The Philosophy of Fine Art, volume 2 (of 4) / Hegel's Aesthetik

by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

It is a further consequence that if we regard the entire sphere of this type as the union of the two stages which preceded it on the ground that it not merely comprehends within itself the separation of significance from external reality, which is the fundamental causa rationis of the Sublime, but also includes the reference of a concrete phenomenon to a universal import cognate with it, as we have seen was asserted in the real type of symbolism, such a union is notwithstanding in no way a higher type of art; it is, in truth, despite its very clearness, a superficial way of apprehending things, limited in its content and formally more or less prosaic, which falls away into the consciousness of commonsense as fully remote from the secretly fermenting depth of genuine symbolism as it is from the height of the Sublime.

So far as the classification of our present subject-matter is concerned we may observe, first, that in this act of comparative differentiation, which presupposes the significance independently, and affirms either a sensuous or imaginary form in a relation of opposition to it, there is the aspect held constantly throughout that the significance is here accepted as of most importance, and the form is solely the embodiment of the same and external to it; but along with this the further difference makes its appearance, namely, that it is sometimes the one aspect of this opposition which is first pre-eminently emphasized, and made the significant point of departure, while at other times it is the other. And owing to this fact we have either the embodiment presented us as an independently external, immediate fact or phenomenon of Nature, which is then related by comparison to a significance of a more general bearing, or the significance is independently come by in another way, and only afterwards a mode of embodying it is selected from some external source, it matters not what.

Relatively to the above distinctions we may classify our material under the two first fundamental and a third and other supplementary divisions as follows:

A. In the first it is the concrete phenomenon, whether the selection be made from Nature or human events, incidents, and actions, which constitutes both the point of departure in the process of artistic conception, and the substance of essential weight in the reproduction. It is no doubt exhibited solely on account of the more general significance, which it contains and signifies, and is only so far unfolded, that it may contribute to the object of embodying this significance in a specific occurrence or condition cognate with it. The comparison, however, of the general significance and the particular case is not as yet expressly set forth as subjective activity, and the entire reproduction will not merely be the embellishment of a work which actually possesses a substantive position without it, but is set forth as itself claiming to give the character of an independent whole. The types of this class are the fable, the parable, the apologue, the proverb, and the metamorphosis.

B. In the second phase the significance on the contrary is that which is first presented to consciousness, and the concrete embodiment is that which is merely incidental or accessory to it, possessing no independent subsistency of its own, but appearing as wholly subordinate to the significance, so that we are now also made more immediately aware of the element of personal caprice in the selection of this rather than any other image. This mode of production is unable in the great majority of cases to reach the point of a fully perfected work of art, and is consequently forced to leave the forms it supplies as appurtenant to other artistic images. The important types of this class are the riddle, the allegory, the metaphor, the image, and the simile.

C. Thirdly, and in conclusion, if rather by way of supplement, we have yet further to include within our list the didactic poem, and purely descriptive poetry, inasmuch as in these types of poetry we find, on the one hand, that the presentment of the general character of the objects in the clearness under which they are made intelligible to commonsense[80], no less than on the other that the exhibition of their concrete appearance receives a substantially independent form, and by doing so effects with elaborate completeness the severation of that which only in its union and really reciprocal fusion is capable of giving us a genuine work of art.

This separation of the two phases essential to the process of art-production carries with it the result that the various forms which find their place in the entire subject-matter under discussion have merely a claim to fall in as part of an inquiry into the modes of art in virtue of the fact that poetry, and only poetry, is in a position to express such a relation of self-contained independence as between significance and form. As opposed to this it is the very problem of the plastic arts to manifest such significant content in and through their external form and viewed thus externally.

A. MODES OF COMPARISON, WHICH HAVE THEIR ORIGIN UPON THE SIDE OF EXTERNALITY

The attempt to arrange the several kinds of poetic production which are apportioned to this first stage of the comparative type of art carries with it no little difficulty, and is a fruitful source of embarrassment. They are, that is to say, hybrid species of a subordinate rank, which in no way whatever mark out any necessary aspect of art They stand in the domain of Aesthetic presenting features analogous to certain animal types, and other exceptional phenomena in natural science. In both spheres the difficulty consists in this that in either case it is the notion of the science itself, which is the ground of its classification and specific differences. As differentia of the notion these are also at the same time distinctions really adequate to the notional process, and intelligible as such; with these latter such transitional modes are unable fully to conform for the reason that they are merely defective types, which proceed from a previous phase that is fundamental without being able to reach the next one. This is no fault of the notion, nay, supposing that we preferred to make such ancillary types the basis of our classification, instead of pointing out their relation to the specific phases of the notional process of our subject-matter, we should have presented us precisely that aspect of them which was inadequate to this process as the irreproachable mode of their development. A true principle of classification, on the contrary, is compelled to proceed from the true notion, and such hybrid types as those now discussed can only be suitably placed where the genuine and independently stable ones show a tendency to dissolve and pass over into others.

Apart from such considerations, however, the artistic types referred to belong to the forecourt of artistic symbolism, inasmuch as they are generally incomplete, and to that extent merely a search after art in its truth. Such a movement no doubt presents the essential ingredients of a genuine mode of configuration, but it lays hold of them in their aspect of finitude, separation, and purely relative propinquity; it fails consequently to rank on the same level. When we discuss, therefore, the fable, apologue, and the rest we must treat these forms not as though they belonged to poetry in the specific sense, as it differs among other things from music no less than the plastic arts, but only with the view of pointing out the relation in which they stand to the generic types of art. It is only thus their specific character can be elucidated. To such an object the notion of the genuine types of the art of poetry, whether epic, lyric, or dramatic, will not assist us.