaustively considered were then treated in a twofold way. First we analysed such conceptions as uniformity, symmetry, and conformity to rule; we then examined unity itself regarded as the simplicity and purity of the sensuous material, which art makes use of as the external medium for the existence of her expositions.
The artistic structure of architecture is not erected entirely as an object in itself, but rather as an external frame, embellishment and local habitation for something else which it subserves. A building is not complete until it has received the statue of the god or the society of human beings who make their dwelling therein. An artistic work of this kind should not therefore receive all or indeed the main attention. Holding this in our minds, it will appear obviously to the purpose that uniformity and symmetry should be here the prevailing characteristic of the structure; the mind passes over very readily one that is throughout uniform, and will not trouble itself about it for any length of time. Of course, we cannot here discuss the symbolical significance, which, in addition to that above examined, may attach to architectural form in its immediate relation to the spiritual content it envelops and emphasizes with a positive localization. The same principle applies to the art of making gardens, which we may define as a specific mode of architecture, in so far at least as an artistic conformation is imposed on external Nature[370]. In the garden no less than in the building man himself is the main object. There are two distinct types in this art of garden-construction.
The one adopts as its main principle uniformity and symmetry; the other those of variety and irregularity. As an artistic product the former is to be preferred. Labyrinths, however numerous and intricate, garden-beds in endless alternation of spiral lines, bridges over water usually stagnant, with every conceivable surprise that gothic church, temples, Chinese pagodas, hermitages, urns, summer-houses, mounds, statues may claim to afford us--one glance and only one glance at such things is sufficient, the vulgar and artificial pretensions of it all is too patent, and we do not seek for another. It is quite another matter when we cross any actual situation of real natural beauty, which has not at least been exploited expressly for our enjoyment[371], and by its own exceptional merit makes an irresistible appeal to our love of Nature and our sense of her beauty. A garden laid out with strict reference to the other extreme of regularity, makes no such attempts at surprises, but permits human beings to appear as the principal object in the external framework of natural beauty[372]. And this is really what a garden should be. Again in the art of painting the principle of uniformity and symmetry is clearly visible in the co-ordination of the whole, the grouping of the figures, their place and pose in the composition.
But inasmuch as in painting the animation of life can assert itself through objects in a far profounder degree than is possible in architecture we find that it presents much less scope for the purely formal unity of the symmetrical, and the rule of uniformity in all its severity is for the most part to be traced only as the fundamental principle of composition in the earliest phases of art, making way in its more advanced forms to the freer line, which is associated in our minds with organic form rather than such we meet with in the pyramid and similar geometrical shapes. Conformity to rule and symmetry are further important factors in the composition of music and poetry. Owing to the incident of duration in the length of tones we find in these arts an aspect of what is intrinsically a purely external relation, which is incompatible with any other more concrete mode of presentation. If we take the spatial condition it is obvious that here everything which lies in juxtaposition can be seen at a glance. It is otherwise with that which occurs in Time. Here we have merely a succession of moments, every one of which takes the place of another, and in this vanishing procession they flow on for ever.
And it is precisely this indeterminacy which it is the function of musical time or beat to inform by adding thereto a real definition capable of uniform repetition. In this way the indefinite progression is subordinated to a rational principle. In musical time we have a power which exerts such a fascination upon us, that, so far from being able to treat it with indifference, we not unfrequently find ourselves beating time quite unconsciously with it while listening. This constant recurrence of equal lengths of time according to a definite measure has nothing to do with tones and their duration as we find them in Nature. Tone simply as musical sound and time abstractly regarded, are both of them equally indifferent to such uniform divisions and repetitions.
Musical time is consequently something wholly created by the human mind; and indeed there is more than a suggestion of this in the fact that in listening to musical time we are at once impressed with the conviction, that we have, in this control of time according to fixed rule, nothing less than a real reflection of our spiritual nature, or rather that of the fundamental truth of self-identity, an illustration absolutely precise of the way in which the subject of consciousness applies this very principle of uniformity, unity with itself, that is to say, in constant recurrence, throughout all the variety and most intricate multiplicity of experience. And it is for this reason that the beat of musical time meets with such a startling response in the very depths of our being, gripping hold, as it does, of that self-identity, which is the fundamental abstract principle of our inmost life. Considered in this relation it is not; the spiritual content, not the concrete soul of our emotions, any more than it is the musical tone as tone, which appeals to us so intimately; it is simply the formal unity which the unity of consciousness transfers to the temporal process, and which is thus re-echoed back to our conscious life. And the same remarks apply to the measure and rhyme of poetry. The sensuous medium is here, too, in the same way carried out of the sphere of that which is external to ourselves, and at once asserts there the presence of something over and above that which is expressed by our ordinary consciousness, which in its general use treats the time-divisions of tones with indifference or caprice.
A uniformity of similar character, if not so consistently defined, may be traced still further, and is involved in the living content of poetry itself, although the relation here is quite an external one. By this we mean that in an epic poem or a drama, both of which have their particular subdivisions, cantos, or acts, whatever may be the specific term applicable, there is an approximate principle of equality apparent in the division of subject-matter. And the same characteristic is generally true in the grouping of the subject in pictures, although such should not appear to be a necessary result of the nature of the subject-matter itself, nor create the impression that this uniform distribution is due to any controlling principle of first importance. Conformity to rule and symmetry, which are the abstract unity and definition of all that is essentially spatial and its configuration no less than of all which is external under temporal condition, are mainly the co-ordinating principles of quantity and size, as we have already noticed in our consideration of the beauty of Nature. All that which does not, in virtue of its own specific medium[373], strictly form part of external extension, is consequently freed from the range of those principles which assert themselves exclusively in the relations of quantity, and are determined through relations of deeper significance, and the unity which co-ordinates them. It follows from this that the further art embraces subject-matter which is independent of the external condition, so much the less significant the principle of uniformity becomes, in the co-ordination of that art's subject-matter and the more completely is it restricted to a subordinate position.
It will be, perhaps, advisable here to close the above discussion of symmetry with a few general observations upon _harmony_. The relation of harmony is no longer one to mere quantity, but rather one to essential distinctions of _quality_, differences of tone, that is to say, which do not persist against each other in their native opposition, but as harmony or music have to be brought into concord. In music we find that the relation of the tonic to the mediant and dominant notes of the scale is no relation of bare quantity[374], but implies the presence of tones whose difference is _essentially_ a qualitative difference; which, that is to say, combine naturally in a unity, rather than continue to assert their distinguishing _timbre_ in all its glaring antithesis and contradiction. The true discord, on the contrary, requires its harmonic resolution. The same qualitative consistency is to be found in the harmony of colour, in reference to which it is likewise one of the requirements of art that it should neither manifest itself in a picture as a motley and haphazard juxtaposition of pigments, nor as a neutral surface whereon all fundamental distinction is dissolved[375], but as the artistic expression of a whole in which essential contrast is mediated through some principle of harmonious unity.
Furthermore, we observe that harmony contains in itself a definite number of contrasted differences, which have naturally a particular significance of their own. Thus we find under the differentiation of colour a definite number known as the cardinal colours, which are primary derivatives of the fundamental notion of colour, and are not due to accidental composition. Harmony consists in bringing together a number of positive colours such as this classification implies, and uniting them in concordant unity. We must, that is to say, have in a picture not merely all the primary colours, yellow, blue, green, and red present, but also a harmonious scheme under which they are related; and the old masters have, without direct consciousness of the principle involved, paid express attention to this completeness of effect and arrived at artistic results which flowed out of it. And furthermore, for the very reason that we find in harmony the beginnings of a release from the bare condition of externality it is duly qualified to absorb and express a spiritual content of wider significance. We may mark an illustration of this in the way the old masters distinguished between the drapery of their principal figures and of those of less importance, painting that of the former in elementary colours of absolute purity, but only conceding to that of the rest compound varieties. The mantle of the Virgin Mary is almost always blue; blue in its assuaging sense of tranquillity is accepted as the counterfeit of the repose and tenderness of the heart. It is only rarely that we find her in a drapery of emphatic red.
On the other hand, it is obviously more difficult to maintain a harmony of the whole when colours are thus contrasted in all their pristine simplicity. Yet in despite of this these essentially simple colours form the foundation of every true colour scheme, and although it may be impossible to dispense with a considerable use of their compounds, even these should not be allowed to appear in one dead and dull interfusion, but with their simple and luminous derivations shining through them[377]; otherwise instead of the clear lambency of colour we shall get nothing but a muddy residuum. We shall find that the same thing is necessary in the _timbre_ of musical tone. In the case of strings whether of metal or catgut it is the vibration of the material, and, moreover, of a material of definite tension and length, which educes the musical note. If the tension is insufficient, or the length of the string which is struck is not the right one, the tone inevitably loses its clearness of definition, rings false, as we say, owing to the interfusion with it of other tones[378].
We have the same kind of result when a purely mechanical fretting or scraping is suffered to interfere with the purity of the vibratory motion, and so to render the emitted sound confused and harsh. In the same way, it is of the first importance to the art of singing that the human voice should be produced from throat and chest freely and with purest intonation; the voice should be heard without the least indication of its organic instrument, or, as in the case of hoarseness, with an obstructive accompaniment the singer fails to repress. We may conclude, then, that this translucency and purity, free from all admixture with anything foreign to it, and consistent throughout in its clearness, is that which creates the beauty of tone as immediately apprehended by our senses, and which distinguishes it from every kind of mere noise. And we may add further it is this which in human speech conspicuously applies to the articulation of the vowels. A language which enunciates the five vowels with distinction and purity, as is strongly the case in the Italian, is essentially musical and adapted to song. The diphthongs, on the contrary, always produce a confused tone.
In literature little attention is paid to the direct reproduction of folk-dialects; we find them rather reduced to the simplest form of expression. In actual speech, however, this clearness of intonation only too often entirely disappears, so that we find, and markedly so in the case of dialects such as the South German, Swabian, and Swiss, men actually speak with an articulation of sound it is quite impossible to write down. We do not regard this, however, to be necessarily a defect in human speech, but rather a reflection of the rawness of the common folk. And here we must close our observations upon that external aspect of art, which, from the fact that it is external, and nothing more, is only capable of receiving an external and abstract unity. Now according to its more comprehensive definition it is the _concrete individuality_ of the Ideal impregnated with reason, which takes to itself externality as the form of its embodiment, and, moreover, in such a way that the external semblance, which is thus the medium of its expression, is throughout suffused with the mind inherent in this concrete individual form. In consequence of this such modes of relation as uniformity, symmetry, and harmony, or, in other words, the more simple determinations of the sensuous material are no longer adequate. This defect naturally extends our inquiry to that second aspect of the external determination of the Ideal already stated.
Ideas discussed in this chapter
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