The Philosophy of Fine Art. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
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Название: The Philosophy of Fine Art
Автор: Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Издательство: Bookwire
Жанр: Документальная литература
isbn: 4064066395896
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This is not the place to speak of Solger at the length he really merits; and I must content myself with a few general remarks. Solger was not, as the others were, satisfied with a superficial philosophical culture. A truly speculative impulse of his innermost nature made him probe the very depths of the philosophical idea. And in doing so he came upon the dialectical phase of the Idea, that transition point which I call the infinite absolute negativity, the activity of the idea in its negation of itself as infinite and universal, in order to pass into finiteness and particularity, and with no less truth once more in order to annul this negation, and in so doing to establish again the universal and infinite within the finite and particular. Solger did not get beyond this negativity; and unquestionably it is a phase132 in the speculative idea; but nevertheless, as exclusively conceived in this dialectic unrest and dissolution of the infinite no less than the finite, it is only such a phase contributory, and not, as Solger imagined, the Entire Idea. Unfortunately Solger's life was too early broken off to permit him to grasp the concrete evolvement of the philosophical Idea in all it implies. And so he never got beyond this aspect of negativity, which possesses an affinity with the dissolution by irony of all that is determinate no less than essentially substantive, a negative movement which he identified with the principle of artistic activity. Yet in the actual conditions of his life, and with due reference to the stability, seriousness, and sterling qualities of his character, he was neither himself an ironic artist in the sense we have previously described, nor was his really profound instinct for true works of art, a sense which a long course of study of art had developed greatly, either of such an ironical character. So much we will venture in the vindication of Solger, whose life, philosophy, and actual contributions to art merit being wholly kept separate from the apostles of irony previously named.
With regard to Ludwig Tieck, his culture, too, dates from that period in which Jena was the literary centre. Tieck and others who belonged to these superior people are on excellent terms with such modes of expression, without being able to tell us much what they mean. Thus Tieck always insists on the importance of Irony. But when it comes to delivering judgment on great works of art, though his recognition and description of their greatness is no doubt beyond reproach, yet if one imagines that in any particular example—let us say "Romeo and Juliet"—we have the opportunity put for an explanation of that in which here the irony consists, we are wide of the mark. We hear nothing more whatever about Irony.
V133
1. After the above introductory observations we may now pass on to the consideration of our subject itself. We are, however, still within the introduction; and being so I do not propose to attempt anything more than indicate by way of sketch the main outlines of the general course of the scientific inquiry which is to follow it. Inasmuch, however, as we have referred to art as issuing from the absolute Idea itself, and, indeed, have assigned as its end the sensuous presentation of the Absolute itself, it will be incumbent on us to conduct this survey of the entire field in such a way, as at least to disclose generally, how the particular parts originate in the notional concept of the beauty of art. We must therefore attempt to awaken some idea of this notion in its broadest significance.
It has already been stated that the content of art is the Idea, and the form of its display the configuration of the sensuous or plastic image. It is further the function of art to mediate these two aspects under the reconciled mode of free totality. The first determinant implied by this is the demand that the content, which has to secure artistic representation, shall disclose an essential capacity for such display. If this is not so all that we possess is a defective combination. A content that, independently, is ill adapted to plastic form and external presentment is compelled to accept this form, or a matter that is of itself prosaic in its character is driven to make the best it can of a mode of presentation which is antagonistic to its nature.
The second requirement, which is deducible from the first, is the demand that the content of art should be nothing essentially abstracts This does not mean, however, that it should be merely concrete in the sense that the sensuous object is such in its contrast to all that is spiritual and the content of thought, regarding these as the essentially simple and abstract. Everything that possesses truth for Spirit; no less than, as part of Nature, is essentially concrete, and, despite its universality, possesses both ideality134 and particularity essentially within it. When we state, for example, of God that he is simple One, the Supreme Being as such, we have thereby merely given utterance to a lifeless abstraction of the irrational understanding. Such a God, as He is thus not conceived in His concrete truth, can supply no content for art, least of all plastic art. Consequently neither the Jews nor the Turks have been able to represent their God, who is not even an abstraction of the understanding in the above sense, under the positive mode in which Christians have represented Him. For in Christianity God is conceived in His Truth, and as such essentially concrete, as personality135, as the subjective focus of conscious life, or, more accurately defined, as Spirit. And what He is as Spirit is made explicit to the religious apprehension as a trinity of persons, which at the same time are, in their independence, regarded as One. Here is essentiality, universality, and particularity, no less than their reconciled unity, and it is only a unity such as this which gives us the concrete. And inasmuch as a content, in order to unveil truth at all, must be of this concrete character, art makes the demand for a like concreteness, and, for this reason, that a purely abstract universal does not in itself possess the property to proceed to particularity and external manifestation, and to unity with itself therein.
If, then, a sensuous form and configuration is to be correspondent with a true and therefore concrete content, such СКАЧАТЬ