The Journal of Speculative Philosophy, Vol. I, Nos. 1-4, 1867

by Various

It still resembles architecture in this, that it fashions extended and solid material; but it is distinguished from it in this, that this material, in its hands, ceases to be foreign to spirit. The corporeal form blends with it, and becomes its living image. Compared to poetry, it seems at first to have the advantage over it of representing objects under their natural and visible form, while speech expresses ideas only by sounds; but this plastic clearness is more than compensated by the superiority of language as a means of expression. Speech reveals the innermost thoughts with a clearness altogether different from the lines of the figure, the countenance, and the attitudes of the body; further, it shows man in action—active in virtue of his ideas and his passions; it retraces the various phases of a complete event. Sculpture represents neither the inmost sentiments of the soul, nor its definite passions. It presents the individual character only in general, and to such an extent as the body can express in a given moment, without movement, without living action, without development. It yields also, in this respect, to painting, which, by the employment of color and the effects of light, acquires more of naturalness and truth, and, above all, a great superiority of expression. Thus, one might think at first that Sculpture would do well to add to its own proper means those of painting. This is a grave error; for that abstract form, deprived of color, which the statuary employs is not an imperfection in it—it is the limit which this art places upon itself.

Each art represents a degree, a particular form of the beautiful, a moment of the development of spirit, and expresses it excellently. To Sculpture it belongs to represent the perfection of the bodily form, plastic beauty, life, soul, spirit animating a body. If it should desire to transcend this limit, it would fail entirely; the use of foreign means would alter the purity of its works.

It is with art here as with science; each science has its object, peculiar, limited, abstract; its circle, in which it moves, and where it is free. Geometry studies extension, and extension only; arithmetic, number; jurisprudence, the right; &c. Allow any one to encroach upon the others, and to aim at universality; you introduce into its domain confusion, obscurity, real imperfection. They develop differently different objects; clearness, perfection, and even liberty, are to be purchased only at this price.

Art, too, has many phases; to each a distinct art corresponds. Sculpture stops at form, which it fashions according to its peculiar laws; to add color thereto is to alter, to disfigure its object. Thereby it preserves its character, its functions, its independence; it represents the material, corporeal side, of which architecture gives only a vague and imperfect symbol. It is given to painting, to substitute for this real form, a simple visible appearance, which then admits color, by joining to it the effects of perspective, of light and shade. But Sculpture ought to respect its proper limits, to confine itself to representing the corporeal form as an expression of the individual spirit, of the soul, divested of passion and definite sentiment. In so doing, it can so much the better content itself with the human form in itself, in which the soul is, as it were, spread over all points.

Such is also the reason why Sculpture does not represent spirit in action, in a succession of movements, having a determined end, nor engaged in those enterprises and actions which manifest a character. It prefers to present it in a calm attitude, or when the movement and the grouping indicate only the commencement of action. Through this very thing, that it presents to our eyes spirit absorbed in the corporeal form, designed to manifest it in its entirety, there is lacking the essential point where the expression of the soul centres itself, the glance of the eye. Neither has it any need of the magic of colors, which, by the fineness and variety of their shadings, are fitted to express all the richness of particular traits of character, and to manifest the soul, with all the emotions which agitate it. Sculpture ought not to admit materials of which it has no need at the step where it stops. The image fashioned by it, is of a single color; it employs primitive matter, the most simple, uniform, unicolored: marble, ivory, gold, brass, the metals. It is this which the Greeks had the ability perfectly to seize and hold.

After these considerations upon the general character of Sculpture, and its connections with other arts, Hegel approaches the more special study and the theory of this art. He considers it—1st, in its principle; 2d, in its ideal; 3d, in the materials which it employs, as well as in its various modes of representation and the principal epochs of its historic development.

We are compelled to discard a crowd of interesting details upon each of these points, and to limit ourselves to general ideas.

1. To seize fully the principle of Sculpture and the essence of this art, it is necessary to examine, in the first place, what constitutes the content of its representations, then the corporeal form which should express it; last, to see how, from the perfect accord of the idea and the form, results the ideal of Sculpture as it has been realized in Greek art.

The essential content of the representations of Sculpture is, as has been said, spirit incarnate in a corporeal form. Now, not every situation of the soul is fitted to be thus manifested. Action, movement, determined passion, can not be represented under a material form; that ought to show to us the soul diffused through the entire body, through all its members. Thus, what Sculpture represents is the individual spirit, or, according to the formula of the author, the spiritual individuality in its essence, with its general, universal, eternal character; spirit elevated above the inclinations, the caprices, the transient impressions which flow in upon the soul, without profoundly penetrating it. This entire phase of the personal principle ought to be excluded from the representations of Sculpture. The content of its works is the essence, the substantial, true, invariable part of character, in opposition to what is accidental and transient.

Now, this state of spirit, not yet particularized, unalterable, self-centered, calm, is the divine in opposition to finite existence, which is developed in the midst of accidents and contingencies, the exhibition of which this world of change and diversity presents us.