2. In a higher rank is Sculpture, which already exhibits spirit under certain determinate traits. Its object, in fact, is spirit individualized, revealed by the human form and its living organism. Under this visible appearance, by the features of the countenance, and the proportions of the body, it expresses ideal beauty, divine calmness, serenity—in a word, the classic ideal.
3. Although retained in the world of visible forms, Painting offers a higher degree of spirituality. To form, it adds the different phases of visible appearance, the illusions of perspective, color, light and shades, and thereby it becomes capable, not only of reproducing the various pictures of nature, but also of expressing upon canvas the most profound sentiments of the human soul, and all the scenes of ethical life.
4. But, as an expression of sentiment, Music still surpasses painting. What it expresses is the soul itself, in its most intimate and profound relations; and this by a sensuous phenomenon, equally invisible, instantaneous, intangible—sound—sonorous vibrations, which resound in the abysses of the soul, and agitate it throughout.
5. All these arts culminate in Poetry, which includes them and surpasses them, and whose superiority is due to its mode of expression—speech. It alone is capable of expressing all ideas, all sentiments, all passions, the highest conceptions of the intelligence, and the most fugitive impressions of the soul. To it alone is given to represent an action in its complete development and in all its phases. It is the universal art—its domain is unlimited. Hence it is divided into many species, of which the principal are epic, lyric and dramatic poetry.
These five arts form the complete and organized system of the arts. Others, such as the art of gardening, dancing, engraving, etc., are only accessories, and more or less connected with the preceding. They have not the right to occupy a distinct place in a general theory; they would only introduce confusion, and disfigure the fundamental type which is peculiar to each of them.
Such is the division adopted by Hegel. He combines it, at the same time, with his general division of the forms of the historic development of art. Thus architecture appears to him to correspond more particularly to the symbolic type; sculpture is the classic art, par excellence; painting and music fill the category of the romantic arts. Poetry, as art universal, belongs to all epochs.
I. Architecture.—In the study of architecture, Hegel follows a purely historic method. He limits himself to describing and characterizing its principal forms in the different epochs of history. This art, in fact, lends itself to an abstract theory less than the others. There are here few principles to establish; and when we depart from generalities, we enter into the domain of mathematical laws, or into the technical applications, foreign to pure science. It remains, then, only to determine the sense and the character of its monuments, in their relation to the spirit of the people, and the epochs to which they belong. It is to this point of view that the author has devoted himself. The division which he adopts on this subject, and the manner in which he explains it, are as follows:
The object of architecture, independent of the positive design and the use to which its monuments are appropriated, is to express a general thought, by forms borrowed from inorganic nature, by masses fashioned and disposed according to the laws of geometry and mechanics. But whatever may be the ideas and the impressions which the appearance of an edifice produces, it never furnishes other than an obscure and enigmatic emblem. The thought is vaguely represented by those material forms which spirit itself does not animate.
If such is the nature of this art, it follows that, essentially symbolic, it must predominate in that first epoch of history which is distinguished by the symbolic character of its monuments. It must show itself there freer, more independent of practical utility, not subordinated to a foreign end. Its essential object ought to be to express ideas, to present emblems, to symbolize the beliefs of those peoples, incapable as they are of otherwise expressing them. It is the proper language of such an epoch—a language enigmatic and mysterious; it indicates the effort of the imagination to represent ideas, still vague. Its monuments are problems proposed to future ages, and which as yet are but imperfectly comprehended.
Such is the character of oriental architecture. There the end is valueless or accessory; the symbolic expression is the principal object. Architecture is independent, and sculpture is confounded with it.