Thus, first in the animal, although the organism is more perfect than that of the plant, what we see is not the central point of life; the special seat of the operations of the force which animates the whole, remains concealed from us. We see only the outlines of the external form, covered with hairs, scales, feathers, skin; secondly, the human body, it is true, exhibits more beautiful proportions, and a more perfect form, because in it, life and sensibility are everywhere manifested—in the color, the flesh, the freer movements, nobler attitudes, &c. Yet here, besides the imperfections in details, the sensibility does not appear equally distributed. Certain parts are appropriated to animal functions, and exhibit their destination in their form. Further, individuals in nature, placed as they are under a dependence upon external causes, and under the influence of the elements, are under the dominion of necessity and want. Under the continual action of these causes, physical being is exposed to losing the fulness of its forms and the flower of its beauty; rarely do these causes permit it to attain to its complete, free and regular development. The human body is placed under a like dependence upon external agents. If we pass from the physical to the moral world, that dependence appears still more clearly.
Everywhere there is manifested diversity, and opposition of tendencies and interests. The individual, in the plenitude of his life and beauty, cannot preserve the appearance of a free force. Each individual being is limited and particularized in his excellence. His life flows in a narrow circle of space and time; he belongs to a determinate species; his type is given, his form defined, and the conditions of his development fixed. The human body itself offers, in respect to beauty, a progression of forms dependent on the diversity of races. Then come hereditary qualities, the peculiarities which are due to temperament, profession, age, and sex. All these causes alter and disfigure the purest and most perfect primitive type.
All these imperfections are summed up in a word: the finite. Human life and animal life realize their idea only imperfectly. Moreover, spirit—not being able to find, in the limits of the real, the sight and the enjoyment of its proper freedom—seeks to satisfy itself in a region more elevated, that of art, or of the ideal.
III. Of the beautiful in Art or of the Ideal.
Art has as its end and aim the representation of the ideal. Now what is the ideal? It is beauty in a degree of perfection superior to real beauty. It is force, life, spirit, the essence of things, developing themselves harmoniously in a sensuous reality, which is its resplendent image, its faithful expression; it is beauty disengaged and purified from the accidents which veil and disfigure it, and which alter its purity in the real world.
The ideal, in art, is not then the contrary of the real, but the real idealized, purified, rendered conformable to its idea, and perfectly expressing it. In a word, it is the perfect accord of the idea and the sensuous form.
On the other hand, the true ideal is not life in its inferior degrees—blind, undeveloped force—but the soul arrived at the consciousness of itself, free, and in the full enjoyment of its faculties; it is life, but spiritual life—in a word, spirit. The representation of the spiritual principle, in the plenitude of its life and freedom, with its high conceptions, its profound and noble sentiments, its joys and its sufferings: this is the true aim of art, the true ideal.
Finally, the ideal is not a lifeless abstraction, a frigid generality; it is the spiritual principle under the form of the living individual, freed from the bonds of the finite, and developing itself in its perfect harmony with its inmost nature and essence.
We see, thus, what are the characteristics of the ideal. It is evident that in all its degrees it is calmness, serenity, felicity, happy existence, freed from the miseries and wants of life. This serenity does not exclude earnestness; for the ideal appears in the midst of the conflicts of life; but even in the roughest experiences, in the midst of intense suffering, the soul preserves an evident calmness as a fundamental trait. It is felicity in suffering, the glorification of sorrow, smiling in tears. The echo of this felicity resounds in all the spheres of the ideal.
It is important to determine, with still more precision, the relations of the ideal and the real.