At the outset, however, this conflict does not yet exist, or art is not conscious of it. The point of departure is a unity yet undivided, in whose depths the discord between the two principles ferments. Thus the creations of art, but little distinct from the objects of nature, are as yet scarcely symbols.
The end of this epoch is the disappearance of the symbol. It takes place by the reflective separation of the two terms. The idea being clearly conceived, the symbol on its side being perceived as distinct from the idea, from their conjunction arises the reflex symbol, or the comparison, the allegory, etc.
These principles having been laid down a priori, Hegel seeks among the people of the East the forms of art which correspond to these various degrees of oriental symbolism. He finds them chiefly among the ancient Persians, in India, and in Egypt.
1. Persian Art.—At the first moment of the history of art, the divine principle, God, appears identified with nature and man. In the worship of the Lama, for example, a real man is adored as God. In other religions the sun, the mountains, the rivers, the moon, and animals, are also the objects of religious worship.
The spectacle of this unity of God and nature is presented to us in the most striking manner in the life and religion of the ancient Persians, in the Zend-Avesta.
In the religion of Zoroaster, light is God himself. God is not distinguished from light viewed as a simple expression, an emblem or sensuous image of the Divinity. If light is taken in the sense of the good and just Being, of the conserving principle of the Universe, which diffuses everywhere life and its blessings, it is not merely an image of the good principle; the sovereign good itself is light. It is the same with the opposition of light and darkness, the latter being considered as the impure element in every thing—the hideous, the bad, the principle of death and destruction.
Hegel seeks to demonstrate this opinion by an analysis of the principal ideas which form the content of the Zend-Avesta.
According to him, the worship which the Zend-Avesta describes, is still less symbolic. All the ceremonies which it imposes as a religious duty upon the Parsees are those serious occupations that seek to extend to all, purity in the physical and moral sense. One does not find here any of those symbolic dances which imitate the course of the stars or any of those religious acts which have no value except as images and signs of general conceptions. There is, then, in it no art properly so-called. Compared with ruder images or with the insignificant idols of other peoples, the worship of light, as pure and universal substance, presents something beautiful, elevated, grand, more conformable to the nature of the supreme good and of truth. But this conception remains vague; the imagination creates neither a profound idea nor a new form. If we see appearing general types, and the forms which correspond to them, it is the result of an artificial combination, not a work of poetry and art.
Thus this unity of the invisible principle and visible objects, constitutes only the first form of the symbol in art. To attain to the symbolic form properly so-called, it is necessary that the distinction and the separation of the two terms appear clearly indicated and represented to us. It is this which takes place in the religion, art, and poetry of India, which Hegel calls the symbolic of the imagination.
2. Indian Art.—The character of the monuments which betray a more advanced form and a superior degree of art, is then the separation of the two terms. Intelligence forms abstract conceptions, and seeks forms which express them. Imagination, properly so-called, is born; art truly begins. It is not, however, yet the true symbol.