This first step in the process of individualized expression is consequently of a kind that carries with it no further result; it is set in no antagonistic opposition to something else, in a relation which evokes both collision and reaction; it is already in its character of unconstrainedness finished and complete in itself. With such a type of situation we may associate those which are mainly to be regarded as a kind of play, in so far as all that proceeds or is carried out in them indicates no real seriousness of purpose. For all earnestness in any kind of activity is generally the result of oppositions and contradictions, which drive on their way to the final removal or victory of one side or the other. For this reason situations of this kind cannot themselves be identified with actions, nor are they the stimulative impulse of actions; they are indeed, in a certain aspect, of determinate character, but they are either circumstances of the most trivial significance, or a form of action which is without an essentially serious object, which either is the result of conflicts, or is able to carry the action yet further into conflicts.
(α) The first thing to arrest us in this process is the passage generally from the repose of the unfeatured situation to a condition of emotion and expression: this is asserted partly as purely mechanical motion, in part also as the first impulse and satisfaction of any internal want. The Egyptians, for example, represented the gods in their sculpture with closely locked limbs. The Greeks, on the contrary, released both arms and legs, and endowed the bodily form with all that is appropriate to the advance and general variety of movement. Permanent repose, a seated attitude, a tranquil gaze, are all of them simple conditions under which the Greeks apprehended their gods; they are modes which unquestionably gave to the self-subsistent figure of Godhead a certain characterization, but one nevertheless which is not carried forward into other relations and oppositions, but rather remains enclosed within itself, and permanently significant as such. Situations of this simple kind attach in a particular way to sculpture, and the ancients, above all others, were inexhaustible in discovering fit subjects for such a condition of unconstrained freedom. In this respect they showed an extraordinary insight; for it is precisely through contrast with the insignificance of the particular situation that the majesty and self-subsistency of the ideal types of the Greek Pantheon were made to appear so striking. It was, in fact, through the harmlessness and insignificance of what appeared to be done or left undone that the blessed peaceful tranquillity and immutability of the immortal gods was brought most clearly to consciousness. The situation merely indicates the particular character of either god or hero in quite a general way, such as brings them into no relation with other gods, or at least into no relation suggestive of hostility or division.
(β) It is a further step in the direction of more defined situation, when we find in such any particular purpose already represented in it, an activity which stands in definite relation to something external, and the self-subsistent figure itself expressed as within the sphere of such purpose or activity. Even objectification such as these, however, which have no real disturbing influence upon the tranquillity and cheerful blessedness of the figures represented, are rather to be regarded as particular modes of presentation incidental to this very quality of cheerful contentment. The invention of the Greeks was here, too, exceptionally thoughtful and fruitful. It is essential to the unconstrainedness of such situations that the activity here presented should merely indicate an action in its initial stage in such a way that no further developments or oppositions are likely to proceed from it, but that all that appears necessary to complete it should be found enclosed in the action depicted.
As an illustration of this the situation of the Belvedere Apollo is seized at the moment when he moves forward in wrathful majesty after slaying the Python with his arrow. A situation of this kind has not the grandiose simplicity of the earlier Greek sculpture, which asserts for our intelligence the repose and open clarity of the gods by means of expressed actions of less significance. Take the case of Aphrodite peacefully gazing at herself while emerging from her bath in full possession of her charms; or of fauns and satyrs at play, play that is wholly absorbed in itself; or of that famous satyr who dandled the young Bacchus in his arms, while he looks down upon him with infinite tenderness and grace; to say nothing of the endless variety of unconstrained activities in which Eros is depicted. Such are a few examples of this type of situation. If the action is of more concrete character we are confronted with a more involved situation, which, at least for the artistic presentment of the Greek gods as self-substantive powers, is less appropriate. In a case of this kind the pure universality of the individual god is less able to transpierce the accumulated detail of the particular action which he expresses. The Mercury of Pigalli, which is a present of Louis XV to the exposition of statuary in Sanssouci, is fastening on his winged sandals. This is a perfectly harmonious action. The Mercury of Thorwaldsen, on the contrary, is depicted under a situation which is almost too complicated for sculpture. He listens attentively to the flute of Marsyas. At the same time he is craftily spying him to see how he may slay him while his hand grasps maliciously for the dagger he has concealed. In opposition to this, if we may add one more illustration from a more modern work of art, is that representation by Rudolf Schadow, of a maiden binding her sandals in much the same simple manner as we find in the case of Mercury. In this example the naïveté of the situation does not contain the interest we experience when it is a god who exhibits such unconstrained action. When it is only a maiden who fastens her sandals or spins, there is little else to engage our attention but the simple action, which is by itself of little significance or importance.
(γ) We shall find further, if we follow up the above train of thought, that the more closely defined situation can be treated more generally, as merely a more or less definite stimulus presenting the opportunity for further development of expressed action of wider range related to the primary subject with varying degrees of affinity. Many lyrical poems have what we may call an occasional situation of this kind. A particular mood or a certain atmosphere of emotion is a situation which can be arrested poetically for consciousness, and, furthermore, in particular relation to external circumstances, festivals, or public victories, is able to carry us forward to this or that artistic expression, either of more comprehensive or restricted range, and in every kind of embodiment of feeling and idea. Pindar's odes of victory are supreme examples of this type of occasional poetry. Goethe, too, has selected as the subject-matter of his muse many lyrical situations of a similar character; and, in fact, if we look closely into the matter, we shall hardly be wrong in calling his "Werther" a poem of occasion. It is through the medium of "Werther" that Goethe has elaborated the convulsions and anguish of his own heart, incorporated, in short, the facts of his own experience in a work of art. This, after all, is true of every lyrical poet; he gives poetical expression to that which nearly affects him, and thereby throws the windows of his heart open to the fresh air. That which has hitherto been sealed up within is released in the external object, from which our humanity has freed itself, just as we are the lighter for the rain of tears, in which the sorrow is wept away. So Goethe, as in fact he has told us himself, by his composition of Werther, liberated himself from the mastery and pressure of his heart troubles. At the same time we must point out that this last-mentioned situation is not really appropriate to the type with which we are now dealing; it obviously presents the profoundest contradiction in itself which calls for resolution. No doubt in the kind of lyrical situation we have identified with "the occasional" we may have declared a circumstance objectively determined, in other words, an activity in close relation to the external world; but, on the other hand, we find the poetic temperament equally able to withdraw itself within the atmosphere it creates wholly free from its external environment, and to make that inward world which is the combined product of circumstance and emotion its true point of departure.
(c) The Collision
All the situations to which we have hitherto directed attention are, as already observed, neither true actions in themselves nor indeed the stimulative source of such action. Their determination was to a greater or less degree the purely occasional circumstance or condition, or an action in itself of no significance, in which a substantive content was expressed in such a way that its specific character appeared as a mere harmless play, in which nothing of a truly serious nature was implied. The full seriousness and weighty import of a situation can only begin when we find in it the element of disruption, where the determination itself exposes an essential aspect of difference, and by its opposition to something else becomes the source of a collision.
The collision arises, as we are now considering it, in an act of violation, which is unable to retain its character as such, but is compelled to find a new principle of unity; it is a change in the previously existent condition of harmony, a change which is still in process. The collision is, however, not an action, and is to be taken simply as stimulus to action to all that characterizes the situation. And this is true, although the contradiction in which the collision is enclosed may be the result of previous action. As an example of this we may cite the trilogies of the ancients, which carry forward the main theme by presenting at the close of one drama the collision which forms the stimulative impulse of the next, which, in its return, renders necessary the resolution which is carried out by the third. And, moreover, for this very reason that the collision always requires some resolution attendant on this conflict of opposing elements, the more a situation is full of it the more it is peculiarly adapted to the subject-matter of dramatic art, it being the especial claim of that art to present beauty in its completest and profoundest development. Sculpture, on the contrary, is not wholly suited to give embodiment to any action, through which the great spiritual forces are manifested either in their division or reconciliation, and indeed the art of painting, despite its more extended spatial significance, is only able to objectify a single moment of action.
These situations of tragic significance introduce a peculiar difficulty in dealing with them which is inherent in their very conception. For inasmuch as they obviously arise from violations of the world-condition they offer to our consideration circumstances which are unable to continue as they are, which render necessary something of a remedial nature to reclothe them. But the beauty of the Ideal consists precisely in its undisturbed unity, repose, and consummation with itself. The collision, on the other hand, disturbs this harmony of what is truly real and ethical, and drives this unity of the Ideal into discord and opposition. Through the representation of such disruption the Ideal itself suffers violation. The function of art will undoubtedly consist partly in preventing the entire destruction of free beauty in this difference, and partly in only carrying this breach of unity and the conflict it occasions to a point in which harmony may again be recovered as the result of such a conflict and its resolution, and in this way become manifest for the first time in its essential perfection. It is, however, impossible to determine on a general principle the precise limit to which such discordance may be carried inasmuch as the several arts in this respect preserve their independent character. The medium of the subjective idea can support a far intenser disruption than that of the plastic arts[318]. In other words, poetry is quite within its right when it breaks up the unity of the world of the imagination even to the point of the extremest form of desperation, and in its delineation of external objects to that of absolute ugliness. In the case of the plastic arts, on the contrary, in painting, that is to say, and even more so in sculpture, the external form remains in unalterable fixity; it can neither be removed nor lightly passed over in such a way that it again disappears. Under such conditions it would be a serious defect to represent once and for all an ugliness, which could not possibly be transmuted. Consequently all that would be quite compatible in dramatic poetry, which is able to represent a momentary appearance that again vanishes, is not within the province of the plastic arts.
In discussing the more obvious types of collision we can only in this portion of our inquiry indicate the most general points of view. We would particularly draw attention to three fundamental aspects under which they may be co-ordinated.