The Philosophy of Fine Art, volume 3 (of 4) / Hegel's Aesthetik

by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

In speaking of the eye it is important at once to make it clear that in the figure of ideal sculpture, in addition to the absence of any true colour such as is found in painting, the glance of the eye is also absent. It is possible no doubt to show on historical evidence that the ancients, in the case of particular images of Minerva and other gods placed in temples, have painted the eye, since we find actual traces of colour in certain statues; in the case of images dedicated to a sacred purpose, however, artists have frequently held fast so far as possible to traditional usage in the face of good taste. In the case of other examples it is clear that they must have possessed eyes in the shape of precious stones inserted. This practice, however, is the result of a desire already adverted to of adorning the images of gods in as rich and lavish a manner as possible. And we may affirm generally that such either mark the beginnings of the art, or are due, as exceptions, to the traditions of religion. Moreover, apart from this, mere colour is still far from giving to the eye the essentially concentrated look, which alone communicates to it an expression that is wholly complete. We may therefore here assume it as a fact that in the case of statues and busts of a truly classical type, unaffected by such exceptional conditions which have come down to us from antiquity, the light focus of the eye, no less than the spiritual expression of its glance, is absent. For although not unfrequently the focus is inserted in the apple of the eye, or at least is indicated by a conical depression, and a modification which expresses the light point of this focus and by this means a kind of visual glance, such remains nevertheless the purely external configuration of the eye-ball, and is no presentation of its vitality; in other words it is not the glance of it simply, the inward glance, that is, of the soul.

We can readily imagine that it must cost the artist a great deal to sacrifice the eye in its simple aspect of animation. We have only to look a man in the eyes to discover a point of arrest, a centre that explains and is basic to his entire presentment, which we may grasp in its simplest terms from the unifying declaration of its bare look. The eye-glance is in fact that aspect which is most steeped in soul; it is the concentration of the inward life and its subjective emotion. Just as a man by means of a handshake, so, too, with yet more rapidity he is brought into unity with his fellow by virtue of the eye-glance he faces. And it is this pre-eminently spiritual mode of revelation which sculpture is forced to dispense with. In painting, on the contrary, this outward expression of soul-life makes its appearance by means of the subtle gradations of colouring either in its entire spiritual effect, or in a manifest association with external facts and the particular interests, feelings, and passions, which are called up by their presence. But the province of the sculptor in his art is neither the essential inwardness of soul-life, the concentration of the entire man in the simple centre of self-identity, which gleams out in the human glance as its ultimate point of illumination, nor the developed subjectivity as we find it diffused amid the surrounding world. The end of sculpture is the totality of the external form, into which the soul must disintegrate itself, and present itself by means of the manifold of the medium thus utilized, so that the recourse to one simple soul-focus, in other word the immediacy of the spirit-glance, is not here permitted. The work of sculpture possesses no such ideal intimacy in its simplest terms which is allowed to assert itself, as the human look does assert itself in contrast to other parts of the human body, thereby unfolding a contrast between the eye and the body; rather in sculpture what the individual is in his ideal and spiritual significance remains wholly fused in the total aspect of form, which the spirit that contemplates it, the spectator, can alone grasp in its unity. And in the second place, and with equal truth the eye peers into the world that surrounds it; it necessarily looks at something positive, and thereby is witness to man in his relation to a manifold world of objects, just as in the sphere of feeling he is united to his environment and general experience. It is, however, precisely this union with external objects from which the true figure of sculpture is withdrawn, being rather absorbed in what is substantive in its own spiritual content, essentially self-subsistent, that is without further diffusion or development. Thirdly, the glance of the eye receives its fully evolved significance by virtue of the expression of the rest of the bodily presentment, such as in its general mien and speech, albeit as the purely formal point of subjective life, in which the entire manifold of the form and its environment is concentrated to a focus, it holds itself aloof and contrasted with this development. A breadth of vision of this specific kind is, however, foreign to the plastic art. For this reason the more specialized mode of expression in the human vision, which did not at the same time immediately discover its further reciprocal response of effect in the entire compass of its configuration, could only be an accidental particularity, which the sculptured figure must dispense with. For reasons such as these, sculpture does not merely deprive itself of nothing when it leaves its figures bare of the eye's full glance; but we may affirm that it is only true to its fundamental principle when it totally disregards this mode of the soul's expression. Consequently it is merely one more example of the fine insight of antiquity, that it recognized firmly this limitation and restriction of sculpture, and remained loyal to the abstract view it implied. It is an evidence of the lofty intelligence of the ancients, based on the fulness of their reasoning faculties, and the comprehensive grasp of their outlook. No doubt we do meet with cases in antique sculpture, in which the eyes gaze upon some definite point, as for example in the case of the faun we have alluded to several times who glances at the young Bacchus. This smile of recognition is expressed in a moving way; but even here the eye is itself visionless, and the real statues of the gods in their simple situations are not presented to us in relations of this specific character so far as the direction of eye and glance is concerned.

With regard to the form of the eye in ideal sculpture it is large of size, widely extended, oval and in respect to position placed at right angles toward the line of the forehead and nose, and in considerable depression. As far back as Winckelmann[160] the large size of the eye was accounted significant of beauty, just as a great light is more beautiful than a small one. "The size, however," his description continues, "is relative to the bone of the eye or its cavity, and is expressed in the mode of incision[161] and in the opening of the eyelids, of which in beautiful eyes the upper describes a more circular arch toward the angle within than the lower one." In the case of profile heads of superior workmanship the apple of the eye itself possesses a profile and receives precisely by virtue of this opening thus cut away a nobility and a free glance, whose very light, according to Winckelmann's observation, is rendered visible on coins through an exalted point or focus on the apple of the eye. At the same time mere size does not make all eyes beautiful; they are this in the first place by virtue of the cast of the eyelids, and in the second through being themselves deepset. In other words the eye ought not to press forward, and by so doing be thrust on the external world, for it is just this close relation to the external world which is removed from the ideal, exchanging for this the self-retirement of personality upon its own resources, that is, upon what is ideally substantive in the individuality. The projection of the eye, however, also suggests the thought that the apple of the eye is at one time pushed to the fore and at another withdrawn, and, particularly in the case of the staring gaze, only testifies to the fact that the individual is beside himself, either staring in total absence of thought, or in an equally soulless way absorbed in the gaze upon some material object. In the Ideal of antique sculpture the eye is placed in even more pronounced retreat than we actually find it in Nature. Winckelmann suggests as a reason for this that in the case of statues of larger size which are placed more remote from the vision of the spectator, without this more receding position, on account of the fact that apart from this the apple of the eye was for the most part flat, the eye itself would have been without meaning and practically lifeless, if by just this more emphatic projection of the bone of the eye-socket, the thereby accentuated play of light and shadow had not made the eye more apparently active. Yet this deepening of the eye has a yet further significance. In other words, if the forehead is thereby suffered to receive a prominence superior to that of Nature the contemplative portion of the face is the predominant factor, and we receive a keener sense of spiritual expression, while also the emphasized shadow in the eye-sockets on its own account enables us to feel a depth and unimpaired inwardness, a look that is shut off from external objects, and retires on the essential presence of individuality, whose depths are suffused over the entire presentment. In the case of coins, too, of the best period the eyes are deep-set, and the enclosing bones of the eye are projected. The eye-brows on the contrary are not expressed by a more extended arch of tiny hairs, but merely suggested by means of the acute sharpness of the eye-bone ridge, which, without interrupting the forehead in its form of continuity as eye-brows actually do through their colour and relative elevation, surround the eyes as with an elliptical garland. The more elevated and consequently more independent arch of the eye-brows has never been regarded as beautiful.

Winckelmann[162] further observes with regard to the ears that the ancients devoted the greatest care to their elaboration, so that in the case of cut stones indifferent attention to the execution of the ear is an infallible sign of the spuriousness of the work in question. In particular he insists that statues which are portraits often reproduced the characteristic and individual type of the ear. It is consequently possible in many cases to ascertain the very personality represented from the ear, if the same happens to be known, and to take one example, from a single ear with an exceptionally large opening into it, to deduce the presence of a Marcus Aurelius. Indeed, the ancients have not failed to indicate in this respect what is actually misshapen. As examples of a peculiar type of ear to be found in ideal heads, Winckelmann draws attention to certain ears given to Hercules, which are beaten out flat, and others which bulge out in their cartilaginous folds. They indicate wrestlers and pancratiasts, just as Hercules himself carried off the prize at Elis as a pancratiast in the games of Pelops.

(ββ) We have still to add some remarks with reference to that part of the countenance which is more nearly related to the practical or sensuous side of natural function, in other words the specific form of the nose, the mouth, and the chin. The distinction in the form of the nose gives to the face a variety of configuration and many various kinds of expression. A keenly cut nose with thin folds[163] at the apertures we are accustomed to associate with an acute understanding, whereas a broad and drooping one, or a snub nose that is somewhat brutish, suggests as a rule sensuality, folly, and bestiality. It is, however, the function of sculpture to hold itself aloof, not merely from such extremes, but also the intermediate stages of design and expression, and refuse consequently to accept, as we have already seen is the case with the Greek profile, not simply the separation from the forehead, but also the extreme curve, whether upwards or downwards, the acute point and the more extended rounding off, the elevation in the middle and the depression towards the forehead and the mouth, generally speaking the extreme acuteness and thickness of the nose, setting in the place of these varied modifications a comparatively indifferent type, if at the same time one which in a quiet way is throughout vitalized by individuality.

Second only to the eye the month belongs to the most beautiful portion of the face, provided that it is formed not so much in express relation to its natural function as an organ for eating and drinking as in accommodation to its spiritual significance. In this respect it only gives place to the eye in the variety and wealth of its means of expression, and this though it is enabled to express with vital force the finest nuances of scorn, disdain, envy, the entire gamut of sorrows and joy through the slightest of movements and the fullest play of such, and to a similar degree to express the charm of love, earnestness, sensuous feeling, obstinacy, attraction, and other such emotions by its state of repose. Sculpture, however, makes less use of it to express the nuances of particular expression, and, above all, is bound to keep what is entirely sensuous, and suggests natural wants away from the form and delineation of the lips. For the most part, therefore, it models the mouth neither over-full-shaped nor too spare, for extremely thin lips also suggest a parsimony of emotional life; makes the underlip more full than the upper, which was also the case with Schiller, upon the modelling of whose mouth was inscribed every kind of significance and fulness of temperament. This more ideal type of the lips in its contrast to the animal snout presents the appearance of a certain absence of desire, whereas in the case of the beast, if the upper portion projects, we are at once reminded of the headlong devouring of food and the grasp for it. Among human beings the mouth is, when we have regard for its spiritual relation, primarily the seat of human speech, the organ for the free communication of self-conscious life, just as the eye is that of the emotional spirit. Moreover, according to the ideals of sculpture, the lips are not tightly closed; rather in the works of art in its blooming season the mouth is set slightly open without suffering the teeth, however, to be visible, which have nothing to do with the expression of a spiritual significance. This attitude is so far supported by the fact that when the organs of sense are strongly active, as, for example, when we gaze intently at an object, the mouth is closed; when, on the contrary, we are absorbed in visionless thought it opens slightly and the angles of the mouth are to an appreciable extent inclined downwards.

Last in our review of the objects above named, the chin, in its ideal form, completes the spiritual expression of the mouth, that is, assuming it is not wholly absent, as in the case of animals, or only retained in a retreating and meagre condition as in works of Egyptian sculpture, but as rather lengthened out even beyond the degree which is usual, receiving thus in the rounded fulness of its arched curve, more particularly where we have shorter underlips, yet further increase of size. To sum up in fact a full chin conveys the impression of a certain satiety and repose. Odd fussy wenches wag with their withered-up chins and meagre muscles. Goethe, for example, likens their chops to a pair of tongs that will be snatching at something. All restlessness of this kind disappears with a full chin. The dimple, however, which nowadays is held to have some claim to beauty is, as an accidental grace itself, no essential accompaniment of beauty. In its place, however, a rounded chin of considerable proportions is an infallible sign of antique heads. In the case of the Medicean Venus it is not so noticeable, but it is proved on good evidence that the statue has suffered a loss in this respect.

(γγ) We have only now in conclusion to refer to the hair. Generally speaking the hair has rather the character of a vegetable than an animal formation; it testifies less to the strength of the organism than it is indicative of weakness. Barbarians allow the hair to hang in straight lines, or cut it off close to the head rather than in undulating line or locks. The ancients, on the contrary, devoted excessive attention to the elaboration of the hair in their ideal works of sculpture, a direction in which more modern artists devote less trouble and skill. No doubt the ancients also, when the stone on which they worked was extremely hard, did not suffer the hair of the head to flow in freely hanging locks, but arranged as though it was cropped short[164] and, in that form, finely combed out. In the case of marble sculpture of the better time the hair is in locks and of great vigour both in the case of male and female heads, where we find it presented in upward rolls and bound together on the crown of the head; one finds it at least, as Winckelmann points out, drawn out in winding rolls and with express depressions the better to indicate its various folds in light and shadow, which is impossible if the drills are shallow. Add to this in the case of particular gods the line of direction and the arrangement of the hair is different In a similar way in Christian painting Christ is made recognizable by a definite type of the crown of the head and the locks of hair, following which type in our own time there are not a few who deliberately imitate such an appearance.

(γ) The parts above described in their form sum up collectively the head as a whole. The beautiful form is here determined by a line which most nearly approaches the oval of an egg, and thereby resolves every indication of sharpness, pointedness, and angularity in harmonious form and a gently progressive association, without, however, being exclusively regular and abstractly symmetrical, or issuing in multifold variety of lines and their direction and inclination as is the case with other portions of the body. In order to form this self-collected oval shape, the beautiful and free inclination from the chin to the ear contributes, particularly if we look at the face from the front, no less than the line already indicated, which describes the termination of the forehead, the bones of the eye-socket. And the arch over the profile from forehead over the point of the nose to the chin is equally noticeable, and the beautiful arching of the back of the head to the nape of the neck. So much I have permitted myself, without entering on further detail, to observe on the ideal shape of the head.

(b) In respect to the other organic members such as neck, breast, back, belly, arms, hands, thighs, and feet, we find here another type of co-ordination. They can no doubt possess a beautiful form, but the beauty is sensuous, vital, without expressing by virtue of their form as such a spiritual significance as the countenance expresses it. The ancients have shown for the form of these parts of the body the highest sense of beauty; but in genuine sculpture they must not merely pass as the beauty of a living organism, but as members of the human form it is their further function to present the appearance of a spiritual effect, so far as this is compatible with what is purely bodily presence. Otherwise the expression of the soul would be concentrated wholly in the face, whereas in plastic sculpture what is spiritual must appear as permeating nothing less than the entire configuration, and must not be permitted to isolate itself independently and in contrast to what is corporeal.