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Title: The Philosophy of Fine Art, volume 3 (of 4)

Author: Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Translator: Francis Plumptre Beresford Osmaston

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Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE
PHILOSOPHY OF FINE ART, VOLUME 3 (OF 4) ***

THE PHILOSOPHY OF
FINE ART
BY

G. W. F. HEGEL
TRANSLATED, WITH NOTES, BY

F. P. B. OSMASTON, B.A.
AUTHOR OF "THE ART AND GENIUS OF TINTORET," "AN ESSAY
ON THE FUTURE OF POETRY," AND OTHER WORKS

VOL III

LONDON

G. BELL AND SONS, LTD.

1920

CONTENTS OF VOL. III

THIRD PART
THE SYSTEM OF THE PARTICULAR ARTS
INTRODUCTION

[Summary. Nature of the relation between the system of Art-types, or
the collective totality of ideal world-presentments, and their objective
realization in independent works of art. Nature of the process in the
evolution of the specific arts themselves, and of the aspects identical in
all. The origins of art. Grace, Charm, and severe or agreeable Style] 3

DIVISION OF THE SUBJECT

[The principle of differentiation as determined by the sensuous aspect
of the subject-matter, and the relation thereto of the human senses of
Sight, Hearing, and intellectual Conception. Insufficiency of such a
principle of classification. Alternative principle discussed and
illustrated of more concrete nature, in which the evolution of truth as
the reality of the Idea itself is presented] 14

SUBSECTION I

ARCHITECTURE

INTRODUCTION

[Of the beginnings of human art, and that of building in particular. Of
the nature of the subordinate classification of architecture viewed as
symbolic, classical and romantic] 25
Division of Subject 26

CHAPTER I

INDEPENDENT AND SYMBOLIC ARCHITECTURE

Introduction and Subdivision 32
1. Works of architecture erected in order to unite peoples 36
2. Works of architecture intermediate between the arts of building and
sculpture 38
(a) The influence of the generative activity of Nature on the form of
buildings 39
(b) Further modification of similar conceptions in the obelisks of
Egypt and other examples 40
(c) Temple enclosures, labyrinths, etc. 42
3. The transition from self-substantive architecture to the classical type
48

(a) The nature of subterranean dwellings 48
(b) Construction raised to house the dead in Egypt and elsewhere. The
Pyramids 50
(c) Buildings that directly subserve a purpose as the point of transition
to the classical type. The ordinary dwelling. The environment of the
sculptured image. The adoption of the principle of expediency. The
abstraction of parts of a building from the organic form, e.g., in the
column 55

CHAPTER II

CLASSICAL ARCHITECTURE

Introduction and Subdivision 62
1. The general character of classical architecture 63
(a) Serviceableness to a definite end 63
(b) The nature of the fitness or power of adaptation of such a structure
to such an end 64
(c) The relatively greater artistic freedom of such architecture.
Architecture as frozen music. The dwelling-house 64
2. The fundamental determinants of architectural forms in their
separation 66
(a) Buildings of wood and stone. The question of their historical
priority 66
(b) The specific forms of the parts of a temple-dwelling. 68
[(α) Features of support. The column 69
(β) The thing supported. The entablature, in its architecture, cornice,
etc. 72
(γ) That which encloses. The walls and partitions] 74
(c) The classical temple in its entirety 77
[(α) The horizontal rather than soaring-up character 78

(β) The simplicity and proportion 78
(γ) The nature of its elaboration] 79
3. The different constructive types of classical architecture
(a) The Doric, Ionian, and Corinthian types, compared
and contrasted 80
(b) The Roman type of building. The vault 86
(c) General character of Roman architecture 88

CHAPTER III

ROMAN ARCHITECTURE

1. General Architecture 89
2. Particular architectural modes of configuration 91
(a) As the basic form we have the wholly shut away dwelling-house 91
[(α) Relation of this form to the ideal character of the Christian
religion 91
(β) Exclusion of light and access to mundane life
(γ) The aspect of soaring in tower and pinnacle] 92
(b) The form of the exterior and interior 92
[(α) The figure of the square and rectangular roofing not appropriate.
Parallel between the vaulting of a Gothic church and a roofing of
forest trees. Distinction between piers and columns. The pointed arch.
Distinction between choir, transept, nave, and aisles. The baptismal
font and entrance 93
(β) In contrast to the Greek temple decoration and and general co-
ordination of parts determined from within outwards. The form of
Cross. The doors. Flying buttresses, pinnacles, and towers] 100
(c) The mode of decoration 102
[(α) Importance of ornament to Gothic architecture 102

(β) Lightness and delicacy a prevailing feature, especially on the
outside 103
(γ) Display of romantic imagination therein] 104
3. Different types of building in romantic architecture 104
(a) The pre-Gothic architecture distinct from it. The basilica 105
(b) Genuine Gothic architecture of the thirteenth century 105
(c) Secular architecture of the Middle Ages. The art of garden-making
106

SUBSECTION II

SCULPTURE

INTRODUCTION

[Sculpture makes a direct use of the human form instead of accepting a
symbolical mode of expression merely suggestive of spiritual import.
Does not primarily express emotion or spiritual life in action or the
focus of soul-life. Absence of colour] 109
Division of subject 118

CHAPTER I

THE PRINCIPLE OF GENUINE SCULPTURE

1. The essential content of sculpture 121
[(a) The twofold aspect of subjectivity. The province of subjective life
as such to be excluded from sculpture. The Divine presented in its
infinite repose and sublimity 122
(b) Presents a spiritual content only as explicit in bodily shape] 125
2. The beautiful form of sculpture 126
(a) The exclusion of the particularity of the appearance. How far
relative 130

(b) The exclusion of incidental facial expression 130
(c) Substantive individuality 131
3. Sculpture as the art of the classical Ideal 132

CHAPTER II

THE IDEAL OF SCULPTURE

Introduction and division of subject 135
1. The general character of the ideal form of sculpture 137
(a) The free product of the genius of the artist. General content
borrowed from mythology, etc. 139
(b) The animation which results from the plastic perfection of the
integrated coalescence of the whole throughout its definition and relief
140

(c) No mere imitation of Nature. The external shape must be suffused
with ideal content] 141
2. The particular aspects of the ideal form of sculpture as such 142
(a) The Greek profile. Contrast of the human mouth with that of
animals. The projection of the forehead. Position of nose.
Consideration of the human eye and ear. Beauty of the human mouth.
Treatment of the chin in sculpture, also the hair 143
(b) Position of other parts of the human body and the motion thereof
147

[(α) The nature of the relation under which the limbs are associated in
their contribution to spiritual ideality. The upright position 156
(β) The motion and repose of the same in their freedom and beauty 159
(γ) The type of position and motion adapted to a situation (habitus) or
bodily habit under which the Ideal is expressed] 160
(c) Drapery 160
[(α) Ethical origin and artistic justification of, in sculpture 161

(β) Treatment of it by Greek sculpture 162
(γ) Artistic principle as determining the right emphasis on ideal
significance. Contrast between antique and modern sculpture in the use
of it] 165
3. The individuality of the ideal figures of Sculpture 171
(a) Incidental attributes and style of drapery, armour, etc., treated by
sculpture. Distinguishing symbolic accessories of Greek gods 173
(b) Distinctions of age and sex in gods, heroes, human figures, and
animals 177
(c) Representation of particular gods 183

CHAPTER III

THE VARIOUS KINDS OF REPRESENTATION, MATERIAL, AND THE
HISTORICAL STAGES OF THE EVOLUTION OF SCULPTURE

Introduction and division of subject 187
1. Modes of Representation 187
(a) The single statue 188
(b) The group. Tranquil juxtaposition. Conflicting actions. Niobe.
Lacoon 190
(c) The relief 193
2. The material of sculpture 194
(a) Wood 195
(b) Ivory, gold, bronze, and marble 195
(c) Precious stones and glass 200
3. The historical evolution of sculpture 201
(a) Egyptian sculpture. Deficiency of ideal spontaneity. Position of
hands and arms. Position of eyes 202
(b) Sculpture of the Greeks and Romans 205

(c) Christian sculpture 213

SUBSECTION III

THE ROMANTIC ARTS

INTRODUCTION

[The principle of subjectivity as such. How it is accepted as the
essential principle by romantic art. The contrast presented by romantic
and classical art in the changed point of view. The effect of such a
change on both the subjective side of soul-life and the external aspect
of objective presentment. The process of the gradual idealization of the
external medium of art itself as illustrated by the particular romantic
arts and the necessity thereof] 217

CHAPTER I

THE ART OF PAINTING

Introduction and division of subject 223
I. General character of Painting 225
(a) Fundamental definition of the art. Combines the subject-matter of
architecture and sculpture. More popular than sculpture 230
[(α) Individuality must not be suffered to pass wholly into the
universality of its substance. Introduction of accidental features as in
Nature 230
(β) Greatly extended field of subject-matter. The entire world of the
religious idea, history, Nature, all that concerns humanity included 231
(γ) A revelation further of the objective existence of soul-life. Vitality
of artist imported into his presentation of natural objects] 231
(b) The sensuous medium of Painting 232
[(α) Compresses the three dimensions of Space into two. Its greater
abstraction, as compared with sculpture, implies an advance ideally. Its

object is semblance merely, its interest that of contemplation. The
nature of its locale 233
(β) Its higher power of differentiation. Light its medium. This implies,
even in Nature, a movement towards ideality. The appearance of light
and shadow in painting intentional. Form is the creation of light and
shadow simply. This fact supplies rationale of the removal of one
dimension from spatial condition 236
(γ) This medium enables the art to elaborate the entire extent of the
phenomenal world] 240
(c) The principle of the artistic mode of treatment 241
[Two opposed directions in painting, one the expression of spiritual
significance by interfusion with or abstraction from objective
phenomena, the other the reproduction of every kind of detail as not
alien to its fundamental principle. Illustrations of the two methods and
their relative opposition, or reconciliation]
2. Particular modes in the definition of Painting 244
(a) The romantic content 245
[(α) The Ideal which consists in the reconciliation of the soul with God
as revealed in His human passage through suffering. The religious
content. The Love of religion 247
(αα) The representation of God the Father. Generally beyond the scope
of painting. The famous picture of Van Eyck at Ghent 251
(ββ) Christ the more essential object. Modes of depicting him in his
absolute Godhead or his humanity. Scenes of Childhood and Passion
most fitted to express religious aspect. Love of the Virgin Mary.
Contrast with Niobe 253
(γγ) The ideas of devotion, repentance, and conversion as such affect
humanity in general when included in the religious sphere. The
pictorial treatment of martyrdom 260
(β) The pictorial treatment of landscape 266
(γγ) The pictorial treatment of objects in natural or secular
associations. The vitality and delight of independent human existence.

Art secures the stability of evanescent phenomena. The influence of
artistic personality on the interest] 268
(b) The more detailed definition of the material of pictorial
representation 273
[(α) Linear perspective 274
(β) Accuracy of drawing of form. The plastic aspect of a pictorial work
274

(γ) The significance of colour. Modelling. Of gradations of colour and
its symbolism. Of various schemes of colour. Colour harmony. The
painting of the human flesh. The mystery of colour The creative
impulse of the artist] 275
(c) Artistic conception, composition, and characterization 290
[Painting can only embody one moment of time. Concentration of
interest. The law of intelligibility. Religious subjects, their advantage
in this respect. Historical scenes as appropriate to particular buildings.
Unity of entire effect. Raphael's Transfiguration. Of the treatment of
landscape as subordinate. The grouping of figures. The form of the
pyramid. Comparison of the characteristic in painting and sculpture.
The treatment of love's expression in religious subjects. The gradual
elaboration of the portrait. The situation which is itself a critical
moment in characterization] 291
3. The historical development of Painting 313
(a) Byzantine painting 315
(b) Italian painting. General review of its spirit in religious and
romantic subject-matter 317
[(α) Characteristic features of early type: austerity, solemnity, and
religious elevation 321
(β) The free acceptance of all that is human and individual. The
influence of Giotto. Later schools mark a still further advance in
naturalism. Masaccio and Fra Angelico. The pictorial representation of
secular subjects 322

(γ) Further advance in power of emotional expression. Leonardo da
Vinci, Perugino, Raphael, and Correggio.] 327
(c) The Flemish, Dutch, and German schools 330
[(α) The brothers Van Eyck. Innocence, naïveté, and piety of early
Flemish School. Contrast with Italian masters 330
(β) The emphasis by North German painting on ugliness and brutality
332

(γ) Dutch painting. Historical conditions of its appearance. General
characteristics of Dutch art] 333

CHAPTER II

MUSIC

INTRODUCTION

[Summary. The principle of subjectivity, as realized in painting,
contrasted with its complete emancipation in the art of music.
Annihilation of spatial objectivity. Motion with its resultant effect in
musical tone. Analysis of the twofold negation of externality in which
the fundamental principle of musical tone consists. The inner soul-life
exclusively the subject-matter of music. Addressed also in its effect to
such] 338
Division of subject 344
1. The General Character of Music 345
(a) Comparison of music with the plastic arts and poetry
[(α) Both affiliated to and strongly contrasted with architecture. It
resembles architecture in the nature of the configuration of its content
as based on rigorously rational principles directed by human invention.
It supplies the architectonic of the extreme of ideality as architecture
supplies that of the external material of sense. The quantitative or
measure relation is the basis of both 345
(β) Music further removed from sculpture than painting. This is not
merely due to the greater ideality of latter, but also to its treatment of

its medium. The unity realized by a musical composition of a different
kind to that realized by the plastic arts. In the former case subject to
the condition of a time-series 347
(γ) Most nearly related to poetry. Employ the same medium of tone.
Poetry possible without speech-utterance. Ideal objectivity of poetry as
contrasted with the independence of musical tone as the sensuous
medium of music. Music as an accompaniment of the voice] 352
(b) Musical grasp and expression of Content 357
[(α) Primarily must not minister to sense-perception. Must make soul-
life intelligible to soul. This abstract inwardness differentiated in
human feeling, of every description 358
(β) Natural interjections not music. They are the point of departure. To
music belongs intelligible structure, a totality of differences capable of
union and disunion in concords, discords, oppositions and transitions.
The nature of its relation to positive ideas] 359
(c) Effect of music 361
[(α) The evanescent character of the objectivity of music. It seizes on
conscious life where it is not confronted with an object. Its effect due
to an elementary force. Appeal to man as a particular person. The soul
made aware of its association with Time. Analysis of the notion of
Time 361
(β) Must also possess a content. Orpheus. Incentive to martial ardour
and enthusiasm 365
(γ) Necessity of repeated reproduction. Personal relation of the
executive artist to the same. Excess of this influence] 367
2. The particular definition of the means of expression in music 368
(a) Time-measure, beat, and rhythm 371
[The relation of Time to the fundamental principle of subjective life.
Time-measure prevents the series being indefinite and devoid of
content, and further regulates by intelligible division the nature of its
advance. Time-beat possesses the same function as the principle of
symmetry in architecture. Coordinates a fortuitous variety. Distinct

kinds of time-measure. Rhythm gives vital significance to the time-
measure and beat. The accent. The rhythm of melody. The analogous
example of verse. Handelian music]
(b) Harmony 379
[(α) Difference of sound through different instruments of music.
Artificially made. Instruments which possess an oscillating column of
air, or a stretched string of gut or metal which vibrates. The kettledrum
and harmonica. The human voice. Can be employed in separation or
combination 381
(β)Tone in its own essential definition. The constitution of harmony as
such. The theory of intervals. The scales and keys. Numerical relations
of tones and their pitch. Accordant and discordant tones. The octave
and other intervals 385
(γ) The system of chords. The triad. Dissonant chords of the seventh
and ninth. The resolution of a dissonance. Transitions and modulations
of harmony] 389
(c) Melody 393
[(α) The more poetic aspect of music. Inseparable from the theoretical
means which creates it. No real surrender involved in its subjection to
rules of harmony 395
(β) Simple melodies. Folk-songs. Part chorales where each note of
melody represented by a chord. Musical composition as an illustration
of the conflict between the principles of freedom and necessity 395
(γ) General character of genuine melody. As such reflects free self-
consciousness of soul-life] 398
3. The relation between means of expression in music and its content
398

(a) Music as an accompaniment 403
[(α) The melodic expression of such music. Ought not to fall into
excess of tumult. Palestrina, Durante, Haydn, Mozart, etc. Beauty of
Italian music 404

(β) The differentiation of the mode of musical expression must
correspond with the nature of a specific content and its situation. Such
a content supplied by the libretto. Distinction from this of a song. The
recitative. Defective unity 408
(γ) The nature of the condition of concrete unity in the libretto and
declamatory recitative. A good libretto not wholly unimportant. Must
be stamped with self-consistency. The libretto of Mozart's "Magic
Flute." Comparison of the sustaining soul of music with the
fundamental beauty of Raphael's paintings. Different forms of music
as accompaniment. Church, lyrical, and dramatic music] 412
(b) Independent music 421
(c) The artist as Executant 426
[(α) The ordinary executant who simply executes what lies before him.
Comparison with the rhapsodist or reciter of Epos. Player must lose
himself in music and reproduce composer 426
(β) The virtuoso, who himself creates and makes the music a means of
personal display. Must not merely show eccentricity, but reveal the life
of music and the force of a personality] 427

THIRD PART

THE SYSTEM OF THE PARTICULAR ARTS

THE PHILOSOPHY OF FINE ART

INTRODUCTION

The objects treated by our science in the first part were the general notion
and the reality of beauty in Nature and art, in other words beauty in its truth,

and art in its truth, the Ideal in the as yet undeveloped unity of its
fundamental principles, independent of its specific content and its
distinguishing modes of envisagement.
This essentially genuine[1] unity of the beautiful in art, in the second place,
unfolded itself within its own resources in a totality of art-forms, whose
determinate structure defined at the same time the content which the art-
spirit was impelled to fashion from itself in an essentially articulate system
of manifestations of beauty under which the Divine and human is envisaged
to the world.
What still is absent from both these spheres is the reality that is present
within the elementary substance of the external phenomenon itself. For
although both in our examination of the Ideal as such, and in that of the
specific modes of symbolic, classical, and romantic art, we throughout
referred to the relation or complete mediation which obtains between the
significance conceived as an ideal principle and its embodiment in the
external or phenomenal materia, yet this realization merely retained its
validity as that which was still exclusively the ideal art-activity in the
sphere of general world-impressions[2] of beauty, in and through which it is
diffused. Inasmuch, however, as the fundamental conception of beautiful
implies, that it make itself objective for the immediate vision, that is to say
for the senses and sensuous perception as an external work of art, so that
what is beautiful becomes only then itself through such a definite form
appropriate to itself explicitly united with the beautiful and the Ideal, we
have in the third place to review this territory of the art-product as actually
self-realized in the entirely sensuous medium. For it is only through this
final configuration that the work of art is truly concrete, an individual entity
which is at once real, self-contained, and singular. The Ideal can only
constitute the content of this third sphere of our aesthetic philosophy for the
reason that it is the idea of the beautiful, in the collective totality of all its
world presentments, which is thus self-realized in objective form[3]. For this
reason the art-product is still, even up to this point, to be conceived as a
totality articulated in itself, nevertheless as an organism, whose organic
parts, which—while in the second part of our inquiry they were
differentiated under a collective concept of essentially disparate world-
aspects—now fall asunder as isolated members, every one of which
becomes independently a self-subsistent whole, and in this singularity is

capable of bringing into display the totality of the different art-types.
Essentially and in accordance with its notion it is quite true that the
collective result of this new reality of art belongs to one single totality.
Inasmuch, however, as it is a portion of the realm of the sensuous[4] present,
in which the same is made real to itself, the Ideal is now resolved into its
phasal states as a process[5], and confers on them an independent and self-
subsistent stability, albeit they are capable of coming into juxtaposition,
essential relation, and reciprocal reintegration with one another. And this
real world of art is the system of the separate arts. Just as then the particular
types of art, regarded throughout as totality, expose intrinsically a process,
an evolution, that is, of the symbolical to the classical and romantic types,
we find also, on the one hand, a similar advance in the particular arts, in so
far as it is the very art-types themselves which receive their determinate
existence through these specific arts. From another point of view, however,
the particular arts have also themselves within them a process, a
progression, independently of the art-types to which they attach an
objective reality, a process which in this its more abstract relation is
common to all. Every art possesses its spring-time of perfected elaboration
as art, and on the one side or the other a history that precedes or follows this
period of full-bloom. For the products of the arts collectively are spiritual
products, and consequently are not at once to hand in their own specialized
province respectively, as are the forms of Nature, but are subject to a
beginning, progression, completion, and termination, a growth, a blooming,
and a decay.
These more abstract differences, whose devolution we propose at the very
commencement of our inquiry briefly to indicate, since it asserts itself
equally in all the arts, are identical with that which it is usual to define
under the name of rigorous, ideal, and approved style, when indicating the
specific styles of art in each case, which are mainly related to the general
mode of embodiment and representation, partly as considered in its external
shape, and its possession or lack of spontaneity, its simplicity, its surfeit of
detail, briefly in all its various aspects, according to which the definition of
the content emerges in the external appearance; partly no less in its aspect
of the technical elaboration of its sensuous material, in which the art in
question gives determinate existence to its content.

It is a common assumption that art finds its beginnings in what is devoid of
complexity and is natural. In a certain sense, no doubt, we may accept this
as true. In other words what is rude and barbarous is without question, when
contrasted with the genuine spirit of art, something both nearer to Nature
and less complex. What is, however, natural, vital, and simple in art,
regarded as fine art, is something quite different to this. All beginnings
which are merely simple and natural, in the sense of uncouthness, do not as
yet belong to the province of art and the beautiful at all as, for example, in
the case where children scrawl simple figures, and with a few formless
strokes would indicate thereby a human form, a horse, and so forth. Beauty,
considered as a spiritual product, demands even from the start an elaborate
technique, implies a long series of experiment and practice. Simplicity,
when we refer to it as the simplicity of the beautiful, its ideal proportions, is
rather a result, which only succeeds in overcoming the variety, medley,
confusion, excess and incumbrance of its matter, and in concealing and
effacing its preparatory studies, after much mediating work, so that at last
Beauty, with all its unfettered spontaneity, appears to us as though liberated
in one cast[6]. What we find here is very analogous to the behaviour of a
man of education, who, in all that he says and does, moves simply,
spontaneously, and with ease, albeit he did not by any means start in the
possession of such simple spontaneity, but rather has only secured such as
the result of a thorough self-training.
For this reason it is no less in accordance with the nature of the fact than it
is with the actual course of history that art in its beginnings rather presents
us the appearance of artificiality and clumsiness, running largely into
incidental detail, and generally overloaded with the elaboration of drapery
and the environment of its subject-matter; and precisely in the degree that
this external material is more compact and multifarious, to that extent that
which is really expressive is reduced to its baldest terms; in other words
what is truly the free and vital expression of Spirit in its forms and motion
is that which is here least in evidence.
In this respect consequently the primitive and most ancient art-products in
all the particular arts are the vehicle of a content that is essentially most
abstract, such as simple tales in poetry, theogonies effervescent with
abstract thoughts and their incomplete elaboration, single objects of sacred
association in stone and wood and so forth, and the representation remains

unaccommodating, monotonous or confused, stiff and dry. More especially
in plastic art the facial expression is insipid with a repose which does not so
much express spirituality in its essential penetration as a purely animal
emptiness, or conversely is remorseless and exaggerated in its emphasis on
characteristic traits. In the same way the bodily forms and their motion are
devoid of life, the arms, for example, are glued to the body, the legs are not
divided, or are clumsily moved, or in angular and constrained modes; and in
other respects such figures are ill-shaped, suffer from narrow compression,
or are excessively lank and extended. On the other hand we find that much
more devotion and industry is spent upon accessories such as drapery, hair,
weapons, and ornaments of a similar nature; the folds of the drapery remain
wooden and independent, without being able to accommodate themselves to
the limbs, just as we may often see for ourselves in images of the Virgin and
saints of early times, where they are in part run together in monotonous
regularity, and in part are continually broken up in harsh corners, not
flowing freely in their lines, but scattered about with diffuseness over too
wide a surface. And in the same way the first attempts at poetry are full of
breaks, devoid of connection, monotonous, dominated in an abstract way by
one idea or emotion, or elsewhere wild, violent, the particular being
obscurely assimilated, and the whole as yet not bound together in a secure
and ideal organic unity.
It is only, however, after such preparatory work as the above that the style
which is the main subject of our present inquiry commences with what is
truly genuine fine art. In this it is no doubt in the first instance at the same
time still austere, but already moderated with more beauty in its severity.
This severe style is the more lofty abstraction of the beautiful, which comes
to a stop with that which is of real importance, expresses and reproduces the
same in its broad outlines, still disdains all amiability and grace, suffers the
main subject-matter alone to assert itself, and pre-eminently expends very
little industry and elaboration on what is incidental. And in doing so, this
severe style also still adheres to the imitation of that which is immediately
given to sense. In other words, just as, in regard to content, it takes its stand,
so far as ideas and representation are concerned, in what is given it, in the
tradition, for example, of a revered religion, so also, to take the opposite
point of view, namely, that of external form, it will merely render assured
the fact itself, and not its own invention. It is, in short, satisfied with the
general broad effect that is educed from the fact, and follows in expression

closely upon the growth and definite existence of this. In the same way
everything that is accidental is held aloof from this type of style, in order
that the caprice and spontaneity of the individual mind[7] may not appear to
be involved in it. The motives are simple, the objects of representation
few[8]; and for this reason no considerable variety in the detail of
configuration, muscles and motion, is apparent.
Secondly, the ideal, purely beautiful style hovers between the simply
substantive expression of fact and the fullest exposition of all that
immediately pleases. We may define the character of this style as the
highest degree of vitality compatible with a beautiful and reposeful
greatness, such as we admire in the works of Pheidias or Homer. It is a
living presentment of all traits, shapes, modifications of such, motions,
limbs, in which there is nothing without significance and expression, but
everything is instinct with life and action, and testifies to the breath, or very
pulse of free life itself on the merest glance at the work of art in question; a
vitality, however, which essentially makes visible one totality, and only one,
is the expression of one content, of one individuality of action.
It is in such a truly vital atmosphere that we find moreover the breath of
grace poured forth over the entire work. Grace is indeed a concession to the
hearer and spectator, which the severe style despises. At the same time,
whenever Charis, that is Grace, is asserted in the presence of an onlooker, if
only as an acknowledgement, a means of conveying pleasure, yet in the
ideal style we find that such a presence appears entirely divested of any
craving to confer merely pleasure. We may perhaps explain our meaning in
more technical language. The fact or subject-matter is here the substantive
in its concentration and self-absorption. During the process, however, that it
is manifested through the medium of art, and is, so to speak, concerned to
actually exist for others, to pass over, that is, from its simplicity and
essential solidarity to particularization, articulation, and individualization,
we may regard this development to an existent form for others as at the
same time a kind of complaisance on the part of the predominant matter, in
so far, that is, as it does not appear to require this more concrete mode of
existence, and yet is wholly poured forth into it for us. Such a charm as this
is only entitled to assert itself in such a style so long as what is really
substantive also persists in undisturbed self-possession, as we may call it,
over against the grace of its manifestation, which blooms forth entirely in

outward guise as an original type of superfluity. This indifference of the
ideal or inner self-assurance[9] for its existence, this repose of itself on itself
is precisely that which constitutes the beautiful negligence of the grace,
which attributes no immediate value to this, its mode of manifestation. And
it is just in this that we must look for the loftiness of the beautiful style.
Beautiful free art is careless in its attitude to the external form, in which it
refuses to let us see any peculiar movement of the mind, or any end or
intention. Rather in every expression, every modification, it points to one
thing only, and that is the idea and vital principle of the whole. It is only by
this means that the Ideal of the beautiful style asserts itself, which is neither
harsh nor severe, but already shows the softening influence of the cheerful
notes of the beautiful. Though no violence is done either to any feature of
expression, any part of the whole, and every member appears in its
independence, and rejoices in its own existence, yet each and all is content
at the same time to be only an aspect in the total evolved presentment. This
it is which alone displays, alongside of the depth and determinacy of
individuality and character, the grace of Life itself. On the one side we have
indeed merely the substantial subject-matter predominant, but in the
detailed exposition, in the lucid, and at the same time exhaustive variety of
traits, which complete the definition of the appearance, and place it before
us in its transparent vitality, the spectator is at the same time freed from the
thing in its baldness, in so far as he possesses and is wholly face to face
with its concrete life. By virtue, however, of the last mentioned fact, this
ideal style, so soon as it carries this modification in its external aspect to yet
further lengths, passes over into the so-called agreeable or pleasing style.
Here we have the assertion of another intent than the mere vitality of the
fact[10]. The giving of pleasure, the active elaboration in the direction of
externality is asserted as itself an object, and is a matter of independent
concern. As an example we may take the famous Belvedere Apollo, not
indeed as itself belonging to this latter style, but at least marking the
transition from the lofty style to that of sensuous attraction. And inasmuch
as in an art of this kind it is no longer the single actuality itself to which the
entire embodiment is referable, the particular details become under this
mode, even though in the first instance still deducible from the central
object itself and rendered necessary by means of it, more and more for all
that independent. We feel that they are introduced, or interpolated, as
ornaments, intentional additions of episodical import. And yet for the very

reason that they are only related to the object accidentally and only receive
their essential definition in a personal relation to the spectator or reader,
they flatter the individual taste[11] of such, to which their workmanship is
primarily directed. Virgil and Horace, for example, delight us in this respect
by an educated style, in which we can trace a variety of things aimed at, and
an effort deliberately made to give pleasure. In architecture, sculpture, and
painting, owing to this spirit of complaisance, simple and imposing effects
of size disappear, and we find on every side small pictures standing by
themselves, ornamentation, fineries, dimples on cheeks, elegant hair-dress,
smiles, all the varied folding of draperies, enchanting colours and shapes,
exceptional, difficult, but for all that unconstrained movements in the pose
of the figure[12]. In the so-called Gothic or German art of building, where
the same is carried in the direction of this spirit, we find decoration
elaborated without limit, so that the whole appears to be little more than a
collection of little columns with all the utmost variety of ornamentations,
diminutive towers, spires, and so forth, which, in their isolation, please us,
without, however, destroying the impression of the larger connections of the
whole and the still insistent masses of the same.
In so far, however, as the province of art we have been discussing in its
entirety gives way to this activity of externalization, this presentment of
what is purely exterior, we may emphasize it in its further generalization as
the effect, which makes use of as a means of expression what is unpleasing,
strained, and colossal, the type of uncouth contrasts such as the prodigious
genius of Michael Angelo often exploits to excess. The effect may be
generally indicated as the excessive leaning towards an ulterior public,
which results in the form no longer being asserted in its independent, self-
sufficient and buoyant repose. Rather it turns round, as it were, and makes
an appeal at the same time to the onlooker, and strives to place itself in a
relation to him by means of this manner of presentment. Both aspects,
namely essential repose and the address to the spectator, must no doubt be
present in a work of art; but these aspects should fall together in complete
equilibrium. If the work of art in the severe style is wholly without
qualification self-contained, without any appeal to the spectator, it leaves
him cold. If, on the other hand, the appeal is made too directly to him, it
creates indeed a sensuous pleasure, but loses to that extent its substantive
thoroughness[13], or it does so without this thoroughness of content and the

simple character of the conception and delineation therein contained. This
passage from itself then merges in the accidental characterization of the
appearance; as a result the image itself shares this accidental character, in
which we no longer recognize the actual subject-matter and the form which
is imperatively rooted in itself, but rather the poet and artist with his own
personal designs, his peculiar type of production and skill. And for this
reason the public is entirely released from the essential content of the work,
finding itself by means of it placed in a personal relation[14] to the artist,
inasmuch as everything now wholly depends on its seeing that which the
artist through his art intended, that is, the cunning and personal skill which
is embodied in his grasp of his subject and its execution. To be thus brought
into personal community of insight and critical acumen with the artist is for
most people a flattering concession; and our reader or audience, and very
possibly the spectator of plastic art, with even more readiness wonder at
their poet, musician, or painter or sculptor respectively; and the vanity of
such is all the better satisfied in proportion as the work invites them to this
personal criticism, and supplies them openly with hints of such designs and
points of view. In the severe style, on the contrary, no such confidences are
made over to the spectator at all. What we have is just the substantive
nature of the content, which in its representation austerely, and even
harshly, repulses the purely personal quest. A repulse of this kind will often
be no doubt merely indicative of the spleen of the artist, who, after
entrusting a profound significance to his work, instead of making the
exposition of the same free, transparent, and buoyant, deliberately makes it
hard to follow. A trade in mysteries of this kind is also nothing but another
form of affectation, and a spurious alternative to the complaisance we have
criticized.
It is pre-eminently in the work of the French school that we find this
tendency to flatter, attract, and create effect, and they have in this way
elaborated this easy-going and complaisant attitude to the public as the
main object of their efforts. They seek to find the real importance of their
artistic work in the satisfaction such affords others, whose interest they
would arouse and whom they would duly impress. This tendency is
particularly marked in their dramatic poetry. Marmontel, for example, gives
us the following anecdote in connection with the performance of his drama
"Dénis, the Tyrant." The crisis culminated in a question asked the Tyrant.
Clairon, in whose mouth this question was put, when the moment for asking

it had arrived, and when actually in conversation with Dionysius, made a
forward step in front of the audience and dramatically addressed them
instead. By this rhetorical effect the enthusiastic support of the entire piece
was assured.
We Germans, on the other hand, require too much a content in our works of
art, in the depths of which the artist finds a deliverance from himself,
without troubling himself about the public, who is just left to look at it, take
trouble over it, and help himself out with it, as he pleases or is able.

DIVISION OF SUBJECT

Approaching now, after these general observations we have made with
reference to the distinctions of style common to all the arts, the division of
the third fundamental section of our inquiry we may observe that the one-
sided understanding has looked about in many directions for various
principles of differentiation in its classification of the specific arts severally.
The true division can, however, only be deduced from the nature of the
work of art, which in the entire complexus of its forms[15] explicitly unfolds
the totality of the aspects and phases which are referable to its own notion.
And the first thing which asserts itself in this connection as important is the
consideration that art, in accordance with the fact that its presentments now
have definitely to pass into sensuous reality, becomes on account of this
also art for the senses, so that the definition of this sense and the material
medium which is applicable to it, and in which the work of art is made
objective, must necessarily furnish us with the principles of subdivision in
the several arts. Now the senses, for the reason that they are senses, or in
other words, are related to a given material, a disparate exterior medium[16]
and an essential multiplicity, are themselves different, namely, feeling,
smell, taste, hearing, and sight. It is not our business in this place to
demonstrate the ideal necessity of this totality and its disparate parts; that is
the function of the philosophy of Nature. Our problem is limited to the
inquiry whether all these senses, or if not, which of them are capable, by
virtue of their notional significance, of being organs for the reception of
works of art. We have already at a previous stage excluded feeling, taste,
and smell. Botticher's mere feeling with the hand of the effeminately
smooth portions of statues of goddesses is not a part of artistic

contemplation or enjoyment at all. By the sense of touch the individual
merely comes, as an individual endowed with sense, into contact with the
purely sensuous particular thing and its gravity, hardness, softness, and
material resistance. A work of art is, however, not merely a sensuous thing,
but Spirit manifested through a sensuous medium. As little can we exercise
our sense of taste on a work of art as such, because taste is unable to leave
the object in its free independence, but is concerned with it in a wholly
active way, resolves it, in fact, and consumes it. A cultivation and
refinement of taste is only possible and desirable in connection with dishes
of food and their preparation, or the chemical qualities of objects. An object
of art, however, should be contemplated in its independent and self-
contained objective presence, which no doubt is there for the mind that
perceives it, but only as an appeal to soul and intelligence, not in some
active relation, and with none whatever to the appetites and volition. As for
the sense of smell it is just as little able to become an organ of artistic
enjoyment, inasmuch as things are only presented to this sense in so far as
they are themselves in a condition of process, and are dissolved through the
air and its direct influence.
Sight, on the other hand, possesses a purely ideal relation to objects by
means of light, a material, which is at the same time immaterial, and which
suffers on its part the objects to continue in their free self-subsistence,
making them appear and re-appear, but which does not, as the atmosphere
or fire does, consume them actively either by imperceptible degrees or
patently. Everything, then, is an object of the appetiteless vision, which
materially exists in Space as a disparate aggregate, which, however, in so
far as it remains unimpaired in its integrity, merely is disclosed in its form
and colour.
The remaining ideal sense is hearing. This is in signal contrast to the one
just described. Hearing is concerned with the tone, rather than the form and
colour of an object, with the vibration of what is corporeal; it requires no
process of dissolution, as the sense of smell requires, but merely a
trembling of the object, by which the same is in no wise impoverished. This
ideal motion, in which through its sound what is as it were the simple
individuality[17], the soul of the material thing expresses itself, the ear
receives also in an ideal way, just as the eye shape and colour, and suffers

thereby what is ideal or not external in the object to appeal to what is
spiritual or non-corporeal.
As a third accretion to these two senses we have the sensuous conception,
memory, the retention of images, which appear in consciousness by means
of the isolated perception, in this way subsumed under universals, and
become related and united to the same by means of the imagination, so that
now in one particular aspect the external reality itself exists both as ideal
and spiritual, while that which is spiritual from another point of view
accepts under the imaginative conception the form of what is external, and
is brought to consciousness as a disparate and correlated aggregate.
This triple mode of seizing on reality offers art the well-known division into
first, the plastic arts, which elaborate their content for vision in the external
form and colour of objects, secondly, in the art of sound, music, and thirdly,
into poetry, which as the art of speech uses tone merely as a symbol, in
order, by means of it, to address itself directly to what is ideal in the
contemplation, emotion, and imagination of our spiritual life. If we rest
satisfied with this sensuous aspect of our subject-matter, as the final
principle of its differentiation, we shall, in respect to our first principles,
find ourselves in a difficulty, because the grounds of this division, instead of
being deduced from the concrete notion of our subject-matter, are merely
borrowed from the most abstract features of it. We have consequently to
look about us once more for a principle of division that has deeper roots,
which has, in fact, already been put forward in the introduction of this work
as the truly systematic mode of dividing this third section of it. The function
of art is just this and only this, namely, to bring before the grasp of the
senses truth, as it is in the world of spirit, reconciled, that is, in its unity as a
whole with objectivity and the sensuous material. In so far, then, as this is
possible at this stage in the element of the external reality of the art-product
to that extent the totality, which the Absolute is in its very truth, breaks
apart into the various modes that differentiate it as a process.
The middle point, the truly substantive centrum, is given us here in the
representation of the Absolute, God Himself as God, in His independent
self-subsistence, not as yet developed to the point of motion and difference,
or advanced to the active operation of and separation from what is His, but
presented essentially self-absorbed in supreme divine repose and stillness,
briefly the Ideal embodied in a form essentially adequate to itself, which

persists in its determinate existence in correspondent identity with itself.
And in order that it may appear in infinite self-subsistency the Absolute
must be conceived as Spirit, as conscious Subject, but as Subject which
possesses essentially itself its own adequate mode of external appearance.
As divine subject, however, which passes forth into actual reality, it has
confronting it an external world for environment, which, in conformity with
the Absolute, must be built up to an appearance harmonious with the same,
an appearance permeated with the Absolute. This environing world is then
on one side the objective as such, the basis, the embrace of external Nature,
which, taken by itself, possesses no absolute significance for Spirit, nor any
ideality such as is present to individual consciousness[18], and consequently
is only able to express by suggestion the spiritual Ideal which its
appearance must seek to secure by embodying its embraced content in a
world of Beauty.
In opposition to external Nature we find the ideal realm of
consciousness[19], the human soul as the medium[20] for the existence and
manifestation of the Absolute. Together with this subjectivity is conjoined
the multiplicity and differentiation of individuality, particularization,
distinction, action, and development, that is, in general terms the full and
varied world of the reality of Spirit[21], in which the Absolute is known,
willed, experienced, and actively present. We may already infer from what
we have indicated above that the differences under which the total content
of art is differentiated are in essential consonance, both for our grasp and
presentation of them, with what we have previously in the second portion of
our inquiry examined as the symbolical, classical, and romantic types of art.
In other words symbolic art only carries the art-process to the point of
marking an affinity between content and form, instead of their identity, of
only suggesting the ideal significance in itself and the content which that
suggestion purports to express, in other words the external appearance[22]. It
furnishes consequently the fundamental type to that specific art, whose
function it is to elaborate the objective world as such, Nature's environment
in the beautiful conclusion given by Art to Spirit (mind), and to image by
suggestion the ideal significance of what is spiritual in this external
medium. The classical Ideal, on the contrary, meets the case of the
presentation of the Absolute as such, in its self-subsistent external reality, its
essential self-repose, while the romantic Spirit (mind) type of art is, both in

content and form, identical with the internal life of the soul, and the
emotional life both in its infinite aspect and its finite particularity.
It is, then, on a principle such as the above that the system of the particular
arts is differentiated as follows:
First, we have architecture, the beginning of all, whose foundation reposes
in the very nature of its subject-matter. It is the commencement of art for
this reason, that art at the start has in general terms neither discovered for
the presentation of its spiritual content the adequate material, nor the forms
that fully express it, and is consequently compelled to rest content in the
mere search after such true satisfaction, and to do so in the externality of its
content and its mode of presentation. The medium of this primary art is that
which is essentially unspiritual, gross matter, that is, only capable of
configuration according to physical laws of gravity. Its form is the image of
external Nature, united by its regularity and symmetry in the whole of a
work of art to express merely an external reflection of Spirit.
The second art is sculpture. Both for its principle and content it possesses
spiritual individuality under the mode of the classic Ideal in the sense,
namely, that the ideal and spiritual finds its expression in the corporeal
appearance pertinent to spiritual life, which it is the function here of Art to
present in existent artistic actuality. It consequently still accepts for its
material gross matter in its spatial extension, without, however, shaping the
same in conformity to rule merely in respect to its gravity and its natural
conditions according to the forms of the organic or inorganic, or in relation
to its visibility in bringing it down to, and in all essential respects
particularizing it in, a simple repetition of the external appearance. The
form which is here, however, determined by virtue of the content itself is
the actual life of Spirit, human form, and its objective organism permeated
with Spirit's own breath, whose function it is to embody in adequate shape
the self-subsistence of the Divine in its supreme repose and unperturbed
greatness, unaffected by the divisions and limitations of human affairs, their
conflicts and endurances.
Thirdly, we have to render intelligible in one final whole those arts whose
province it is to give form to the ideal content of the individual soul-life.
The art of painting marks the beginning of this final totality. It converts the
external form itself entirely into an expression of what is ideal[23], which

within the limits of the environing world not merely reproduces the ideal
self-containedness of the Absolute, but also brings to the vision the same as
essentially a personal possession[24] in its spiritual existence, volition,
feeling, action, in its activity and relation to another, and consequently also
in its sufferings, pain, death, in the entire series of passions and satisfaction.
Its object is for this reason no longer God simply, that is, as object of the
human consciousness, but this consciousness itself, God, that is, either in
His reality present in the action and suffering of individual life, or as spirit
of the community, as the spiritual related through feeling to itself, soul-life
in its resignation, its sacrifice of, or joy and blessedness in, life and action
within the limits of the natural world. As a means to the presentation of this
content the art of painting is bound to utilize the external phenomenon in
respect to its form, not merely the human organism, but also Nature in its
simplicity in so far as the same suffers what is of spirit to shine through
with clarity. It is, however, unable to utilize as material physical matter and
its spatial existence just as it is; it is compelled, in working it up into its
forms, essentially to idealize the same. The first step by means of which the
sensuous material is raised in this respect to confront mind[25], consists, on
the one hand, in the uplifting of the actual sensuous appearance, whose
visibility is converted into the mere show by art, and on the other in colour
by means of the distinctions, transitions, and modulations of which this
transformation is effected. The art of painting, consequently, in order to
express the soul in its ideality, resolves the three dimensions of space into
that of superficies as that which most intimately asserts the ideality of what
is external, and represents spatial distance and form by means of the
phenomena of colour. For painting is not concerned with producing mere
visibility in its general significance, but with that form of visibility which, if
it is ideally produced, is also quite as much essentially particularized. In
sculpture and the art of building forms are visible by means of external
light. In the art of painting, on the contrary, the material which is itself
essentially obscure possesses intrinsically within itself its inward or ideal,
light in short. It is itself transfused in its own medium, and mere light is to
that extent essentially obscured. The unity, however, and blending of light
and dark is colour[26].
Secondly, the art of music offers a contrast to that of painting in one and the
same sphere as the latter. Its real element is the ideal realm as such, emotion

in its formless independence, capable of asserting itself not in externality
and its reality, but purely through the external medium which disappears
immediately when it is expressed and thereby cancels itself. Its content
consequently consists of the internal life of Spirit in its immediate, essential
subjective unity, emotion simply; its material is musical tone, its form and
configuration, the concord, discord, harmony, contrast, opposition, and
resolution of such tones according to the laws of their quantitative intervals
respectively and their artistically elaborated time measure.
Finally, in the third place, after painting and music we get the art of speech,
poetry in its general terms, the absolutely genuine art of Spirit and its
expression as such. For everything which the human consciousness
conceives and spiritually embodies in the chamber of spirit speech is able to
accept, express, and bring imaginatively before us, and only speech is thus
able. In respect to its content, therefore, poetry is the richest and its
boundaries are the widest. But in proportion as it gains as the vehicle of
Spirit it loses on the side of the material object. In other words, for the
reason that it neither works for the perception of the sense as the plastic
arts, nor merely for the ideal emotion, as music does, but is concerned to
create its spiritual significances under the form of its own spiritual medium
merely for the conception and contemplation of mind, the material through
which its constructive activity is asserted only retains for it the value of a
means, however much it may be elaborated in an artistic sense, by which
Spirit is expressed for Spirit, and no longer counts as a sensuous mode of
existence, in which the spiritual content is capable of finding a reality
adequate to it. Such a means can in the light of our previous consideration
only be tone regarded as the still relatively most adequate material of
spiritual expression. Tone here, however, does not in the present case
preserve, as was the case with music, an independent validity of its own for
which the unique and essential aim of art could be exhausted in finding an
artistic form, but conversely is entirely steeped in the world of Spirit and
the definite content of conception and contemplation, and appears simply as
the external symbol of this content. So far as the embodiment which the
poetry receives is concerned, in this respect poetry may claim to include the
whole field of art in the sense, that is, that it repeats in its own province the
modes of presentation adopted by the other arts, which is only in a qualified
degree the case with painting and music.

In other words poetry gives, on the one hand, as epic poetry the form of
objectivity to its content, which no doubt here does not, as in the plastic arts,
attain to an external existence. It is none the less a world conceived by the
mind in the form of the objective world and represented as objective for the
individual imagination. This it is which constitutes human speech as such,
which finds satisfaction in its own content and its expression by means of
speech.
On the other hand, however, poetry is conversely to an equal degree speech
of the soul, the ideal medium, which, as that inward content returns to itself,
is lyrical poetry, which invokes the aid of music in order to penetrate yet
more deeply the world of souls and emotion.
Finally, to take the third example, poetry proceeds through speech within
the limits of a self-contained action, which it at the same time makes an
object of its presentment, and consequently is able to ally itself closely to
music, gesture, mimicry, and the dance. This is dramatic art, in which man,
in all that the term implies[27], creatively presents the work of art which is
the product of human life. These five arts form the system of realized and
actual art, essentially determined by itself and differentiated as such. In
addition to them there are no doubt other incomplete arts, for example, the
arts of gardening and dance. These we shall only refer to incidentally as the
opportunity recurs. A philosophical investigation must perforce restrict
itself entirely to distinctions referable to the notion, and develop and grasp
these adequate and veritable modes of embodiment. Nature and reality is
not, it is true, confined to these circumscribed limits, but is more liberal in
its movement, and we not unfrequently hear it made a matter of praise that
in this respect the products of genius are perforce compelled to expand
themselves beyond just such limitations. In Nature, however, transitional
organisms of either hybrid or amphibian type, instead of emphasizing the
spontaneity and excellence of Nature, merely demonstrate its inability to
hold fast to the essential differentiations of species which are rooted in that
process, or to prevent their deterioration before external conditions and
influences. The same thing may be affirmed in art with regard to these
intermediate forms, although the same are capable of producing much, too,
that delights us, is full of charm and utility, albeit not in the highest class of
perfection.

If we turn our attention now after these introductory remarks and
considerations to the more specific examination of the separate arts, we
shall find ourselves from another point of view in some difficulty. For
inasmuch as we have hitherto concerned ourselves with art as such, the
Ideal and the general types, under which its evolution according to its
notion proceeds, it is imperative to pass over into the concrete existence of
art, and by doing so into the world of experience. Here we find a condition
very analogous to that we observe in Nature, the provinces of which are
readily grasped in their generality and the necessary laws which distinguish
them, in whose actual material existence, however, the individual objects
and their species, not merely in the aspects which they present to
observation, but also in the form under which they exist, are of such a
wealth of variety that, as a part of the difficulty, they offer as feasible every
conceivable way of approaching them; and in addition to this the
philosophical notion, when we are desirous of applying the standard of its
simple lines of distinction, appears as insufficient for this purpose and the
mere grasp of thought incapable of taking in the breath of such fulness. If,
however, we merely rest satisfied with mere description and superficial
reflections we fall short no less of the object we have set before us, that is, a
development which is both scientific and systematic. Added to which
difficulties we have the further one that nowadays every particular art
makes the independent demand for a special science, inasmuch as with the
continuous growth of connoisseurship in art the range of such special
knowledge has become ever more rich and extensive. This science of the
connoisseur, or dilettante, has, however, in our own times become
fashionable under the direct teaching of philosophy itself. It has, in short,
been maintained that it is in art we must look for real religion, the discovery
of truth and the Absolute, that, in short, it stands on a loftier pedestal than
philosophy for the reason that it is not abstract, but receives at the same
time the Idea in reality and for a contemplation and emotion which are
concrete[28]. And on the other hand it is regarded nowadays as of august
importance in art[29] to occupy one's attention with an infinite superfluity of
detail of this kind, in the interests of which the demand is made from
everyone that he should have observed some novelty or other. Such critical
labour is a kind of learned trifling which may very readily be overdone. It
causes, no doubt, considerable pleasure to examine works of art, to grasp
the thoughts and reflections which such may suggest, to give currency to

the points of view, which others have pointed out, and by this means to
become judges and critics. The more rich, however, by this means, namely,
that everybody is intent on having discovered on his own account
something uniquely his own, a learning and process of reflection has
become, the more every particular art, nay, every branch of the same, now
renders necessary the completeness of a treatment of it from the individual's
standpoint. As a corollary the historical aspect of such a survey and the
criticism of works of art, which becomes inevitable, only add yet further to
the learning and range of the subject. It is, moreover, essential before we
take part in any discussion over the details of matters of artistic import that
we should already have seen much and many times. Personally I have no
doubt seen a considerable amount, but by no means all that is necessary to
enable me to discuss the material of art exhaustively. All such difficulties,
however, we may meet with the simple response that it does not lie within
the aim of the present work to teach art-criticism, or to bring forward an
historical review of such learning, or only to the extent such is necessary to
apprehend on philosophical principles the essential and universal aspects of
our subject, and their relation to the idea of the beautiful in its realization
within the sensuous medium of art. If we keep this aim before us the variety
of artistic effects we above indicated need cause us no embarrassment; for
despite this complexity the essential character of the subject-matter
according to its notional idea is the controlling factor; and although this is
frequently lost in accidental matter by virtue of the medium in which it is
realized, points of view are none the less in evidence, in which it is as
clearly proclaimed. To grasp these aspects, and to develop them in a
scientific way, is the very problem which it is the function of philosophy to
elucidate.

FIRST SUBSECTION

ARCHITECTURE

Art, by enabling its content to attain a realized existence under a definite
form, becomes a particular art. We may therefore now for the first time
refer to it as an actual art and find therein the real beginning of art. With
this particularity, however, in so far as it purports to bring before us the
objectivity of the Idea of the beautiful and art, we have presented to us at

the same time in its notional significance a totality of what is particular. For
this reason when we now, in the sphere of the specific arts, begin our
examination of the same with the art of building this must not merely be
accepted in the sense that architecture asserts itself as the art which, by
virtue of its notional definition, is first presented to us as such an object of
inquiry, but we may equally accept as a result, that it is also in relation to its
existence the art first to be considered. In supplying, however, an answer to
the question, what the mode of origin was, which fine art, relatively to its
notion and realized form, has received, we must exclude the experience of
history no less than reflections, conjectures, and ordinary conceptions,
which merely have reference to objective history, and are so readily and in
such variety propounded. In other words, men are ordinarily actuated by an
impulse, to bring before their mental vision anything in its original mode of
appearance for the reason that the beginning is the simplest mode, under
which the fact asserts itself. And connected with this impulse we have
present behind it the covert conviction that the simple mode of appearance
informs us of the fact in its notional significance and real origin, and the
further amplification of such a beginning to the actual point in the process
which only really concerns us is further with a like readiness conceived
under the trivial mode of thought, that a process so understood has
gradually brought art forward to the crucial stage above indicated. A
beginning, however, of this simplicity is, if we look at its content,
something which, taken by itself, is so unimportant, that for philosophical
thought it can only appear as wholly accidental, albeit it is for the ordinary
consciousness only just in such a way that the origin can be readily grasped.
For example, we have the story, as an explanation of the origin of the art of
painting, told us of a maiden who followed the dim outline of the shadow of
her sleeping lover. In the same way we have sometimes a cave and
sometimes a hollow tree adduced as the point of departure in the art of
building. Beginnings of this kind are so intelligible in themselves that
further comment on the fact appears unnecessary[30]. In particular the
Greeks invented many charming tales to explain the origins not merely of
fine art, but also ethical institutions and other conditions of life, all of which
satisfied the primary need to make such beginnings visible to the
imagination. Such beginnings are not substantiated by history, and yet they
do not aim at making the manner of origin intelligible directly as a process

involved in the notion, but purport to confine their explanation to the field
of objective history.

DIVISION OF SUBJECT

We have, then, in such a way to establish the beginning of art from its
notional significance, that the first problem of art is made to consist in
giving form to that which is essentially objective, the ground, that is, of
Nature, the external environment, and by doing so to make that which is
without ideal import to conform both to significance and form, both of
which still remain external to it, for the reason that they are not either the
form or significance inherent in the objective material. The art, which has
set before it this task is, as we have seen, an architecture which has already
discovered its first elaboration under the modes of sculpture, or painting
and music[31].
If we now direct our attention to the most primitive origins of the art of
building, we find at the earliest stage that we can accept for such a
beginning the hut, regarded as the human dwelling, and the temple, as the
exterior enclosure of the god and his community. With a view to define this
commencement more closely a dispute has been raised with reference to the
nature of the material employed for building, whether, that is to say, it
originated in buildings of wood, which is the opinion of Vitruvius, and is
supported by Hirt in a similar reference, or rather from those of stone. This
contrast of original material is no doubt of importance, for it does not
merely concern its external quality as one might at first sight suppose, but
rather the architectonic character of fundamental forms; for instance, the
kind of decoration united with it is essentially bound up with this external
material. We may, however, entirely set aside the distinction as a purely
subordinate aspect of the matter rather referable to what is accidental and
empirical, and devote our attention to a point of more importance.
In other words, in dealing with houses, temples, and other buildings we are
confronted with the essential condition, to which we attribute the fact that
buildings of this kind are merely means which presuppose an external end.
Hut and house of God alike presuppose those who dwell in them, and for
whom they have been erected, men and the images of gods. Man is also
prompted by a desire to leap and sing; he requires the mediacy of human

speech; but speech, leaping, shouting, and singing are not as yet poetry, the
dance and music. And when within the architectonic adaptation of means to
ends in order to satisfy specific needs, in part referable to daily life and in
part to the religious cultus or the state, the impulse in the direction of
artistic form and beauty asserts itself, we find at the same time a division
apparent in the kind of building above mentioned. On the one hand we have
man, thinking man, or the image of the god as the essential object, for
which, from the other point of view, architecture merely supplies the means
of environment and covering. With such a divided point of view we are
unable to constitute our beginning, which is in its nature the immediate, and
simple, not a relativity or essential relation of this sort; rather we must look
for a point of departure, where a distinction of this kind does not yet arise.
In this respect we have already at an earlier stage stated that the art of
building corresponds to the symbolic type of art, and in a unique degree
gives realization to the principle of the same as particular art because
architecture generally is adapted to suggest the significances implanted in it
purely in the external framework of the environment. If the distinction,
then, above referred to between the object of the external cover
independently presented in the living man, or the temple's image, and the
building regarded as the fulfilment of such an object, is to be absent from
our earliest stage, we shall have to look about us for buildings which
precisely, as works of sculpture, do stand up in independent self-
subsistence, which in short carry their significance in themselves rather than
in some other object or necessity. This is a point of the highest importance,
which I have never found raised hitherto, although it goes to the root of the
matter, and alone is capable of disclosing the manifold nature of external
forms, and of supplying a thread to conduct us through the maze of
architectonic configuration. A self-subsistent art of building of this kind will
also to a similar degree differ from sculpture on this ground, namely, that it,
as architecture, does not create images, whose significance is that which is
essentially spiritual and personal, and which itself intrinsically possesses
the principle of an appropriated embodiment throughout adequate to its
ideal import, but builds up works which, in their exterior form, can merely
give an impress of the significance in a symbolic way. And for this reason
this type of architecture, both in respect to its content and, its presentation,
is really of a symbolic type.

All that we have said with reference to the principle of this stage of art
applies equally to its mode of presentation. Here, too, we find that the mere
distinction between buildings of wood and stone is not sufficient, in so far
as the same points to a means of limiting and enclosing a defined space for
a specific religious or other human purposes, as is the case with dwellings,
palaces, and temples. Such a space, may be obtained either by hollowing
out essentially solid and stable masses, or conversely, by preparing walls
and roofs to enclose it. We can make our beginning of the art of building
with neither of these alternatives, which we should consequently define as
an inorganic form of sculpture; such a type no doubt piles up independently
stable images, but while doing so does not in any way make the end of free
beauty and the manifestation of Spirit in the bodily form commensurate
with the end it pursues, but in general terms sets up a purely symbolic form,
which purports in itself to indicate and express a particular idea.
Architecture is, however, unable to remain standing at such a point of
departure. Its function indeed consists just in this, namely, to build up
external Nature as an environment which emanates from Spirit itself
through the gates of art under the forms of beauty, and to build it for the
independently present life of mind, that is mankind, or for the images of the
gods that are set up and clothed by man in objective form, and to build up
the same as that which no longer carries its significance in itself, but
discovers the same in another, that is man, and his necessities and objects of
family and State-life, culture and so forth, and by so doing surrenders the
self-subsistency of such buildings.
Regarded under this aspect we may assume the advance of architecture to
consist in this, that it suffers the above indicated distinction between end
and means to appear in separation, and constructs for man, or the individual
human form of gods, which is the work of sculpture, an architectural
dwelling, palace, or temple analogous to the significance of the same.
And, thirdly, the termination[32] unites both phases in the process, and
appears within this aspect of division as at the same time self-subsistent.
These points of view present to us, as the classification of the entire art of
building, the following heads of division, which essentially comprehend the
notional distinctions of the matter in question no less than the historical
development of the same.

First, we have the genuine symbolic or self-subsistent type of architecture.
Secondly, there is the classical type, which gives independent form to
spiritual individuality, divesting on the other hand the art of building of its
self-subsistency, and degrading it in the intent to set up an inorganic
environment under the forms of art, for the spiritual significances which are
now on their part independently realized.
Thirdly, romantic architecture, in other words the so-called Moorish,
Gothic, and German, in which, it is true, houses, churches, and palaces are
also merely the dwellings and places in which civic and religious needs and
activities are concentrated; which, however, conversely are also shaped and
raised without let or hindrance for the express object of emphasizing their
self-subsistency.
Although on the grounds already advanced architecture in respect to its
fundamental character remains of a symbolic type, yet the artistic types
known as the truly symbolic, classical, and romantic constitute the closest
means of defining it, and are here of greater importance than in the other
arts. For in sculpture the classical, and in music and painting the romantic,
penetrates so profoundly to the entire root-basis of these arts respectively,
that for the elaboration of the type of the other arts[33], to a more or less
degree, but little room is left for other aspects. And, finally, in poetry,
though it is the fact that it gives the most complete impress in its art-
products of the entire series of art-types, we shall find it necessary to make
our classification not by means of the distinction between symbolic, classic,
and romantic poetry, but according to the specific differentiation applicable
to poetry as a particular art in epic, lyrical, and dramatic poetry.
Architecture is, on the other hand, art in its immediate relation to the
external medium, so that in this case the essential differences consist in this,
whether this external matter receives its significance intrinsically, or is
treated as a means for an object other than it, or finally asserts itself in this
subservience as at the same time independent. The first case is identical
with the symbolic type simply, the second with the classical, the real
significance attaining here an independent presentation, and in doing this
the symbolic is attached as an environment wholly external to it, a type
which is exemplified in the principle of classical art. The union of these two
types is coincident with the romantic, in so far, that is, as romantic art
makes use of the exterior medium as a means of expression, yet withdraws

itself into itself out of this reality, and is consequently able once more by
doing so to let objective existence stand forth in self-subsistent
embodiment.

[1] Gediegene here seems to mean that the unity is a real one throughout all its
manifestations—it is one of sterling efficacy.
[2] By the words die innere Produktion der Kunst is meant apparently "the
creative activity of art-production as ideally conceived in a series of general
world-impressions (Weltanschauungen)." The main contrast between the
theoretic apprehension of such an evolution of art as a series, held in its broad
generic outlines by mind, and its practical realization as differentiated in the
actual products of different arts is sufficiently clear. The difficulty remains,
however, as to how far Hegel regarded these Weltanschauungen in their
universality to have themselves an objective significance no less than a
subjective one—how far, in other words, are they merely abstract concepts of the
observer, the schemata of scientific generalization, or do actually unfold an
objective, if ideal process—how far is the thought one with the revelation of the
Absolute itself. It is, of course, a difficulty not unknown to the student of Hegel
in other directions. At least, as translator, I must content myself, as an excuse for
obscurity in this and other passages, with drawing attention (a) To the main
contrast which is quite clear, and (b) To the fundamental difficulty which
remains. As a rule the word Weltanschauung is generally used rather in the sense
of a world-outlook as from the point of view of an observer. In this passage, and
still more obviously a little lower down, the sense appears to be rather world-
presentment or manifestation—and the emphasis certainly on the objective
aspect. Thus the Ideal of Beauty is defined as "the collective totality of its
Weltanschauungen." How far within such, which have previously been called
exclusively ideal (innere) can be incorporated the positive concrete embodiments
of definite works of art is for myself the difficulty, which I do not profess myself
to be able to solve. I am in fact not entirely clear as to the entire meaning of
Hegel myself. The mere statement that the one is made objective by the other
does not appear to me to remove the difficulty; for, to mention no other
objection, a particular work of art is not exclusively either concrete or objective
in the sense that an ideal process is so, or an Ideal which combines the ideal
stages or moments in such a process.
[3] Welche sich objectivirt. See note above.
[4] The present, that is, which is objective to sense.
[5] So löst sich das Ideal in seine Momente auf. According to this it would
appear that the process is wholly identified with the system of the particular arts.
But the universal world-presentments are surely equally a process or at least an
abstract of such a process. And this is in fact affirmed lower down.
[6] A favourite metaphor of Hegel. The idea is that the metal is all one infusion
producing a result that is like the appearance of Athene from the brow of Zeus.
[7] Der Subjektivität. The mind of the artist.
[8] A misprint. Der should be die.

[9] Zuversicht. Confidence in itself.
[10] Die Sache. The fact, the artistic object primarily treated.
[11] Die Subjektivität. What is personal in the perception of judgment.
[12] A fine illustration of this passage is to be found in Miss Harrison's
description of the Praxiteles Hermes in her admirable "Introductory Studies in
Greek Art" (see chap, VI), a work every student of Greek Art should peruse.
[13] Gediegenheit. Sterling solidity. To understand all that is implied the above
cited work of Miss Harrison is the clearest and most useful I know.
[14] In Unterhaltung. Finds himself, so to speak, directly conversing with him.
[15] Der Gattungen, i.e., specific types.
[16] Das Aussereinander. A differentiated exteriority.
[17] Subjektivität, the ideal unity that is—not so much as soul or personality.
[18] Kein subjektives Inneres. No ideal content that implies a unifying subject.
[19] Same expression as last note. An ideal realm in its aspect of relation to an
individual soul.
[20] Als Element.
[21] Or reason (Geist.)
[22] As such content.
[23] This must be taken subject to qualifications which appear further on.
[24] An sich selbst subjektiv. As essentially appertinent to the individual soul.
[25] Sich entgegenheit dem Geist, i.e., raises itself as a medium opposed to—or,
as we should say, subservient to.
[26] This is obviously a reference to the false theory of light advanced by Goethe
and accepted by Hegel.
[27] Das ganze Mensch. The entire man with all his faculties.
[28] This is a reference, of course, to the Art Philosophy of Schelling.
[29] Zum vornehmen Wesen. Ironical, of course. It is part of the aristocratic
pretensions of the connoisseur.
[30] He means that as an explanation they are obvious provided the facts are
true, which he then points out in such cases is not so.
[31] I am not sure I follow the sense here. I presume the meaning is that, as
notionally considered, we have to commence with an architecture to which other
arts are already subservient. The process of elaboration has already been carried
beyond mere architecture. And in this sense he calls sculpture an elaboration
(Ausbildung) of architecture. But the addition of painting and music as such
elaboration is, to say the least, an unnecessary obscurity. Such an elaboration of a
primitive form of music is suggested lower down. But the conception appears to
me rather confusing.
[32] That is the final phase, romantic architecture.
[33] Other than architecture.

CHAPTER I

INDEPENDENT SYMBOLICAL ARCHITECTURE

The primary and original necessity of art is this, that a conception, a thought
emanate from mind, be produced and emphasized by man as the result of
his activity, just as in speech there are simple ideas which man
communicates thereby and makes intelligible to others. In human speech,
however, the means of communication is accepted merely as a sign, and for
this reason is an entirely arbitrary mode of externalization. The function of
art, on the contrary, is not only to make use of the mere symbolic sign, but,
in contrast to this, to supply a sensuous presence correspondent to
significances. On the one hand, therefore, the sensuous product, which art
presents to us, must afford lodging for an ideal content; on the other it has
to represent this content in a manner which enables us to see that it is itself
as its content not merely a realization of immediate reality, but an actual
product of human conception and its spiritual activity. If I see, for example,
an actually living lion I deduce from the unique presentment of the same the
concept of lion precisely as I should in the case of a picture of it. In the
picture, however, we find something more than this. It demonstrates to us
that the form has been conceived in the mind, and has found the origination
of its existence in the human spirit and its productive activity, so that now
we not only receive the idea of an object, but the idea of a human
conception of that object. There is, however, no original artistic necessity
that either a lion, merely as such[34], a tree, or any other single object be
added for the success of such reproduction. We have seen, on the contrary,
that art, and pre-eminently plastic art, proceeds with the presentation of
such objects in order to affirm in them the dexterity of the counterfeit from
the artist's own point of view. The interest in its first origination is directed
to bringing before the vision of the artist himself and others the primary
impressions of the objective facts, and the universal or essential thoughts
thus stimulated. Such popular impressions are, however, in the first instance
abstract and in themselves of indefinite character, so that man, in order that

he may present them to the imagination, lays hold of that which is
essentially just as abstract, the material medium as it is—which is at once
massive and ponderous—a material which is no doubt capable of a definite,
but not of an intrinsically concrete and veritably spiritual, content. The
relation between content and sensuous reality, by virtue of which the
content is to pass from the concipient world into that of imagination, can
consequently only be of a symbolical type. At the same time, however, a
building, which purports to declare a general significance for others, stands
there for no other purpose save that of essentially expressing this loftier
aspect, and is consequently an independent symbol of a thought that goes
straight to its essential import, and is of universal validity, a kind of speech
which is present to spiritual life on its own account, however much it may
not be expressed through sound. The products, therefore, of this type of
architecture are necessarily stimulating to thought of themselves, and
arouse universal concepts, albeit they fail to be the mere envelope and
environment of significances which otherwise possess independent form.
For this reason, however, the form which permits a content of this kind to
appear through it cannot perforce merely pass as symbolic sign, as, for
example, in the case when we raise a cross to a deceased person, or erect
stones in memory of battles. For signs of this character are doubtless
qualified to stimulate ideas, but a cross, or a pile of stones, do not suggest,
in virtue of their own nature, the idea which it is our object to awake, but
are just as able to remind us of much else entirely different. This distinction
constitutes the general notion of the stage now discussed[35].
With regard to this it may be affirmed that entire nations have known how
to express their profoundest requirements in no other way than by the arts
of building, or at least pre-eminently in an architectonic way. This has been,
however, to an essential degree only in the East, as will appear from what
we have already seen when we were called on to discuss the symbolic type
of art. To an exceptional degree we may say that the constructions of the
more ancient art of Babylonia, India, and Egypt—which we have now
before us to some extent only in ruins, ruins which have been able to defy
all ages and their revolutions, and which excite our wonder and
astonishment as much on account of what is wholly fantastic in their forms
as in virtue of their extraordinary proportions and mass—either completely
bear this character, or in great measure are derived from it. They are works

whose construction enlists at certain periods of history the entire activity
and life of nations.
If, however, we inquire more closely into the classification proposed by this
chapter and the heads of subject-matter comprised in it, we shall find that
the point of departure in this kind of architecture is not, as in the case of the
classic or romantic type, from definite forms similar to that of the house. In
other words we have here no independently secure content, and with it no
secure mode of embodiment, advanced as the principle thereof, which is
forthwith related in its further development to the entire range of the
different constructions. Rather the significances which are accepted as
content remain, as in the case of the symbolic type generally, likewise
inchoate and general conceptions, elementary, in many respects separated
and interfused abstractions of natural life mingled with thoughts of spiritual
activity, without being, ideally concentrated to a focus as the evolved states
of one mind[36]. This aspect of dissolution gives them the appearance of the
greatest variety and change, and the object of such architecture merely
consists in emphasizing in its presentation first one aspect and then another,
in making such symbolical, and, by means of human labour, making such
symbolism apparent to us. Before a multiplicity of content such as this we
cannot pretend in this discussion to be either exhaustive or systematic. I
shall limit myself to an attempt, so far as this is possible, to bring simply
that which is of most importance into connection with a rational
classification.
The prominent features of such a survey may be thus briefly enumerated.
As content our demand was for modes of view of a wholly general
character, in which peoples and individuals possess an ideal resting-place, a
point, a unity for consciousness. The proximate object, therefore, of such
independent and self-substantive construction is simply to raise some work,
which forms the unity of a nation or nations, a place in which its life may be
concentrated. We may also find along with this the further object more
nearly associated, to present by means of this very embodiment, that which
generally unites mankind, in other words the religious ideas of nations, by
virtue of which works of this kind receive likewise a more definite content
for their symbolical expression.

Furthermore, in the second place, such an architecture is unable to remain
fixed within the limits of this incipient determination of its entire content;
the symbolical images tend to become isolated; the symbolical content of
their signification is more closely defined, and by this means we find that
the distinctions of their forms tend to come into more assured prominence,
as for instance we see in the case of the Lingam columns, obelisks, and
other examples of this kind. From another point of view the art of building,
in the spirit of such isolated self-subsistency, presses forward in its passage
to sculpture, its acceptance of organic animal forms or human figures, its
enlargement of either and association of both of them, however, on a
prodigious scale, in its further addition of walls, doors and passages, and
throughout in its treatment of what is adapted to sculpture in such objects in
an entirely architectonic manner. The Sphinxes, Memnons, and enormous
temples of Egypt come under this category.
Thirdly, this symbolical art of building begins to present the transitional
stage to the classic type. In other words it excludes sculpture from its
immediate province, and sets about constructing itself as a receptacle for
other significances, which are themselves not merely expressed under an
architectonic mode. That the reader may better understand the process thus
indicated I will recall to memory a few famous examples of such buildings.

1. ARCHITECTURAL WORKS ERECTED WITH THE OBJECT OF UNITING PEOPLES

"What is holy?" is a question raised by Goethe in a certain distich, and the
answer he gives is: "that which binds together many souls." In this sense we
may affirm that what is sacred, together with the end expressed in the above
association, and as such association, has actually formed the primary
content of self-subsistent building and the art of such. The earliest example
of this we may take from the story of the building of the tower of Babylon.
In the broad expanse of the Euphrates valley we are told that mankind
erected an enormous architectural work. It is built by the labour of a
community, and this public character of its construction is at the same time
the end and content of the work itself. And what is equally true is this, that
this foundation of an association of communal labour is no mere unity of a
patriarchal stamp; on the contrary we find here that the mere unity of the
family is precisely that which is set on one side, and this building, which is
raised to the heavens, is the objective presentment of the dissolution of the

more primitive type of unity and the realization of another of more
expansive range. The collective activity of peoples belonging to that age
worked in it; and, in proportion as they came together in order to
accomplish a building of prodigious size, the product of their activity came
to be the band, which, on the ground and soil they had thus selected, and by
means of the accumulated mass of stone and the architectural construction
on the land—just as in our case morality, custom, and the lawful
constitution of State-life—bound them in unity together. A building of this
kind is in consequence also symbolical for the reason that it merely
suggests the band of unity which it is, because it is only able, by means of
its form and content, to express the sacred unity which unites men in an
external way. It is also equally a part of this tradition that the communities
have once more split apart from the centre of attraction which united them
on a work of this external character.
A further and yet more important building, which has, too, already a more
reliable historical basis, is the temple of Belus, of which Herodotus informs
us[37]. We will not here inquire in what relation this stands to that of
Biblical tradition. It is impossible to call this structure, taking it as a whole,
a temple in any ordinary meaning of that term; rather we should call it a
temple enclosure in the form of a square, each side of which was two stadia
long, with brazen gates for means of entry. In the centre of this sacred place,
according to Herodotus, who had actually seen this colossal work, a tower
of thick walls (with no interior, solid throughout, in other words a πέργος
στερεός) was built, both in length and breadth a stadium: on this was placed
yet another, and again another on that, and so on, eight towers in all. On the
outside of this a roadway was made to the top; and it appears that halfway
up to the summit was a place of rest with benches on which all who
ascended could rest themselves. On the summit, however, of the last tower
there was a huge temple, and in the temple was a great bench, well
cushioned, and before it stood a gold table. No statue, however, was placed
in the temple. No one was permitted to be there at night with the exception
of the attendant women, who, according to the statements of the
Chaldaeans, the priests of this god, were selected by him pre-eminently for
service. The priests further maintained (c. 182) that the temple was visited
by the god, who rested on the bench made for him. Herodotus, it is true,
also states (c. 183) that below within this sanctuary there was yet another
temple, in which was placed a great image of the god of gold, together with

a huge golden table before it, and at the same time refers to two great altars
outside the temple on which the sacrifices were made. Notwithstanding
these facts it is impossible to picture this gigantic building as a temple
either in the Greek or modern sense of the term. For the first seven cubic
towers are solid throughout, and it is only the eighth one at the summit
which serves as a resting-chamber for the invisible god, who received
therein no obeisance either from priesthood or the community. His image
was below outside the building, so that the entire construction was raised in
really independent and self-contained form, and did not subserve the objects
of religious ritual, although it is no longer a purely abstract point of unity
that we find here but a sanctuary. The form remains no doubt subject to
accidental causes, or it receives its determinate character purely on account
of the material security of the cube form; at the same time we have
evidence of a demand which seeks for a significance which may supply a
determinate relation to it more directly symbolical and applicable to the
work taken as a whole. We must look for this, though this is not a point
expressly adverted to by Herodotus, in the number of the massive floors.
There are seven of them with an eighth superposed for the nightly abode of
the god. This number of seven in all probability symbolizes the seven
planets and spheres of heaven.
We find also in Media cities built in accordance with such a symbolism.
There is, for example, Ecbatana with its seven encircling walls, of which
Herodotus[38] states that in part by virtue of the height of the elevation on
the slope of which the city was built, and in part intentionally and by
artificial means, they were higher one than the other, and their battlements
were coloured differently. White was on the first, black on the second,
purple on the third, blue on the fourth, red on the fifth; the sixth, however,
was coated with silver, and the seventh with gold, and within this last stood
the royal stronghold and its treasure. "Ecbatana," remarks Creuzer, in his
work on Symbolism, when referring to this type of building[39], "that
Median city, and its royal stronghold in the centre, with its seven circles of
walls and its battlements of seven different colours, represents the spheres
of heaven which enclose the stronghold of the sun."

2. ARCHITECTURAL WORKS INTERMEDIATE BETWEEN THE ARTS OF BUILDING AND SCULPTURE

The first point we have to consider in the further development of our
subject consists in this, that architecture accepts for its content significances
that are more concrete, and aims at their more symbolical presentation in
accordance with forms that are similarly more concrete, which, however,
whether we take the case of their insulation[40], or collective accretion in
gigantic buildings, they do not make use of in the way sculpture makes use
of them, but architectonically in their own independent province. In the case
of this present type we have to direct our attention to more specific facts,
although all that we advance can put in no pretension to completeness, or an
a priori development for the reason that art in so far as it proceeds in its
products to embrace the full range of the actual, that is the historical ways
of comprehending the world and its religious conceptions, is lost in aspects
of a contingent character. The fundamental definition of the type is simply
this, that we have a confused blend of sculpture and architecture, albeit the
art of building is that which permeates all and predominates.
(a) We had occasion before, when discussing the symbolic type of art, to
mention the fact that in the East it is frequently the universal living force of
Nature, that is, not the spirituality and might of consciousness, but the
productive energy of generation, which is emphasized and revered. More
particularly in India this religious attitude was universal; also from its
sources in Phrygia and Syria under the image of the great goddess, the
fructifyer, a conception was derived which the Greeks themselves accepted.
Still more closely considered this conception of the universally productive
energy of Nature was represented and held sacred in the form of the organs
of sex, Phallus and Lingam. This cultus was in the main promulgated in
India, albeit also, as we learn from Herodotus, it was not wholly foreign to
Egypt. At any rate we meet with something of the kind in the festivals of
Dionysus. According to the statement of Herodotus, "they have invented
other puppets as substitutes for the phalli of an ell's length, which the
women draw about with a string, on which we find the sexual member no
smaller in size than the rest of the body." The Greeks accepted a similar
ministration, and Herodotus expressly informs us (c. 49) that Melampus had
knowledge of the Egyptian sacrificial festival of Dionysus, and had
introduced the phallus which was carried about in honour of the god. It was
in India especially that the worship of the energy of generation assumed the
exterior shape and significance of the organs of sex. Enormous columnar
images were in this respect raised of stone as massive as towers and

broadening out at the base. Originally they were themselves independently
the aim and objects of such worship; only at a later time it became
customary to make openings and hollow chambers within them and deposit
in these divine images, a custom which was maintained in the Hermes
figures of the Greeks, little temple shrines that could be carried. The point
of departure, however, in India was the phallus pillars, which had no such
hollows, and which only at a later date were divided into a shell and kernel,
growing thus into pagodas. For the genuine Indian pagodas, which should
be distinguished essentially from later Mohammedan or other imitations, do
not originate in the form of the dwelling, but are narrow and lofty, and
receive their fundamental type from these columnar constructions. We find
a similar significance and form also once more in the conception of the
mountain Meru as expanded by Hindoo imagination, which is conceived as
twirling stick in the sea of milk, and is the creative source of the world.
Herodotus mentions similar columns, some constructed in the shape of the
male, others in that of the female organ. He ascribes their construction[41] to
Sesostris, who erected them everywhere on his military expeditions against
all the peoples he conquered. The majority of such pillars no longer existed
in the days of Herodotus. It was only in Syria that the historian[42] had
himself seen them. However, the fact that he ascribes them all to Sesostris is
merely based on the tradition he adopts. Moreover, his explanation is
wholly Greek in its colour; he converts the natural significance into one of
ethical import and in this sense informs us: "In cases where Sesostris during
his expedition crossed nations which were brave in battle, he set up pillars
in their land together with inscriptions, which gave his own name and
nation, and indicated that he had subdued these peoples. Where, on the
contrary, he overcame without opposition, he indicated on such pillars the
female organ of sex without attaching an inscription in order to declare the
fact that these nations had been cowards in battle."
(b) We find further constructions of a similar nature, intermediate, that is,
between sculpture and architecture, principally in Egypt. With these we
may include, for example, the obelisks, which do not, it is true, borrow their
form from the living organisms of Nature, such as plants, animals, or the
human form, but are of a form wholly subject to geometrical rule, yet at the
same time no longer constructed expressly as subservient to the human
dwelling or temple, but are erected in free and independent self-subsistency,

and possess the symbolical significance of the solar rays. "Mithras,"
maintains Creuzer, "the Mede or Persian, rules in the solar city of Egypt[43],
and is there prompted by a dream to build obelisks, that is to say solar rays
in stone, and to inscribe on them letters which are known as Egyptian."
Pliny had already attached this import to obelisks[44]. They were dedicated
to the sun's divinity, whose rays they were intended to catch and at the same
time to reflect. Also we find that in the images set up in Persia we have rays
of fire which ascend from columns[45].
After obelisks we should mention as most important the sculptured
Memnons. The huge statues of Memnon of Thebes, of which Strabo was
still able to see one fully preserved and made from a single stone, while the
other, which uttered a sound at setting of the sun, was already in his day
mutilated, possessed the human form. They were two seated colossal human
figures in their grandiose and massive proportions rather inorganically and
architectonically designed than in the strict sense sculptured, as also appears
in the case of the linear arrangement of the Memnon columns, and,
inasmuch as they are only valid in such equable order and size, they wholly
digress from the aim of sculpture and are subject to the art of building.
Hirt[46] refers the colossal melodious statue, which Pausanias states the
Egyptians regarded as the image of Phamenoph, not so much to deity as to a
king, who possessed in it his monument, as Osymandyas and others in a
similar way. It is, however, quite possible that these imposing images
supplied a more definite or indefinite conception of something universal.
Both Egyptians and Aethiopians worshipped Memnon, the son of the Dawn,
and sacrificed to him on the first appearance of the solar rays by means of
which the image greeted with its vocal sound the worshippers. Producing as
it did vocal sound it is not merely in virtue of its form of importance and
interest, but by reason of its nature as a living, significant and revealing
thing, albeit the mode of revelation is purely one of symbolic suggestion.
This relation we have pointed out in the case of these statues of Memnon is
equally true in that of the Sphinxes, which we have already discussed in our
reference to their symbolic significance. We find these Sphinxes in Egypt
not merely in extraordinary numbers but also of stupendous size. One of the
most famous of them is the one which is situated in close proximity to the
Cairo group of pyramids. Its length is 148 metres, its height from the claws
to the head is 65 metres; the feet that repose in front, measured from the

breast to the points of the claws, are 57 metres, and the height of the claws
8 metres. This enormous mass of rock, however, has not in the first instance
been excavated and then carried to the place now occupied by it. On the
contrary, the excavations which have been made to its foundations prove
that the foundation consists of limestone, and in a manner which showed
that the entire huge work was hewn from one rock of which it only forms a
portion. This enormous image more nearly approaches, it is true, genuine
sculpture in its colossal proportions; it is, however, equally true that the
Sphinxes were also set side by side linearly in passages, in which position
they, too, receive a wholly architectonic character.
(c) Such independent figures are, as a rule, not only to be found in isolation,
but are supplemented by the construction of large buildings resembling the
temple type, labyrinths, subterranean excavations of every kind, or amongst
other things are utilized in masses and surrounded by walls.
The first thing we may remark with regard to the temple enclosures of
Egypt is this that the fundamental character of this huge type of
architecture, detailed information as to which we have latterly received in
the main from French writers, consists in this that they are constructions
open to the day, without roofing, doors, passages between partitions[47], and
above all, between columned halls, entire forests of columns. They are
works, in short, of the greatest range and variety of interior construction
which, without serving as the habitation of a god, or a communion of
worshippers, independently by this self-consistent operation appeal to the
wonder of our imaginations quite as much in the colossal size of their
proportions and masses, as through the fact that their isolated forms and
images make an independent and exclusive claim to our interest. Such
forms and images are in truth placed there as symbols for significances
which are strictly universal in their import, or in the position they occupy as
representing literature, in so far, that is, as they declare such significances
not through the manner of their form, but by means of writings, works of
imaginative form which are engraved on their surfaces. We may in part
describe these gigantic buildings as a collection of sculptured images; for
the most part, however, these appear in such a number and with such
repetition of one and the same form, that the arrangement becomes one of a
series, and it is only in this kind of line and order that they receive what is
precisely their architectonic definition, which becomes, however, once more

an object in itself, and does not merely mean beams and roofing and
nothing beyond them.
The larger constructions of this type start with a paved passage, one
hundred feet broad, according to Strabo's statement, and three or four times
as long. On either side of this approach (δρόμος) stand Sphinxes, in rows of
fifty to a hundred, in height from twenty to thirty feet. After this comes an
imposing and splendid portal (πρόπυλον), narrower at the top than at the
base, with piers and columns of enormous bulk, ten or twenty times higher
than the height of a man; partially isolate and independent, and in part fixed
in walls and gorgeously decorated structures[48], which also stand up
perpendicularly in independence to the height of from fifty to sixty feet,
broader at the bottom than at the top, without being connected with
transverse walls, or carrying entablatures[49], and so constituting a dwelling.
On the contrary, what we find is that, in contrast to vertical walls, which
rather suggest they are built to support a weight, they belong to the
independent mode of architecture. Here and there Memnon images lean
against these walls, which also constitute passages, and are entirely covered
with hieroglyphics and enormous pictures on stone, so that they appeared to
the Frenchmen who recently saw them like printed calico. We may regard
them as so many leaves of books, which by means of their spatial and
limited superficies arouse unlimited astonishment, feeling, and reflection in
the human soul. Doors follow at frequent intervals, and alternate with each
series of Sphinxes; or we find an open spot engirt throughout by a wall with
columned passages to these walls. After that we get a covered place, which
does not serve as a dwelling, but is a forest of pillars, the columns of which
have no roofing but carry slabs of stone. After these Sphinx passages, series
of columns, and structural walls over-flowered with hieroglyphics, after
them a frontage building with wings, before which obelisks are erected and
lions couched; or also, after forecourts, or a cincture of yet more narrow
approaches, we reach the culmination of the entire construction, the real
temple, the sanctuary (σηκὸς), according to Strabo of moderate proportions,
which either contained no image of the god, or merely an animal image.
This dwelling of godhead was now and again a monolith, as Herodotus, for
example, narrates[50] in respect of the temple of Buto. This temple was
worked out of one piece of stone to a length and breadth, which in each of
its walls of equal size measured forty cubits, and as final roof to the same

was placed a single stone with a cornice of four cubits' breadth. In general,
however, these sanctuaries are so small, that no communion of worshippers
could find room inside. Such a communion, however, is an essential
concomitant of a temple; otherwise the same is merely a box, a treasury, a
place where sacred images are conserved.
To such an extent buildings of this type run on for miles with their rows of
animal figures, their Memnons, their immense doors, their walls and
colonnades of the most stupendous dimensions, some of greater breadth,
some of less, their isolated obelisks and much else, that while we wander
within works so huge and so calculated to excite our surprise, which in part
possess merely a more restricted purpose in the diverse activities of the
system of culture to which they belong the question is irresistible, what
these masses of stone have to tell us of the Divine they secrete. For on
closer inspection symbolical meanings are everywhere in-woven in these
constructions in that the number of Sphinxes and Memnons, the position of
columns and passages have relation to the days of the year, the twelve signs
of the Zodiac, the seven planets, the great periods of the lunar cycle and
other phenomena. To some extent we find here that sculpture has not yet
freed itself from architecture; and in some degree again the really
architectonic aspect of measure, interval, number of columns, walls, steps,
and so forth is so treated, that the real object of these relations is not to be
found in their own intrinsic character, that is, in their symmetry, harmony,
and beauty, but is referable to their symbolical definition. And in this way
all this work of construction asserts itself independently as an object in
itself, as itself a cultus, in which both nation and king are united. Many
works, such as canals, the lake Maeotis, and generally waterworks have a
particular relation to agriculture and the floods of the Nile. An example of
this we have in the statement of Herodotus[51] to the effect that Sesostris
had the entire country, which up to this time had been ridden and driven
over, cut up into canals to provide drinking-water, and in this way made
horses and wagons useless. The main constructions, however, remained
those buildings with a religious purpose, which the Egyptians instinctively
piled up much as the bees do their cells. Their property was regulated[52],
their other social conditions equally so, the soil of the country was
extraordinarily fruitful, and required no laborious cultivation, so that we
may almost say their agriculture merely consisted in sowing and harvest.

We hear little of other interests and exploits, such as are common to nations,
and, with the exception of the tales of the priesthood with reference to the
maritime undertakings of Sesostris, we have no account of sea voyages.
Speaking generally, the Egyptians restricted their efforts to this work of
construction within their own country. It is, however, what we have called
self-substantive and symbolical architecture which forms the fundamental
type of their imposing works and for this reason that the human ideal, the
spiritual in its aims and external forms, has not as yet come to self-
knowledge, or constituted itself the object and product of its free activity.
Self-consciousness has not as yet ripened in the fruit, is not yet
independently secured, but is restless, seeking, surmising, ever for
producing without absolute satisfaction, and consequently without repose. It
is only in the form that is commensurate with Spirit that mind essentially at
home with itself finds satisfaction and finds its true definition in what it
produces. The symbolical work of art on the contrary remains more or less
indefinite. Among such creations of the Egyptian art of building we may
include the so-called labyrinths, courts with columned approaches,
circumambient paths between partitions, which entwine about in a
mysterious fashion, but whose confusing intricacy is not constructed with
the puerile object to make the means of exit a problem, but to create for the
senses an intricate mode of motion that is dominated by mysteries of
symbolical import. For these paths, as we have already indicated, imitate in
their course that of the heavenly bodies and embody the same for
imagination. They are in part constructed above the ground and in part
underneath it, and in addition to their passages are furnished with chambers
and halls of enormous size, whose walls are covered with hieroglyphics.
The largest labyrinth which Herodotus himself saw was not far from the
lake Maeris. He affirms[53] that its size exceeded his powers of description,
and it surpassed the pyramids themselves. The building he ascribes to the
twelve kings, and he describes it in the following terms. The entire building
surrounded by one and the same wall consisted of two stories, the one
above and the other beneath the level of the ground. Taken together they
enclosed three thousand chambers, each story containing fifteen hundred.
The upper story which alone Herodotus was able to see was divided into
twelve adjacent courts[54], with doors placed opposite to each other, six
facing the North and six the South, and every court was engirt with a
colonnade, constructed of white and carefully worked stone. From these

courts, Herodotus continues, you have ingress to the chambers, and from
these into the halls, and from the halls into other chambers, and from these
chambers into the courts. According to Hirt[55] Herodotus only so far
defines this latter relation to the extent that he places in the first instance the
chambers in juxtaposition to the courts. With regard to the labyrinthine
passages, Herodotus states that the numerous passages through the roofed-
in chambers and the multitudinous incurvations between the courts had
filled him with infinite astonishment. Pliny[56] describes them as obscure
and tedious for a stranger on account of their windings, and when their
doors were opened there was a noise in them like thunder; we also learn
from Strabo, an evidence of importance, for he was an eye-witness no less
than Herodotus, that the labyrinthine passages encircled the court spaces. It
was the Egyptians who mainly built such labyrinths: but we find in
imitation of Egypt a similar one in Crete, though of smaller extent, and also,
too, in the Morea and Malta. Taking into consideration the fact, however,
that, on the one hand, an art of building of this kind in its chambers and
halls already approximated to the dwelling type, while, on the other,
according to the delineation of Herodotus, the subterranean portion of the
labyrinth, an entrance into which was forbidden him, had for its definite
object the sepulchre of the founders of the building and sacred crocodiles—
so that here the essential characteristic of the labyrinth was entirely the
symbolic import in an independent sense—we may find in such works a
point of transition to the form of symbolical architecture, which in its own
constituent parts begins already to approach the classic type of building.

3. THE TRANSITION FROM SELF-SUBSTANTIVE ARCHITECTURE TO THE CLASSICAL TYPE

However stupendous in size the construction we have just considered are
the subterranean architecture of Oriental peoples such as the Hindoos and
Egyptians, which offer many features of resemblance, are still more
imposing and calculated to excite our wonder. Whatever aspect of grandeur
and nobility is in this respect discoverable above ground presents no
parallel to that which among the Hindoos is presented us beneath the earth
in Salsette, which faces Bombay, and in Ellora, that is, in Upper Egypt and
Nubia. In these extraordinary excavations what we have in the earliest
examples exposed is the immediate necessity of an enclosure. The fact that
mankind have sought protection in caves, and made their dwelling there and

that entire peoples have possessed no other mode of dwelling is due to the
compelling force of their needs. Caves of this kind existed in the land of
Judaea, where in works of many stories there was room for thousands.
There were also in the Harz mountains in the Rammelsberg near Goslar
chambers, into which men crept for cover, and used to bring their
provisions for safety.
(a) Of an entirely different type, however, are the Hindoo and Egyptian
subterranean constructions to which we have alluded. In some degree they
served as places of assemblage, subterranean cathedrals, and are
constructions whose object was to excite religious wonder and concentrate
the communion of spiritual life; they are united to designs and suggestions
of a symbolical character, colonnades, sphinxes, Memnons, elephants,
colossal images of idols, which, hewn from the bare rock, were as fully left
a component growth of the formless stone as the columns in such
excavations were made to stand out in isolation from it. In front of the walls
of rock these buildings were here and there wholly exposed to the light, in
other parts they were entirely devoid of it, and illuminated merely with
torches, while in other portions light was introduced from above.
Relatively to the super-terranean constructions these excavations appear as
prior in time, so that we may regard the enormous spaces laid out above the
soil as an imitation and efflorescence of similar tracts of land beneath it. In
excavations there is no positive building, but we have rather a given
material taken away. And to nest thus in the ground, to excavate is more
natural to man than to seek for a material, and with it to construct and
inform a mass of buildings. In this respect we may assume the cave to be
utilized prior to the hut or dwelling. Caves are the extension of spatial
covering instead of a limitation of such, or an extension which grows up as
a limit and enclosure, in which the enclosure is already present. The
subterranean construction consequently inclines to start with what is already
present, and, in so far as it leaves the fundamental material as it finds it, is
not erected with the freedom applicable to a configuration raised above the
surface of the soil. In our view, however, these constructions already belong
to a further stage of the art of building, however much they may also have
features of a symbolical type, because they no longer are placed there as
independently symbolical, but already possess the aim or purpose of an
enclosure, a partition, a roof, within which more symbolical figures as such

are set up. That which is connoted under the conception of temple and
dwelling, both in the Greek and more modern use of the terms, we have
here in their most natural form.
We may include in the above class the caves of Mithras, although we find
them in a very different locality. The worship and ritual of Mithras
originates in Persia. A cultus, however, of a similar kind was also
promulgated in the Roman Empire. In the Paris Museum we find a very
famous bas-relief, which represents a youth in the act of striking an ox with
a steel weapon. It was discovered in the Roman Capitol in a deep grotto
beneath the temple of Jupiter. In these Mithras caves vaults are also met
with, and passages which on the one hand appear definitely to symbolize by
suggestion the course of the stars, and from another point of view also
(precisely as still in our own time takes place in our free-mason lodges,
where people are conducted through many passages and have to see
dramatic scenes and much else) the ways, which the soul must pass through
in its purification, albeit it may be true enough that this fundamental
meaning is more fully and directly expressed in sculpture and other work
than in architecture simply. In a connection somewhat similar we may also
mention the Roman catacombs, the fundamental idea of whose construction
was certainly something quite other than that of being subservient to
aqueducts, sepulchres or any system of drainage.
(b) In the second place we may seek for our present use a more definite
point of transition from the architecture of independent type in those
constructions which have been raised as housings of the dead, partly in the
form of excavations beneath the ground, and partly as buildings above it.
More particularly among the Egyptians this kind of construction, whether
subterranean or super-terranean, was associated with a realm of the dead,
just as in general among the Egyptians it is a realm of the invisible which in
the first instance receives a habitation and is placed before us. The Hindoo
burns his dead, or suffers their bones to lie and moulder on the earth.
According to the Hindoo's point of view mankind are, or become, god or
gods, whichever way one cares to put it, and we are unable to find in their
case this assured distinction between the living and the dead regarded as
dead. Hindoo constructions, consequently, so far as they do not originate in
Mohammedanism, are not dwellings for the dead, and appear generally to
belong to an earlier period as we assumed was true of the astonishing

excavations described. In the case of the Egyptians, however, the contrast
between living and dead asserts itself predominantly. That which is spiritual
begins to separate itself essentially from what is material. We have here the
resurrection of spirit in concrete individuality, the movement of that
process. The dead are therefore retained fast as personality[57], and are
secured and preserved securely above the conception of dissolution into
Nature, that is into universal evanescence, flood and extinction. Singularity
is the principle of the spiritual in its notion of independence, because spirit
is only able to exist as individuality, that is personality. Consequently this
honour paid to and preservation of the dead can only appear to ourselves as
a first and important element in the definition of the existence of spiritual
individuality, since it is here that singularity is asserted as maintained rather
than abandoned, inasmuch as the body at any rate is treasured and respected
as this Nature's own mode of individuality. Herodotus assures us, a fact we
have already noticed, that the Egyptians were the first to declare that the
souls of men were immortal, and despite the fact that the grasp on spiritual
individuality is in their case very incomplete, in so far as in their view the
deceased must for three thousand years pass through a whole series of
animals belonging to land, water, and air, yet for all that in this conception,
and in the embalming of the body, we find fixedly the notion of bodily
individuality, and of the independent self-existence as separate from that
body.
It is therefore also of importance in the arts of building that in these the
separation of the spiritual, no less than the ideal significance, which[58] is
independently represented, be carried into effect while the corporeal shell is
set round it as a purely architectonic environment. The dwellings of the
dead of the Egyptians constitute for this reason the earliest examples of the
temple type. The essential feature, the central core of worship is a subject,
an individual object which appears of significance by itself, and expresses
itself as distinct from its dwelling, which is thereby interpreted as purely a
subservient covering. And no doubt it is not an actual man, for whose
requirements a house or palace had to be built, but deceased objects that are
without such needs, kings, sacred animals, around whom immeasurable
constructions are enclosed.
Just as agriculture fixes the wandering of nomads in the stable possession of
a definite locality, we may say that generally sepulchres, monuments, and

the service of the dead unite mankind, and even offer to those who possess
no States, no limitations of property, a place of rendez-vous, sacred places
which they defend and refuse to have taken away from them. As an
illustration we may cite the case of the Scythians, a nomad people, who
retired everywhere, according to the narration of Herodotus[59], before
Darius. And when Darius sent an embassage to them with the message that
if their king deemed himself strong enough to offer resistance he should
come forth to battle, but if he did not he ought to recognize Darius as his
lord, Idanthyrsus met the same with the reply that they possessed neither
cities nor tilled land, and had nothing to defend for the reason that Darius
had nothing to ravage; if, however, Darius made a point of having a fight
they possessed the sepulchres of their fathers, let him therefore dare to
advance against these, he will then discover whether they will fight for their
sepulchres or not.
The most ancient and imposing monuments erected to the dead we find in
Egypt. They are the Pyramids. What most excites our wonder at first sight
of these astonishing constructions is their extraordinary magnitude, which
at once makes us reflect upon the duration of time, the variety,
superabundance and persistence of human energies which is inseparable
from the completion of such colossal buildings. From the point of view of
form there is nothing in them to protract attention: in a few minutes we
have surveyed and taken in the entire effect. With this simplicity and
uniformity of their form in view their object has ever been a subject of
controversy. It is true that even the ancients, as for example Herodotus and
Strabo, adduced the aim, which they subserved; but for all that both in
former and more recent times, travellers and writers have contributed much
that is fabulous and unwarranted in their reflections. The Arabs
endeavoured to effect entrance by force, hoping to discover treasure in the
interior of the Pyramids; such assaults, however, beyond disturbing much,
have failed in their object to reach the actual passages and chambers.
Europeans of a later date, among whom we may mention in particular for
distinction, Belzoni, a native of Rome, and Caviglia of Genoa, have at last
succeeded in ascertaining more accurate information with respect to the
interior of these fabrics. Belzoni discovered the royal sepulchre in the
Pyramid of Chephren. The entrances to the Pyramids were closed in the
securest way by square blocks of stone, and it appears that Egyptians
endeavoured in their construction so to effect matters that the entrance, even

when discovered, could only be followed up and opened with the greatest
difficulty. This proves to us that the Pyramids remained closed and could
not be again used. Within their interior explorers have found chambers,
passages, which point by suggestion to the ways, which the soul undertakes
after death in its course and transmigration, great halls, channels beneath
the earth at one time descending, at another mounting up. The royal
sepulchre of Belzoni runs on in this way hewn out of the rock for a mile. In
the principal hall stood a sarcophagus of granite, sunk in the ground; but all
that was discovered in it was the remains of animal bones of a mummy,
probably that of an Apis. The whole, however, proved beyond a doubt that
the object in view was that of being a dwelling for the dead. The Pyramids
differ in age, form, and size. The most ancient appear to be stones piled on
one another in a more or less pyramidal shape. The more recent ones are
constructed with uniformity; some are somewhat flattened out at the
summit, others run up entirely to a point. On others have been found
deposits, an explanation of which may be gathered from the description
Herodotus[60] gives us when referring to the Pyramid of Cheops of the
manner in which the Egyptians carried out such works, so that Hirt includes
such among the Pyramids which remained unfinished[61]. In the older
Pyramids according to the latest evidence of Frenchmen the chambers and
passages are more winding; in the more recent ones they are simpler, but
entirely covered with hieroglyphics, to interpret which throughout will take
several years.
In this way the Pyramids, despite all the wonder they arouse of their own
accord, are really nothing but crystals, mere shells, which enclose a kernel,
that is a departed spirit, and serve as custodians of his still consistent bodily
presence and form. In this departed and deceased person, who secures an
independent reproduction, we fail to find consequently any significance[62];
the architecture, however, which up to this point independently possessed
its significance in itself as architecture, is now divided in its aim, and in this
division is subservient to something else, whereas sculpture receives the
function to give body to the genuine ideal aspect, although in the first
instance the individual figure in its unique and immediate natural shape is
retained. We find consequently, on a general survey of the Egyptian art of
building, on the one hand, the self-subsistent symbolical buildings; on the
other, however, and more particularly in everything which is attached to the

monuments of the dead, the specific determination of architecture to be an
enclosure and nothing more, already clearly asserts itself. It is an essential
concomitant of this, that architecture not only be limited to the construction
of excavations and caves, but attest itself as an inorganic Nature built by
human hands on the spot where men have actual need of it, and for a
definite purpose will it to be.
Other nations have raised monuments of the same kind, sacred buildings as
dwellings of the dead bodies, over whom they happen to be erected. As
examples we may instance the mausoleum in Curia, and of more recent date
that of Hadrian, the still existing Englesburg in Rome, a palace of careful
construction raised in honour of a dead person, all of which were even in
antiquity famous works. According to the description of Uhden[63] we may
also mention in this connection a type of mortuary, which in its arrangement
and environment imitated in its smaller aspects temples dedicate to gods. A
temple of this kind possessed a garden, arbours, a spring, a vineyard, and
moreover chapels, in which portrait statues of gods were placed. More
particularly in the time of the Roman Empire were such monuments to the
dead built with statues of the deceased under the image of gods such as
Apollo, Venus, and Minerva. Figures like the above, no less than the entire
construction, consequently received during that age the significance of an
apotheosis and a temple in honour of the dead man, just as also among the
Egyptians the process of embalming, the emblems placed thereby, and the
sarcophagus attest that the deceased was treated as a god-like Osiris[64].
The most imposing and least complex constructions of this kind, however,
are the Egyptian Pyramids. In this type we have the peculiar and essential
line of the art of building, that is the straight one, and in general terms the
uniformity and abstract simplicity[65] of forms. For architecture, as merely
enclosure and inorganic Nature, or Nature that is not itself vitally and
essentially suffused by the indwelling spirit in an independent mode, is
unable to possess form except as one which is external to itself; external
form, however, is not organic, but abstract and purely referable to the
organs of sense[66]. However much the Pyramid already begins to receive
the determining characteristics of the dwellings, yet the rectangular
principle is still not throughout predominant, as it is in a real dwelling-
house; it has still an independent determinacy, which is not merely of

service to the purpose for which it is erected, and consequently closes up of
itself by a process of gradation directly from the foundation to the apex.
(c) It is from this point that we may make the transition from the
independent type of building to that of an art of construction, which is
serviceable of a purpose.
There are two points of departure to this later type. There is on the one hand
symbolic architecture, and on the other practical necessity and the impulse
of purpose to subserve that necessity. In the case of symbolical forms, as we
have already had occasion to observe, architectonic purpose is merely an
incidental feature, merely an external mode of co-ordination. The dwelling-
house, on the contrary, erected as necessity itself, requires posts of wood, or
just walls standing up straight with beams, which are laid across them at
right angles, and a roofing, and constitutes, the other extreme. There can be
no question that the necessity of this real and effective expediency makes its
appearance as the result of its own demand. The distinction that may be
raised, however, in answer to the question, whether genuine architecture—
as we shall shortly have to consider it as the classic art of building—takes
its rise solely in this necessity, or is to be deduced from independent and
symbolical works, which conducted us of their own accord to buildings
devoted to service, is the point in essential dispute.
(α) It is the force of circumstances which brings to the fore forms in
architecture which are wholly stamped with a useful purpose, and the
abstract deductions of science, such as the rectilinear line, the right angle,
and the smooth surface. For in serviceable architecture that which
constitutes the real object, is, in its independence, as a statue, or more
closely as human individuals, that is community, a people, brought together
for objects of general significance, which no longer have as their aim the
satisfaction of physical wants, but are such in a religious and political sense.
In a special degree the need asserts itself to shape an enclosure for the
image, the statue of the gods, or generally for that which is independently
placed before us and actually present as sacred. Memnons, Sphinxes, and
the like stand up in the open, or in a grove, that is in the external
environment of nature. Images of this kind, however, and still more human
images of gods, are borrowed from another realm than that of immediate
Nature. They belong to the world of imagination, and come into existence
through the artistic powers of mankind. The purely natural environment is

therefore not sufficient; they require for their external frame a ground and
an enclosure, which shall be derived from the same source as their own, in
other words, such as are the product of the imagination, and have received
their form by means of artistic effort. It is only in an environment created
by art that the gods find themselves at home[67]. In such a case, however,
this external frame does not possess its object in itself, but it subserves
something other than itself, and is subject to the principle of purpose or
expediency.
If, however, these, in the first instance, purely serviceable forms are exalted
to an expression of beauty they are unable to persist in their original
abstract mode, and are forced to accept, in addition to what is merely
symmetrical and harmonious, that which is organic, concrete, essentially
itself conclusive and varied. And because this is so men are forced to reflect
over distinctions of determinating form, no less than the express emphasis
to be made on certain aspects of form, which is wholly superfluous where
the question is only one of a definite purpose to be attained. A beam, for
example, is from one point of view that which is carried forward in a
straight line; at the same time, however, it terminates at both extremes. In
the same way a post which has to support either rafter or roof stands on the
ground and reaches its terminating point where the rafter rests upon it. The
architecture of service asserts distinctions of this kind and gives form to
them by means of art; an organic design, on the contrary, such as a plant, or
a human being, ay, whether we look at such above or below, but in any case
throughout, has to be organically embodied, to be differentiated in the latter
case consequently by feet and head, or in the former by roots and corona.
(β) Conversely symbolic architecture takes its point of departure more or
less from organic forms of this kind, as we see is the case with sphinxes,
memnons, and so forth; yet it is also unable wholly to exclude in its walls,
doors, beams, obelisks, and the rest, the principle of the straight line and
uniformity, and is generally obliged to accept the assistance of such
principles appertinent to the genuine art of building as equality of size,
interval of relative position, rectilinear progression of rows, in short, order
and regularity when it proposes to place in a series and to set up in
accordance with architectural design the colossal sculptured figures to
which we have referred. By doing so it unites in itself both principles[68],
whose union brings for result an architecture, the beauty of which is

promoted along with the object to which it is subservient, albeit in the
symbolic type these two aspects[69] still lie in separation side by side instead
of being fused in unity.
(γ) We may therefore so conceive the transition that on the one side the art
of building, hitherto self-subsistent in type, is forced to modify under
scientific principles[70] the forms of organisms in the direction of regularity,
and to pass into the province of proposed expediency; while conversely
what is entirely such intended purpose in the form moves in opposition to
the principle of the organic world. Where these two extremes come
together, and mutually pass into one another, we get what is really beautiful
classic architecture.
We may recognize this union, as it actually arises, clearly in the
transformation now introduced of that which we already have met with in
the architecture which was anterior under the form of columns. In other
words, it is true that from one point of view walls are necessary to make an
enclosure; but walls, too, can stand up independent, as we have already
proved with examples, without making the enclosure complete, to which a
roofing, no less than an enclosure of the sides, essentially contributes. But a
roofing of this kind has to be supported. The simplest way of doing this is
by columns, whose essential and, at the same time exclusive, rationale
consists here in being simply supports. For this reason walls are really a
superfluity is so far as it is only a question of support. For supporting is a
mechanical relation, and belongs to a province of gravity and its laws. And
in this[71] gravity the weight of a particular body is concentrated in its point
of gravity, and must be assisted at this centre in remaining horizontal
without a fall. This is precisely what the column does, so that with it the
power of support appears to be reduced to the minimum limit of exterior
means to effect this. What a wall at great cost[72] effects, is equally effected
by a few columns. It is a very beautiful characteristic of classic architecture
not to set up more columns than are actually necessary to carry the weight
of the rafter and that which reposes thereon. In genuine architecture
columns, for purposes of mere decoration, are not truly beautiful. For the
same reason also columns which stand up entirely alone do not perform
their true function. No doubt triumphal columns have been erected, such as
the famous ones in honour of Trajan and Napoleon: but these, too, are really
but a pedestal for statues, and moreover covered with sculptured reliefs to

commemorate and glorify the hero, whose image they carry. In the case of
the column, then, it is of exceptional importance to see how in the course of
architectural development it is compelled to divest itself of the concrete
form of Nature before it can secure its more abstract form, the form, that is,
which is as compatible with a definite object as it is with beauty.
(αα) Independent architecture, on account of the fact that it starts with
organic images, makes use of human shapes, as, for example, we find in
Egypt figures in some measure at least human, such as Memnons and the
like, are utilized. This is, however, a mere superfluity, in so far, that is, as a
definition of this character is not the true medium of support. We find
among the Greeks that Caryatides are used in another mode and under a
more severe obedience to rule to support superimposed weight, but such
cannot be extensively employed. Moreover, we can only regard it as a
misuse of the human form to crush it together under such burdens, and it is
for this reason that Caryatides receive the character of the oppressed; their
drapery suggests a state of slavery under which it is a degradation to carry
such burdens.
(ββ) The more natural organic form for pillars and supports which have to
bear a weight is consequently the tree, plant-life generally, a stem, a thin
stalk which strives upwards in a vertical direction. The hole of a tree
already carries of its own nature its crown of branches, the blade of corn the
ear, the stem the flower. These forms, too, the Egyptian art of building,
which has not as yet attained the liberty of viewing them in their abstract
intension, borrows directly from Nature. In this respect the grandiose
quality which we discover in the style of Egyptian palaces or temples—the
colossal proportions of its rows of columns, the huge number of them, and
withal the imposing mutual relations of the entire structure, has ever filled
the spectator with wonder and astonishment. In these colonnades we do not
find that all columns have the same form; they alternate between one, two,
or three types. Denon, in his work on the Egyptian expedition, has collected
a great number of such types. The combined effect is not as yet any uniform
shape based on abstract principles of selection; rather the foundation is the
shape of an onion, a reed-like efflorescence of leaf from the bulb, or, in
other examples, a compression together of the root-leaves according to the
manner of several kinds of plant. From this base, then, the thin stem breaks
upwards straight, or mounts as column with twisted coils, and the capital is

also a separation of leaves from branches which suggests the process of a
flower. The imitation, however, is not true to Nature, but the plant-like
forms are drained off under the architectural impulse, and made to
approximate to circular, geometrical, and regular forms, or straight lines, so
that such columns, in their entirety, resemble what are usually described as
arabesques.
(γγ) This is not the place to enter into a general discussion of the arabesque
for the reason that notionally it marks precisely the transition from the
architecture which adopts as its basic form the natural organism to that
which by its adoption of a more severe regularity is more strictly
architectonic. When, however, the art of building has become free in its
definitive character it relegates arabesques to the function of decoration and
ornament. They are then pre-eminently forms of plants strained off, so to
speak, or forms which originate from plants together with entwined forms
of animals and human beings, or forms of animals in their passage over to
plant-life. In so far as they purport to authenticate a symbolical significance
the transitional passage between the different spheres of the animal
kingdom hold good for it. Apart from such an interpretation they are simply
the play of the imagination in the selection, combination and articulation of
the most diverse forms of Nature. For architectural ornamentation of this
kind, in the invention of which the imagination finds scope for its activity in
the most varied creations of every kind, not even excluding utensils and
drapery, the fundamental determinant and type is this, that whether it be
plants, leaves, flowers, or animals, all are made to approximate to the
abstract figures of science, in other words the inorganic. For this reason we
frequently find arabesques to be stiff, untrue to organic life; and it is on this
account that they are not unfrequently condemned and art is blamed for the
use of them. This is exceptionally true of painting, though Raphael himself
did not scruple to paint arabesques in great profusion, characterized with
the highest charm, nobility of feeling, variety, and grace. No doubt
arabesques are an antithesis to nature, whether we compare them with
organic forms or the rigid laws of mechanics; but an opposition of this kind
is not merely a right of art generally, but even an obligation under which
architecture is bound. It is only by this means that living forms in other
respects unfitted for the art of building are made adaptable to the truly
architectural style and brought into harmony with it. Such an adaptability is
offered in an exceptionally close degree by vegetable Nature, which is also

in the East utilized to an extravagant extent in arabesques; in other words
plants are not as yet individual objects which possess feeling, but naturally
present themselves as adapted to architectural design, by virtue of the fact
that they form coverings and protection against rain, sunlight, and wind,
and, generally speaking, do not possess the free oscillation[73] of lines
which breaks forth from the regularity of scientific conceptions[74].
Architecturally used the regularity of leaves already present is yet further
subjected to rule in the definition of rondure and straight line, so that by this
means everything which it is possible to regard as distortion, unnaturalness,
or stiffness in the plant-forms is fundamentally to be considered as a
transformation adapted to the requirements of what is genuinely
architectural.
In some such way in the column the real art of building passes from that
which is purely organic imitation to the definite purpose of scientific rule,
and from this to a position which again approximates to the organic result.
We find it necessary to draw attention to this twofold point of departure
from the actual necessities and the purposeless self-subsistency of
architecture, because the true type unites both principles. The beautiful
column originates in the natural form, which is then transformed into the
post, that is, it submits to the uniformity and scientific precision of form.

CHAPTER II

CLASSICAL ARCHITECTURE

The art of building, when it has attained the position peculiarly its own and
adequate to its notional content is subservient in its products to an end, and
a significance which it does not itself essentially possess. It becomes an
inorganic environment, a whole that is co-ordinated and built conformably
to the laws of gravity, whose configurations are subject to that which is
severely regular, straight, rectangular, circular, the relations of definite
number and quantity, that which is essentially limited measure and strict
conformity to rule. Its beauty consists in this very relation to purpose,
which, in its freedom from direct[75] admixture with what is organic,

spiritual, and symbolical, and despite the fact that it subserves an end,
nevertheless combines in an essentially exclusive totality, which suffers its
own aim to appear through all its modifications, and in the harmonious co-
ordination of its relations clothes that which is purely adapted to purpose in
the forms of beauty. Architecture, however, at this stage[76] corresponds to
its real notion, for the reason that it is not in a position to endow that which
is in the most explicit sense spiritual with a fully adequate existence, and is
consequently only able to inform what is external and devoid of spirit in its
contrasted appearance with that which is spiritual.
We propose, in our consideration of this art of building, in which the
relation of service is as truly a characteristic as that of beauty, to adopt the
following course of argument.
In the first instance we have to establish the general notion and character of
the same.
Secondly, we shall have to adduce the particular fundamental determinants
of the architectonic types which are deducible from the ulterior purpose
which the classical work of art is erected to subserve.
Thirdly, we propose to survey the concrete reality which results from the
development of classical architecture.
I do not, however, propose in discussing any of the above relations to enter
into detail, but will limit myself to points of most general significance, a
restriction more easy to observe in the present case than it was in that of the
symbolical type of building.

1. THE GENERAL CHARACTER OF CLASSICAL ARCHITECTURE

(a) In conformity with the principle I have already more than once adverted
to the fundamental idea of the genuine art of building consists in this, that
the spiritual import is not exclusively reposed in the work of construction
itself, which by this means becomes an independent symbol of ideal
signification[77], but, with the converse result, that this significance secures
its free existence outside the limits of architecture. This existence may be of
a twofold character, to the extent in other words that another art of
extensive range—I refer, above all, to the art of sculpture of the true
classical type—sets before us and gives independent form to the

significance, or the individual man in himself receives and gives effect to
the same in the active verity of his life. Apart from this[78], these two
aspects may still appear together. When, therefore, the Oriental architecture
of the Babylonians, Hindoos, and Egyptians, on the one hand, gave
symbolical form, in images of independent consistency, to that which was
reckoned among these people as the absolute and true, or, from another
aspect, enclosed, despite its external natural form, that which was conserved
after death—in contrast to this what we find now is—whether we regard it
relatively to art's activity, or to the life of actual existence—that the spiritual
is separated from the work of construction in independent guise for itself,
and architecture becomes the vassal of what is spiritual, which constitutes
the real significance and the determinating end. This end is consequently
predominant. It controls the entire work; it determines the fundamental
form of the same no less than its external skeleton, and neither suffers the
material nor the individual's imagination and caprice to assert their
independence in a self-substantive way, as was the case in symbolical
architecture, or to develop, over and beyond the true purpose of the work, a
superfluity of manifold parts and configurations, as is the case in the
romantic type.
(b) In considering a construction of this character we have, then, first to ask
ourselves not merely what are the circumstances under which it was
erected, but what is its aim and purpose. To make its construction
compatible with such considerations, to have a due regard for climate,
position, and the environing landscape, to create a whole, one in
spontaneous co-ordination, by a regard for all these aspects as subservient
to one purpose, this is the task stated broadly, in the entire fulfilment of
which the instincts and genius of the artist will appear conspicuous. Among
the Greeks we find that it is public buildings, temples, colonnades, and halls
utilized for the ordinary rest and commerce of the day, approaches, such as
the famous ascent of the Acropolis in Athens, which are pre-eminently the
objects of the builder's art. Private residences, on the other hand, were of a
very simple character. With the Romans, on the contrary, it is the luxurious
character of private houses, especially villas, which becomes prominent;
and we may say the same thing of imperial palaces, public baths, theatres,
circuses, amphitheatres, aqueducts, and springs. Buildings of this type,
however, the utility of which throughout remains the commanding and
directing principle, are merely able to accept beauty in a more or less

decorative sense. The object most compatible with freedom of treatment in
this sphere is that of religion—the temple-house as the enclosure of an
individual which itself is appropriated by fine art, and placed before us by
sculpture as the statue of the god.
(c) In the pursuit of aims such as those above mentioned, then, genuine
architecture appears to be more free than the symbolic type of the previous
stage, which seizes on the organic forms from Nature, nay, more free than
sculpture, which is compelled to accept the human form it finds, and unites
itself with them and their general relations as presented it. Classical
architecture rather invents its forms and their configuration, so far as the
content is concerned, from ends of spiritual import and in respect to form
from human reason without any prototype. This greater freedom must, in a
relative sense, be admitted; but the province in which it is exercised remains
restricted, and the treatment which belongs to the classical art of building,
on account of the rationality[79] of its forms is, taken as a whole, somewhat
of an abstract and dry character.
Frederich von Schlegel has described architecture as a frozen music; and in
truth both these arts repose on a harmony of relations, which admit of being
referred to number, and are consequently readily grasped in their
fundamental characteristics. In our own case the fundamental determinant
for these essential traits and their simple, more serious and imposing, or
more charming and elegant relations is supplied by the dwelling-house, that
is, walls, columns, beams brought together in the wholly crystalline forms
of scientific deduction. What the relations are we are not permitted to
reduce to the bare determinants of number and measure. But an oblong,
quadrilateral figure with right angles is more pleasing than a square,
because in the case of the oblong we are more thus affected both by equality
and inequality[80]. If the one dimension, namely breadth, is half as large as
the other, we have a relation which pleases; with an oblong which is long
and narrow the reverse is the case. Along with this the mechanical relations
of support and being supported must likewise be maintained in their
genuine measure and law; a heavy entablature, for instance, cannot rest on
slender and delicate columns, or conversely great structures be prepared in
order after all to lay on them something very light. In all these mutual
relations, such as that of the breadth to the length and height of the building,
the height of the columns to their thickness, the intervals and number of the

columns, the character and variety or simplicity of decorations, the size of
many plinths, borders, and so forth, a secret principle of rhythm[81] prevails
among the ancients, which the instinct of the Greeks before all others has
discovered; from which he may no doubt now and again deviate in points of
detail, but the fundamental relations of which he is in general bound to
preserve in order that he may not fall away from beauty.

2. THE FUNDAMENTAL DETERMINANTS OF ARCHITECTURAL FORMS TAKEN SEVERALLY

(a) We have already alluded to the old controversy whether the material of
wood or stone is to be accepted as the point of departure in building, and
whether also it is from this difference of material that the architectural types
proceed. For the real art of building at least, in so far as it lays emphasis on
the aspect of ultimate purpose and elaborates the fundamental type of the
dwelling on the lines of beauty we may accept wood as the more original of
the two.
This is the conclusion of Hirt, following in this respect Vitruvius, and his
conclusion has been much disputed. I will in a few words offer my own
view on the matter in dispute, In the ordinary course of such reflections we
seek to discover the abstract and simple law for a concrete result assumed
as already present. It is in this way that Hirt looks for the basic model of
Greek buildings, in like manner the design[82], the anatomical framework,
and finds it, so far as form and the material connected with it is concerned,
in the dwelling and building of wood. No doubt a house as such is built
mainly as a dwelling, a protection against storm, rain, weather, animals, and
human beings, and requires an enclosure that is complete, in order that a
family or a larger community of men may collect in independent seclusion
and may look after their necessities and pursue their avocations in such
seclusion. The house is a structure throughout with a definite purpose, a
creation of mankind for human objects. For this reason we find him
occupied upon it in many ways and with many objects, and the structure is
articulated in an aggregate pile of all kinds of mechanical ways of mutual
interlacement and imposition[83] in order to hold in position and secure,
according to the laws of gravity, what men are compelled to look after, that
is, the making stable what is erected[84], the closing it in, the support of
what is superimposed, and not merely in the way of support, but, where the

structure rests horizontally, the preservation of it in such a position, and,
further, the uniting of all that clashes together at nooks and corners and so
on. Now it is quite true that the house makes it necessary that the enclosure
should be complete; and for this walls are most serviceable and safest; and
from this point of view the building of stone appears most to answer the
purpose. We may, however, with equal ease construct our fence with posts
standing in juxtaposition, upon which then beams will rest, which at the
same time both bind together and secure the perpendicular posts. Finally we
come to the cover of all and roofing. In the temple house, moreover, the fact
of enclosure is not the main fact of importance, but the feature of support
and being supported. For this mechanical result the wooden structure is
obviously the nearest to hand and the most natural. For the post, as that
which supports, which at the same time requires a means of conjunction,
and suffers the same to weigh on it in the shape of the cross-beam,
constitutes here all that goes to the root of the matter. This essential division
of parts and connection as well as the association of these aspects for a
definite purpose belongs to the very nature of a wooden structure, which
has its necessary material directly supplied it by the tree. In the tree we find
already, without working upon it to any considerable or laborious extent,
both post and beam, in so far as, that is, the wood already by itself
possesses a definite form and consists of separate lengths, more or less in
the straight line, lengths which can be brought together into rectangular
corners no less than those which are acute or obtuse, and in this way
provide corner pillars, supports, cross-beams and roof. Stone, on the
contrary, never at any time possesses a form so definite. In contrast to the
tree it is a formless mass, which first must be intentionally isolated and
worked upon, in order that it may fit in juxtaposition to or superposition on
other pieces and so once more be brought together with such. It requires, in
short, several processes before it receives the form and serviceableness
which wood already possesses independently. Moreover, stone material,
when it is used in great masses, invites rather excavations and generally
speaking, being ab initio relatively formless, is capable of every kind of
form, for which reason it is rather the congenial material for the symbolical
as also the romantic types of building, while wood, by reason of its natural
form of straight stems, is demonstrably without mediation more serviceable
to that more severe type of purpose and observance of rule, which is the
fountain-head of classical architecture. In this respect the structure of stone

is mainly predominant with the self-substantive type of building, although
even among the Egyptians, in their colonnades bordered with plinths, other
considerations supervene, which the structure of wood is able more readily
and in the first instance to satisfy. Conversely we do not find that classical
architecture restricts itself entirely to buildings of wood, but, on the
contrary, where it is elaborated in conformity with beauty, executes its
buildings in stone; but in such a way, however, that we are from a certain
point of view still able to recognize in the architectural forms the original
principle of the wood structure, if also from a further one definite relations
attach which do not belong to that kind of building as such.
(b) The points of fundamental importance, which emphasize the dwelling-
house as the basic type of the temple, may be in all essential particulars
enumerated as follows. If we consider with closer attention the house in its
mechanical relation to itself we shall find, in accordance with what we have
already stated, on the one hand, masses of architectural form which serve as
support and, on the other, those that are supported both being united for
stability and security. Thirdly, we have before us the definite aspect of
enclosure and limitation according to the three dimensions of length,
breadth, and height. A construction, moreover, which, by the fact of its
being a mutual correlation of definite aspects distinct from each other, is a
concrete whole, is bound to declare this unity in its constitution. So we find
here that essential differences arise which perforce assert themselves no less
in their division and specific elaboration than they do in their rational
connexus.
(α) Of first importance in this respect to consider is the aspect of service in
the way of support. When we speak of masses that support we commonly,
under the influence of every-day needs, think of the wall as the most secure
and reliable means of support. Support as such, however, as we have
already seen, is not the exclusive principle of the wall; for the wall serves
essentially as a means of enclosure and connection, and for this reason is a
predominant feature in the romantic type of building. What is the
peculiarity of Greek architecture is this, that it gives direct form to the
principle of support by itself, and for this object employs columns as a
fundamental contribution to the purpose and beauty of its architecture.
(αα) The aim of the column is to support and only this; and although a
series of columns set up in a straight line make a boundary, such an

enclosure falls short of a secure wall or partition, and is, in fact, expressly
cancelled by the genuine partition and placed in a position of free
independence. Owing to this exclusive object of support which pertains to
the column, it is of first importance that it should display the aspect of such
a purpose relatively to the weight which rests upon it. Consequently it
should neither be too strong nor too slender, nor again too compressed, not
mount upwards to such a height and with such ease as though the weight
upon it was not treated seriously.
(ββ) And just as this column is thus differentiated from the enclosing wall,
or fence, it is further from another point of view distinct from the mere post.
In other words, the post is fixed directly in the ground and ceases with like
directness at the precise point where a weight is reposed upon it. For which
reason its determinate length, its commencement and termination equally
appear as a negative limitation by means of something else, as a
determinacy which is the result of chance, which it does not possess in its
own right. Commencement and termination, however, are defining
characteristics, which are part of the very notion of the supporting column,
and consequently must declare themselves in it as the conditions[85] of its
own substance. This is the ground of the fact that architecture, in the
elaboration of its beauty, assigns to the column a base and a capital. In the
Tuscan order, no doubt, we find no base; the column springs immediately
from the ground. This being so, however, the length appears to the vision as
something accidental. We are ignorant whether the column has not been to
some undefined extent driven into the soil by the superimposed weight. In
order that its commencement must not expose this undefined and accidental
appearance it must with intention have the foot assigned to it, on which it
stands, and which expressly enables us to recognize the commencement as
in reality such. Art will therefore affirm as part of its function that the
column begins at a certain place and for the rest it will make the security,
and stable subsistence obvious to the eyes, and set the vision at rest in this
respect also. For similar reasons our column should terminate in a capital,
which is quite as much evidence of the real function of being a support as it
is an affirmation of the fact that the column terminates here. This
conception of a commencement and conclusion which are both deliberate is
what affords us, in fact, the profounder explanation of base and capital. An
analogous case is that of a cadence in music, which requires a secure
resolution, or that of a book which should terminate without a full stop, or

should start off without a capital letter, in the making of which, however,
especially in the Middle Ages, large illuminated letters have been
employed, with similar decorations at the work's conclusion, in order to
bring prominently before the mind the facts of commencement and
termination. However much, therefore, both base and capital appear to
exceed what is obviously required we must not regard them as a decorative
superfluity, or think of simply deducing them from the example of Egyptian
columns, which still imitate the type of the vegetable kingdom. Figures of
organic design, such as are represented by sculpture in animal and human
form, begin and terminate in the free outlines they themselves present, for it
is the rational organism itself, which gives outline to the form working
thereon from its own intrinsic nature. Architecture, on the contrary,
possesses for the column and its shapes nothing beyond the mechanical
relation of support, and the spatial distance from the ground to the point
where the weight that is supported terminates the column. Art, however, is
bound to emphasize and disclose the particular aspects which lie together in
this determinate relation for the reason that they are essential features of the
column. Its precise length and its twofold boundary both above and below,
that is, no less than its relation as support, must consequently not appear as
coming to it incidentally and by virtue of something else, but must also be
represented as immanent in its very being.
With respect to the form of column other than its base and capital, it is in
the first place round, circular-shaped, for it has to stand up in free and
independent self-seclusion. The most essentially simple, securely exclusive,
rationally defined[86], and most regular line is in fact the circle. For this
reason the column already proves from its shape that it is not adapted to
form an even surface when placed in adjacent rows, as is the case with
adjacent posts which are squared to the rectangular corner, and so present
walls and partitions, but it has merely the object to offer a support under its
own self-limitation. Moreover the columnar structure is ordinarily reduced
in size gradually, as it ascends from one-third of its height, it becomes less
in circumference and thickness, because the portions beneath have to carry
that above, and it is felt necessary to emphasize and make obvious also this
mechanical relation of the several parts of the column itself. Finally, we
frequently find that columns are grooved; the reason of this is twofold, first,
essentially to diversify the simple form, and secondly to make the columns
appear more thick by means of such a division where this is necessary.

(γγ) Although, then, the column is set up in independent isolation it has
none the less to make it appear evident that it is not placed there for its own
sake, but as subservient to the mass which it is erected to support. In so far
as the house requires a boundary on every side the singular column is
therefore not sufficient, but others have to be placed adjacent to it, in other
words we come upon the definite conception of a diversity of columns
placed in a series. And when several columns support the same weight this
common service is at the same time that which determines the equal height
which they all possess and which unites them together, in other words the
beam. This marks the transition from the aspect of support to the opposed
object supported.

(β) That which columns support is the entablature superimposed. The
relation of most importance to be considered here is that of rectangularity.
Not merely in its relation to the ground, but also in that to the entablature
the supporting structure must be rectangular. For the horizontal position is
by the laws of gravity that which is alone intrinsically the most stable and
fitting, and the right angle the only definitely secure one. The acute and
obtuse angles are, on the contrary, indefinite, and both vary in their degree
and are subject to contingency.
We may differentiate between the component parts of the entablature as
follows:
(αα) The architrave, that is, the main beam, rests immediately upon the
columns which stand adjacent in a direct line of equal height; this unites the
columns together and places on them a weight shared equally. As beam, and
nothing more, it merely requires the form of four level surfaces mutually
related as rectangular in all three dimensions and their abstract regularity.
Owing to the fact, however, that the architrave as to one part of it is
supported by the columns, and in another constitutes the stay of the rest of
the entablature, and it is from this latter again that itself receives the
necessary relation of being a support, progressive architecture also places in
external relief this twofold aspect of the main beam by emphasizing in the
upper portions of the aspect of support by means of jutting plinths and so
forth. In this respect therefore the main beam is not merely related to the
columns which support it, but in like degree to other burdens which repose
upon it.
(ββ) These in the first instance constitute the frieze. The border or frieze
consists in one part of it of the tops of the joists[87], which rest on the
entablature, in another part of the spaces between the same. For this reason
the frieze contains more essential differences than those distinguishing the
architrave, and is bound to emphasize them more sharply, especially in the
case where architecture, although executed in stone materials, follows more
stringently the fundamental type of the wood construction. This is supplied
us by the distinction between triglyphs and metopes. In other words
triglyphs are the tops of the beams which are divided into three spaces, the
metopes are the rectangular spaces between the separate triglyphs. In

former times they were in all probability left bare, in later, however, they
are filled up[88], nay, even covered over and decorated with reliefs.
(γγ) The frieze, moreover, which rests on the entablature, carries the wreath
or cornice. The function of this is to support the roof, which completes the
whole upwards. Here we at once meet with questions of what form this
final limitation is to be. For we may have in this respect two kinds of
termination, either the horizontal and rectangular, or the one inclined to an
acute or obtuse angle. If we look at the mere question of natural necessity
we shall see that Southerners, who suffer little from rain and storm, merely
require protection from sunlight; in their case a horizontal and rectangular
roofing of house is likely to suffice. Northerners, on the contrary, have to
protect themselves against inevitable showers of rain, against contingency
of snow, that the weight may not prove too great; they require inclining
roofs. At the same time, in the case of a fine art of building, mere necessity
is not only of account; as art it has also to satisfy the profounder
requirements of what is pleasing and beautiful. What mounts upwards from
the ground must be conceived with a base, a foot, on which it stands and
which serves it for support; and in addition to this columns and the
partitions of genuine architecture supply us visibly with the means of
support. That which closes all above, the roofing, has no longer to support a
weight, but merely to be supported, and is bound to declare in itself this
definite aspect that it no longer supports anything. In other words, it must
be so constructed that it is actually unable to support, and consequently fine
down to an angle, whether it be acute or obtuse. Ancient temples have in
consequence no horizontal roofing, but two roof surfaces which meet at
obtuse angles, and it is out of consideration for beauty that the building is
thus terminated. In short, roof surfaces that are horizontal do not give us the
appearance of a building entirely complete; a horizontal flat may always
add further weight to its height; this the line in which inclining roof surfaces
terminate is no longer able to do. To take an analogous case in the art of
painting, it is the pyramidal form in the grouping of figures which best
satisfies artistic taste.
(γ) The final determining factor which we have to consider is that of the
enclosing, the walls, and partitions. Columns no doubt support and form a
boundary, but they do not enclose; they are, on the contrary, as such
boundary, incompatible with the interior which is hemmed in by walls. If

we require such an absolute enclosure we must have also thick and solid
dividing walls erected. This is actually the case in temple construction.
(αα) We have nothing further to add with respect to walls except the fact
that they must be built in a straight and even line and perpendicularly for
the reason that walls that rise obliquely to acute and obtuse angles present
the threatening aspect of collapse, and possess no direction once and for all
securely defined; it can merely appear as a matter of chance that they are
reared in whatever more acute or obtuse angle it may happen to be. The
demand of scientific rule and purpose alike is here also once more for the
right angle.
(ββ) Owing to the fact that walls act as enclosures no less than as means of
support, while we restricted the true function of the column to that of mere
support, we approximate to the conception that where we have to satisfy
these two distinct needs of support and enclosure columns may be set up
and may be united to one another by means of thick walls in such partitions;
it is thus that we get half columns. In this way, for example, Hirt, following
Vitruvius, makes a start in his original type of construction with four
corner-posts. If the necessity of an enclosure is to be satisfied no doubt our
columns, if we are obliged to include such, must be walled up and it is not
difficult to prove that half columns date from remote antiquity. Hirt, for
instance[89], affirms that the employment of half columns is as old as the art
of building itself, and deduces their origin from the circumstance that
columns and piers supported and carried the roofing and other
superimposed structures, but at the same time rendered partition walls
necessary as a protection against sun and inclement weather. Since,
however, the columns already supported the main building in a sufficient
manner, it was not necessary to erect partition walls of either so thick or
firm a material as the columns, and consequently this latter, as a rule,
abutted on the exterior of the building. This theory of their origin may be
correct, but for all that half columns are repugnant to a rational view of
them; we have, in short, here two ends standing side by side in opposition,
and essentially confounding each other, without any law of necessity being
disclosed. It is of course possible to defend half columns, if the point of
departure in considering even the column is so strictly that of the structure
of wood, that we regard their essential function to be that of an enclosure.
Placed in thick walls, however, the column has lost all its significance; it is

degraded to the mere post. The true column is in its nature round,
essentially complete, and expresses by this very trait of exclusiveness in a
visible way that it is antagonistic to an even surface, and, consequently,
every inclusion in a wall. If, therefore, we desire to have the support of
walls such must be even, not circular columns, but surfaces which can be
extended evenly in a wall.
As far back as 1773 Goethe exclaimed with spirit to the like effect in his
youthful essay, "On the German Art of Building": "What does it matter to
us, you philosophical art-critic of the latest French school, that original
man, spurred on by his needs to invent, drove into the ground four trunks,
then fastened four poles on top and covered the whole with branches and
moss. And after all it is wholly false to say that this hut of yours was the
first begotten on earth. Two poles that cross each other at their ends, two
behind and one stuck diagonally above in forest fashion is and remains, as
you may any day see for yourself in the huts of the fields and the vineyard
slopes, a far earlier discovery from which it is quite impossible for you to
deduce a principle for your pig-stye." In other words Goethe seeks to prove
that columns enclosed in walls placed in buildings whose essential object is
that of mere enclosure have no meaning. This is not because he would not
recognize the beauty of the column. On the contrary, he is loud in its praise.
"But take good care," he adds, "not to employ them improperly: it is their
nature to stand up free. Woe to the wretch who has soldered their slender
growth in blockish walls." It is from such a point of view that he proceeds
to consider the building art of the Middle Ages and our own time and
affirms: "The column is of no value as a constituent feature of our
dwellings: it rather contradicts the essence of all our buildings. Our houses
do not consist of four columns in four corners; they consist of four walls on
four sides, which stand in the place of all columns, totally exclude such, and
where they are thrust in they are a burdensome superfluity. This applies to
our palaces and churches, subject to one or two exceptions, which it is not
necessary to particularize." We have in the above statement, which is the
result of independent observation of the facts, the principle of the column
correctly expressed. The column must place its foot down in front of the
wall and appear in complete independence of it. In our more modern
architecture no doubt we find pilasters freely used; architects, have,
however, regarded them as the repeated adumbration of previous columns,
and made them flat rather than round.

(γγ) From this it is clear that though no doubt walls may serve as support,
yet, for the reason that the function of support is already independently
performed by columns, they must, on their part in finished classical
architecture be accepted as essentially having for their object the enclosure.
If they are taken as columns are taken, to provide means of support, the
essentially distinct defining functions of these latter are not, as is most
desirable, performed also as by distinct constituent parts of the building[90],
and the conception of what walls ought to provide is impaired and
confused. We consequently find even in temples that the central hall, where
the statue of the god was placed, to enclose which was the main object, is
often left open in the upper part. If, however, a roofing is required, the
claims of the lofty style of beauty made it necessary that the same should be
supported independently. In other words the direct imposition of entablature
and roof on the enclosing walls is purely a matter of necessity and need; it
is not appertinent to free architectural beauty, because in the art of classical
buildings we require as means of support neither partitions nor walls, which
would be rather derogatory to the design in so far as—we have already
noticed the fact—they put together contrivances and a wall-space of greater
extent than is actually necessary.
These would be the main distinguishing features which in classical
architecture we have to keep apart.
(c) Although we may then, on the one hand, declare it as a principle of first
importance that the distinctions which have been summarily indicated must
appear with their differences emphasized, it is equally necessary on the
other that they should be united in a whole. We will shortly, in conclusion,
draw attention to this union which in architecture will be rather and simply
a juxtaposition, association, and a thorough eurhythmy of the entire
construction. Generally speaking the Greek temple buildings present an
aspect which both satisfies, and if we may use the expression, sates us to
the full.
(α) There is no soaring up, but the whole just expands on the broad level
and is extended without particular elevation. In order to view the building's
face it is barely necessary to raise the sight with intention; it is, on the
contrary, allured to the bare expanse, while the building art of Germany in
the Middle Ages strives up almost without mass and soars. Among the
ancients breadth, regarded as secure and convenient foundation on the

earth, is the main thing. Height is rather borrowed from the height of man,
and merely is increased in proportion as the building increases in breadth
and width.
(β) Furthermore, embellishments are so effected that they do not impair the
impression of simplicity. For much also depends on the mode of decoration.
The ancients, more particularly the Greeks, preserve here the finest sense of
proportion. Extensive surfaces and lines of entire simplicity, for instance, do
not appear so large in this undivided simplicity as in the case where some
variety, somewhat that destroys this uniformity is introduced, by which at
once an extension of more definite outline is presented to the vision. If this
subdivision, however, and its adornment is wholly elaborated in detail, so
that we have nothing before us but a variety and its details, even the most
imposing relations and dimensions appear to be crumbled away and
destroyed. The ancients, therefore, as a rule are actuated in their works
neither to let the same and their proportions by such means appear in any
way greater than they actually are, nor do they break up the whole by means
of interruptions and embellishments to the extent that—because all parts are
small and a unity is absent which shall once more bring everything together
and fuse it throughout—therefore the whole also shall appear as
insignificant. To quite as little an extent are their works of beauty in their
perfection merely piled up as mere weight on the ground, or tower up out of
all relation to their breadth to the skies. They preserve in this respect, too,
the mean of beauty, and offer at the same time in their simplicity necessary
scope to a duly proportioned variety. Above all, however, the dominant
feature of the whole and its simple particularities appear to permeate in the
most transparent way through all and everything, and overmasters the
individuality of the configuration precisely in the way that in the classical
Ideal the universal substance retains its power to control what is accidental
and particular, in which the same receives its living form, and to bring it
into harmony with itself.
(γ) With regard to the disposition and articulation of the several parts of a
temple we find, on the one hand, a very marked graduation of elaboration,
and on the other much that is purely traditional. The main distinctions that
have an interest for us in this inquiry are limited to the temple precinct
(ναὸς), enclosed by walls containing the image of the god, also the dwelling
in front (πρόναος), that in the rear (ὀπισθόδομος), and the colonnades that

encircle the entire structure. A dwelling in front and behind with a series of
columns before it had originally the typical form, which Vitruvius calls
ἀμφιπρόστυλος; to this was afterwards added a row on either side of the
building, that is the περίπτερος; finally we have the completest form of
elaboration in the δίπτερος, where this row of columns is doubled
throughout the circuit, and in the ὔπαιθρος colonnades detached from the
walls, and which it is possible to pass round, as in the case of the
colonnades above, are added in double rows with the interior of the ναὸς
itself. For such a type of temple Vitruvius instances as an example the eight-
columned temple of Minerva at Athens, and the ten-columned one of
Olympian Jupiter[91].
We will pass over in this place the more detailed consideration of the
number of columns no less than the nature of the intervening spaces
between themselves and the walls, and merely draw attention to the unique
significance which such colonnades and forecourts, or halls possessed in
general for the Greek temple. In these prostyles and amphiprostyles, that is,
these single and double colonnades, which brought you direct into the open
sunshine, we observe that men can move about openly and free and can
group themselves as they choose, or according to the chance of the moment.
Columns are, in short, not an enclosure, but a limitation through which you
can always pass, so that you can be partially within and without them at
once, and at any rate can everywhere step from them into the open day. In
the same way the long walls at the back of the columns do not permit of any
pressure to one central point, whither our sight may instinctively turn when
the passages are crowded. On the contrary the eye is rather diverted from
such a point of unity in every direction; and instead of the conception of a
congregation brought together for One purpose we observe a tendency
outwards, and merely receive the impression of a means of spending the
time devoid of seriousness, light-hearted, idle, and provocative of chatter.
Within the enclosure no doubt we have suggested a profounder aim, but
even here we find surrounding features[92], which more or less indicate that
we are not to take such a purpose too seriously. Consequently the
impression of such a temple, though no doubt simple and imposing, is at the
same time gay, open, and pleasing to the sense; the entire building, in short,
is rather arranged as a place for standing about in, strolling round, for

ingress and egress than in order to enable an assembly of persons to
concentrate their numbers in one spot shut off from the rest of the world.

3. THE DIFFERENT CONSTRUCTIVE TYPES OF CLASSICAL ARCHITECTURE

Casting our glance now on the different forms of construction which offer
us the predominant examples of distinctive type in classical architecture we
may emphasize the following as most important.
(a) What first arrests our attention in this field are those kinds of building
whose lines of distinction are most noticeable in their columns; for this
reason I shall myself, too, limit myself to a statement of the pre-eminently
characteristic traits of the various types of column.
The most famous among the orders of columns are the Doric, Ionic, and
Corinthian, over whose architectural beauty and adaptation to definite
purpose, neither the research of earlier times nor our own has been able to
add anything. For we may assume that the Tuscan, or, according to Hirt[93],
the ancient Greek type of building belongs in its undecorative crudeness to
the original and simple type of wood structure, not to the architecture of
beauty, and the so-called Roman order of columns is of no real moment,
being merely an increase in the decorative character of the Corinthian. The
important points in this inquiry are the relation of the height of columns to
their thickness, the type of base and capital to be distinguished in each case,
and, finally, the greater or less intervening spaces between the columns.
With regard to the first, if the column is not of a height four times as large
as its diameter it appears too bulky and depressed; if its height, however,
exceeds such a proportion by being ten times as large, the column will
appear too slender to the eye, and too slim as a means of support. The
respective intervals between the columns must, however, be considered in
close relation to the above facts; if the columns appear more stout they
should be placed nearer to one another, if on the contrary the impression
they produce is one of slightness and lankness the intervals have to be
larger. It is a matter of equal importance, and this is so whether the columns
have a pedestal or not, whether the capital is of higher or less ample size, is
without or with decoration, for it is by this means that the entire character of
the column is altered. With regard to the column's shaft, however, the rule
obtains that it should be smooth and devoid of decoration, although it does

not rise throughout of the same thickness, but is appreciably more slender at
the top than it is midway and at the base, and the change is such that there is
a swelling which, though barely perceptible, is none the less present. In
more recent times no doubt, notably in the Middle Ages, when the antique
types of columns were converted to the use of Christian architecture, the
smoothness of shaft was found to be too cold, and for this reason wreaths of
flowers were entwined round them, or columns of spiral form were
permitted no doubt on similar grounds; this, however, is inadmissible and
opposed to the best taste, because the true function of the column is simply
that of support, and to carry this out they ought to rise in a secure and
straight line and be self-subsistent[94]. The only divergency from the rule in
columnar structure which the ancients admitted was that of the groove, a
variation which, as Vitruvius points out, made such appear broader than
when their surface is wholly smooth. Such grooving we find carried out
very extensively.
I will now indicate more closely the main distinguishing features of the
Doric, Ionian, and Corinthian order of columns respectively.
(α) In primitive buildings security of structure is the fundamental
characteristic beyond which architecture fails to go; consequently it does
not as yet dare to risk relations of a slender kind with the bolder lightness
which belongs to them, but rests satisfied with forms of greater bulk. This is
the case in the Doric type of building. We find here that the material aspect
with its onerous weight still is that which is most influential, and is
particularly apparent in the relations of breadth and height. When a building
is erected in lightness and freedom the burden of heavy masses is
overcome; if on the contrary its disposition is one which suggests mainly
breadth and a low elevation the prevailing impression, as in the Doric style,
is that of stability and solidity, subservient to the dominant force of gravity.
Consistently with this character Doric columns, if contrasted with the other
two orders, are the broadest and lowest. The more ancient examples do not
rise above a height which is six times their diameter, and not unfrequently
they are merely four times that breadth; for this reason they give, by virtue
of their unwieldiness, the impression of an earnest, simple, and unadorned
manliness, such as we have exemplified in the temples at Paestum and
Corinth. The later examples of the Doric order, however, extend their
columns to a height of seven times this unit of measure, and, for buildings

other than temples, Vitruvius adds yet another half diameter. More
generally, however, the distinctive character of the Doric type consists in
this that it approximates most nearly to the primitive simplicity of the wood
building, although it is more receptive than the Tuscan to decorative work
and embellishments. The columns, however, have almost without exception
no distinctive base; they stand up directly on their foundation[95], and their
capitals are arranged in the simplest way out of ovolo ornament and plinth.
The shaft is sometimes left smooth, sometimes grooved with twenty drills,
which frequently were flat for one third of the way from the base, and
hollowed out in circular form the rest of the way[96]. As regards the interval
between the columns, according to the older monuments, the breadth is
twice the diameter of a column, and only a few exceed this by a width
between two and two and a half diameters. Another peculiarity of the Doric
type of building in which it approaches the type of wood construction
consists in triglyphs and metopes. In other words triglyphs indicate in the
frieze the tops of the beams of the entablature with which the architrave
culminates inserted there by means of prismatical incisions[97], while the
metopes fill up the spaces between one beam and another, and in the Doric
construction still retain the form of the square[98]. As a decoration they are
frequently covered with reliefs, while beneath the triglyphs, which rest on
the architrave, and as a culmination to the surfaces of the cornice on their
lower side, we have for embellishment six small conical bodies, technically
known as drops.
(β) In the Doric style we are already made aware of an advance in the
characteristics of a solidity which affects us with pleasure. In Ionic
architecture this upward progress is further emphasized in a type notable for
its slenderness, charm, and grace, if still expressed in a simple way. The
height of the columns varies between that of seven and ten times the width
of the diameter at the base, and is determined, according to the conclusions
of Vitruvius, pre-eminently by the breadth of the intervening spaces of the
columns, that is to say, where they are wider the columns appear thinner,
and consequently more slender, where they are more narrow, however, they
appear stouter and of less height. For this reason the architect is forced, in
order to avoid an excess of thinness or bulk, in the first case to reduce the
height, and in the second to increase it. In the case, then, where the intervals
exceed three diameters the height of the columns will merely carry eight of

such, where there is an interval of two and a quarter rising to three, the
height will rise to eight and a half diameters. If the columns, however, are
separated only by the width of two diameters, the height must be extended
to nine and a half times the unit, and in the extreme case of an interval of
but one and a half times, such height will even rise to ten times the breadth
of diameter. However, cases such as these latter ones appear very seldom,
and, in so far as we may judge from such monuments of the Ionic type of
building that have come down to us, the ancients made very scanty use of
those relations which necessitated the more lofty columns.
The Ionic type is further distinguished from the Doric in this that the Ionic
columns do not rise directly with their shaft from the substructure, but are
set up on a variously articulated pedestal, and then in unobtrusive
rejuvenescence rise lightly in their slender height to their capitals with a
deeper hollowing out than in the Doric type, a broad grooving of four and
twenty grooves. It is especially in this characteristic that the Ionic temple at
Ephesus is distinguishable from and in contrast to the Doric at Paestum. In
the same way we find an increase of variety and grace in the Ionic capital. It
has not only a carved coussinet[99], little ledge and plinth, but receives both
to the right and left a spiral winding, and at the sides a decorative kind of
cushion, from which is derived its title of the pulvinated capital. The volutes
at the end of the pad or cushion indicate the end of the column, which,
however, may rise to a still greater elevation, but in this possible increase
makes itself essentially a curve.
Compatibly with this slender character of the pleasing decoration of its
columns the Ionic type of building requires a less bulky weight in its beams,
and is concerned in this way too to secure an increase of grace. By doing so
it no longer suggests as a predecessor as the Doric does the wood
construction, and consequently suffers triglyphs and metopes to fall away in
the flat frieze, introducing in their place as its principal means of
decoration, heads of sacrificial animals united with flowery coils, and,
instead of the suspended mutule[100] tops, we find tooth-like
ornamentation[101].
(γ) Finally, to come to the Corinthian order, we find it is in fundamentals
composed upon the Ionic, only that with a similar slenderness it is
elaborated in more tasteful luxuriance, and unfolds the consummate finish

of adornment and embellishment. Like it content to possess the definite and
various divisions of its structure as a legacy from the wood building, it
emphasizes the same without permitting their origin to be conspicuous by
means of its decorative work, and expresses, in its manifold ledges and
borders on cornice and beam, on its weather moulds, its moulding flutes, its
variously articulated pediments and its more luxuriant capitals, a
multiplicity of pleasing features.
The Corinthian column, it is true, does not exceed in height the Ionic, rising
as a rule with a grooving of similar character, merely eight times or eight
and a half times as high as the diameter of the lower portion of the column,
but it appears more slender and above all more exuberant by virtue of a
loftier capital. For the capital's height is one and an eighth times the
diameter beneath, and has at each of its four corners more slender volutes
which suffer the pulvination of the previous type to fall off, while the part
below is decorated with acanthus leaves. The Greeks have a charming tale
relative to this. A maiden of exceptional beauty, they tell us, died. Her nurse
collected her playthings in a little basket and placed it on her grave, where
an acanthus plant sprang up. The leaves very soon embraced the basket, and
it was this which suggested the thought of the capital of a column.
Of other points of difference between the Corinthian and the Ionic and
Doric orders, I will only further mention the delicately curved mutules
under the cornices, and the projection of the water moulding, and the
indentations and corbel-heads on the cornice[102].
(b) We may, secondly, regard the Roman type of building as an intermediate
form standing between that of Greek and Christian architecture, in so far as
here we find mainly the application of arch and vaultings. It is not possible
to determine with accuracy the time when the construction of arches was
first discovered; it appears, however, certain that neither the Egyptians,
despite the great progress they made in the arts of building, nor the
Babylonians, Israelites, and Phoenicians were cognisant of the ogive or the
vault. The monuments of Egyptian architecture at any rate only show us
that when it was a question of superimposing a roof over the interior of a
building the one means the Egyptians had at their disposal was that of
placing huge slabs of stone across like beams in horizontal position. If it
was required to arch up broad entrances, or cross arches they knew of no
other way of doing this than letting one stone on either side project forward,

with another still more projecting one above it, so that the side walls
gradually approached upwards until they reached a point where only one
stone was necessary to close the remaining space between. Where such an
expedient was not necessary they covered the spaces with huge slabs of
stone arranged across in the manner of rafters.
Among the Greeks we do, I believe, find monuments in which the arch
construction has already been adopted, but they are rare; and Hirt, who has
written with most authority over the building and the history of the building
of antiquity, affirms that among such monuments we can rely on none with
security as dating from a time previous to that of Pericles. In other words, in
Greek architecture the features which are characteristic and elaborated are
the column and beam in horizontal position, so that we find here the column
very little used in a relation which lies apart from its true function, namely
that of supporting beams. Moreover the arch that is vaulted from two piers
or columns, and the knob-like formation, connotes a yet further feature, for
we find here that the column already begins to forsake its determinate
attribute of support. For the circular arch in its rise, its flexure and its
declivity is related to a centre which has nothing to do with the column as a
means of support. The separate parts of the circular arch are carried in
mutual opposition; they support and prolong each other in a way that shows
them far more remote from the direct assistance of the column than is the
horizontally superimposed beam.
In Roman architecture, then, as stated, the arch-construction and vaulting is
of very common occurrence, or rather we have certain remains which we
can only attribute to the age of the Roman kings, if we may fully believe the
evidence of later times. Of this type are the catacombs and cloaca, which
were vaulted, but must be regarded as works of a more recent restoration.
The most probable discoverer yet suggested of the vault is Democritus[103],
who occupied himself in a variety of ways with mathematical problems and
is held to be the discoverer of lithotomy.
One of the most famous buildings of Roman architecture, in which the
circular arch appears as fundamental type is the Pantheon of Agrippa
dedicated to Jupiter Ultor, which, in addition to the statue of Jupiter,
contained colossal images of gods in no less than six other niches, namely,
Mars, Venus, the deified Julius Caesar as well as three others whose identity
we cannot fix with accuracy. In either side of these niches stood two

Corinthian columns, and the whole was vaulted with one majestic vault in
form of the half globe and corresponding to the vault of heaven. With
reference to the material of this vault we may note that it is not a stone one.
In other words the Romans, in the majority of their vaultings, in the first
instance carried out a construction of wood, and covered the same with a
composition of chalk and puzzolana cement, which was made of the dust of
a light kind of tufa and broken tile shards. When this composition was dry
the whole was formed into a mass so that the wooden scaffolding could be
removed and the vaulting, by virtue of the lightness of its material and the
stability of its consolidation, exercised only an insignificant pressure on the
walls.
(c) The architecture of the Romans possessed moreover generally, and apart
from this novel employment of arch construction, an entirely different
scope and character than that of Greece. The Greeks distinguished
themselves, while carrying throughout their work its main purpose, and by
virtue of their perfection as artists, in the nobility, the simplicity no less than
the airy delicacy of their decorations. The Romans on the contrary are, as
artists, at least on the mechanical side of construction more rich and more
ostentatious, but at the same time of less nobility and grace. Add to this in
their architecture we meet with a variety of intention which was unknown
to the Greek. As I have already observed the Greeks entirely devoted the
splendour and beauty of art to public objects. Their private dwellings
remained insignificant. Among the Romans, however, not only do we find
an increase of public buildings, whose main purpose of construction was
splendidly embellished in theatres, spaces for animal combats and other
means of public sport, but architecture received a deliberate impulse in the
direction of private use. More especially after the civil wars villas, baths,
colonnades, flights of steps were constructed with the imposing character of
the most luxurious extravagance, and by this means a new opening was
made for the arts of building, which also included that of gardening, which
was perfected in a way that evinced very considerable talent and taste. The
villa of Lucullus is a striking example.
This type of Roman architecture has in many respects rendered service as a
model to Italians and Frenchmen of t more recent times. Among ourselves
we have for a long time to some measure followed in the steps of the
Italians, and also to some extent in those of the French; finally men have

once more devoted their attention to the Greeks, and have accepted as an
object of imitation the antique in its purer form.

CHAPTER III

ROMANTIC ARCHITECTURE

The Gothic architecture of the Middle Ages, which constitutes here the
characteristic centre of the truly romantic type, has for a long time, more
especially since the popularization and predominance of the French taste,
been regarded as something rude and barbarous. In recent times it was
Goethe who mainly, in the first instance, and in the youthful freshness of his
own nature and artistic outlook, brought once more the Gothic type to its
place of honour. Critical taste has been more and more concerned to
appreciate and respect these imposing works as giving effective expression
both to the distinctive purpose of Christian culture, and the harmonious
unity thereby created between architectonic form and the ideal spirit of
Christendom.

1. GENERAL CHARACTER

In so far as the general character of these buildings is concerned, in which
religious architecture is that which is most prominent, we discovered
already in our introduction to this part of our inquiry that in this type both
those of independent and serviceable architecture are united. This unity,
however, does not in any way consist in a fusion of the architectural forms
of the Oriental and the Greek, but we must look for it in the fact that, on the
one hand, the house or dwelling-enclosure furnishes yet more the
fundamental type than in the Greek temple construction, and, on the other,
mere serviceableness and purpose is to that extent eliminated, and the house
is emphasized apart from it in its free independence. No doubt these houses
of God and other buildings of this type appear to the fullest extent as
constructed for definite objects, as already stated, but their true character is
precisely this, that it reaches over and beyond the determinate aim and

presents itself in a form of self-seclusion and positive local independence.
The creation stands up in its place independent, secure, and eternal. For this
reason the character of the entirety is no longer to be deduced from any
purely scientific or theoretical relation. Within the interior the box-like
envelope of our Protestant churches falls away which are built simply that
they may be filled with men and women, and do not possess church pews as
stalls; in their exterior, the building soars in its roofing and pinnacles freely
upwards, so that the relation of purpose, however much it be also present,
tends again to disappear, leaving the impression of the whole that of a self-
subsistent existence. Such a building is entirely filled up by nothing
expressly; everything is absorbed in the grandeur of the whole: it possesses
and declares a definite object, but in its grandiose proportions and sublime
repose it is essentially and with an infinite significance exalted[104] above
all mere intentional serviceableness. This exaltation over finitude and
simple security is that which constitutes the unique characteristic aspect of
it. From another point of view it is precisely in this type that architecture
finds the greatest opportunity for particularisation, diversion of effect and
variety, without permitting, however, the whole to fall into mere details and
accidental particulars. The imposing character of the art we are considering
restores, on the contrary, this aspect of division and dismemberment in the
original impression of simplicity. It is the substantive being of the whole
which is set in division and dismemberment in an infinite multiplicity
throughout the entire complexus of individual and varied distinctions; but
this unbounded complexity is subdivided in a simple way, is articulated
according to rule, broken into parts symmetrically by the same substance,
which is the motive and constitutive principle throughout in a harmonious
co-ordination which entirely satisfies, and which combines without let or
hindrance the mass of detail in all their length and breadth in securest unity
and most perspicuous independence.

2. PARTICULAR ARCHITECTURAL MODES OF CONFORMATION

If we pass now to a consideration of the particular forms in which romantic
architecture receives its specific character we shall find, as we have already
above noticed, that our entire discussion will be confined to what is genuine
Gothic architecture, and mainly that of the church buildings of
Christendom, in their contrast to the Greek temple.

(a) As fundamental form underlying all the rest, we have here the wholly
shut off dwelling-house.
(α) In other words, just as the Christian spirit withdraws itself within an
ideal realm, the building is the place essentially delimited on all sides for
the congregation of the Christian community and the gathering together of
spiritual life. It is the concentration of essential soul-life which thus
encloses itself in spatial relations. The devotion of the Christian heart,
however, is at the same time and in the same degree an exaltation over
finitude, so that this exaltation, moreover, determines the character of God's
house. Architecture secures thereby as its significance, independently of the
object which renders it necessary as a building, this exaltation to the
Infinite, a significance which it is forced to express through the spatial
relations of architectural forms. The impression, therefore, which art is now
called upon to emphasize is, in one aspect of it, and in contrast to the open
gaiety of the Greek temple, that of the tranquillity of the soul which,
released from external nature and worldly conditions, retires wholly into
self-seclusion; in the other aspect of it it is that impress of a solemn
sublimity, which strains and soars over and beyond all rational limits. If,
therefore, the buildings of classical architecture as a rule offer the expansion
of breadth, we find in contrast to this that the romantic character of
Christian churches asserts itself in the growth upwards from the soil and a
soaring to the skies.
(β) In this oblivion of external Nature and all the diverting occupations and
interests of finite existence, which is to be effected by means of such
seclusion, the open forecourts and colonnades and the like, which are in
direct communication with that world, furthermore and of necessity fall
away, or only receive an entirely modified representation within the interior
of the building. And in like manner the light of the sun is either excluded, or
glimmers in broken rays through windows of painted glass, which, to
prevent total immersion in darkness, are perforce admitted. What humanity
needs here is not the gift of external Nature, but a world created through it
and for it alone, for its devotion and the activity of its soul-life.
(γ) We may fix as the pervading type by which the house of God is
generally and with particular reference to its sections characterized that of
the free rise and running up into pinnacles, whether they be built up by
means of the arch or straight lines. In classical architecture, where we find

columns and piers with superimposed beams is the fundamental form,
rectangularity and the office of support is the feature of importance. For the
construction superimposed at right angles marks in a definite way that it is
supported. And even though the beams do in their turn carry the roofing, the
surfaces of this latter portion incline to one another in an obtuse angle. In
such a construction we find no trace of a genuine tendency to points and a
soaring up: we find simply repose and support. In the same way, too, a
circular arch, which extends in a continuous and equally gradated incline
from one column to another, and is referable to one and the same centre,
rests on its substructure of support. In romantic architecture, however, we
no longer find the relation of support simply and rectangularity the
fundamental form, but rather we have before us the fact that all that is
enclosed either on its interior or exterior side independently springs upward,
and, without the secure and express distinction between the relationship of
weight and support, concentrates in a point. This pre-eminently free striving
upwards and tendency to inclines that run to culminating points is what
constitutes here the essential determinant, by virtue of which either acute-
angled triangles with a more slender or broader base or pointed arches
appear, both of which aspects stand out most obviously in the
characterization of Gothic architecture.
(b) Moreover, the obligations of spiritual devotion and exaltation, regarded
as a cultus, bring before us a variety of definite conditions and features
which cannot be fully met on the exterior of the building in the open halls
or forecourts of a temple, but can only be satisfied within the house of God
itself. If, therefore, in the case of the temple of classical architecture it is the
external form which is of most importance, and we find it remaining by
means of the colonnades more independent of the interior construction,
romantic architecture presents a contrast to this not merely in the fact that
the interior of the building is more essentially important, for the reason that
the whole purports to be simply an enclosure, but also in this, that the
interior permeates the very form of the exterior throughout, and determines
its specific shape and mode of articulation.
In this connection we will, in order to examine the matter more closely, first
make an entrance into the interior, and working outwards therefrom
endeavour to elucidate the exterior.

(α) The definition I have already adduced as best describing the interior of
the church is that of a certain place set apart and enclosed in all its aspects,
whether it be in opposition to the inclemency of the weather or the
distractions of the outer world, for the community and its spiritual worship.
The space of the interior is consequently an enclosure in the completest
sense, whereas Greek temples, apart from the presence of open passages
and halls in the environment, not unfrequently possessed open cells.
Inasmuch as, moreover, Christian worship is an exaltation of the soul above
the limitations of natural existence and a reconciliation of the individual
with God, we find in this fact a mediation of points of view which are
separably distinct in one and the same essentially concrete unity. At the
same time romantic architecture receives the function in the form and co-
ordination of its building to make the above content of spiritual life, to
enclose which is the prime object of its construction, so far as this is
architecturally feasible, shine through and determine the actual shape both
of the exterior and the interior. The following points will assist our
understanding of the nature of this problem.
(αα) The space of the interior will have to be no abstractly undifferentiated
and empty one, which possesses no essentially defined features or links that
relate them respectively. It must have a concrete form, one, that is, which
presents differences in respect to all the mutual relations of length, breadth,
height, and the mode of such dimensions. The form of the circle, the square,
the oblong, with the equality of enclosing walls and roofing which is
necessary to these figures, will not be suitable here. The movement,
severation, and mediation of soul-life in its exaltation from that which is of
earth to that which is eternal, to the far-off and the more lofty, would fail to
find apt expression in this bare equality of a square figure.
(ββ) It is only a corollary to this that in the Gothic style the substantial
purport of the house, both in respect of its enclosing form of sidewalls and
roof, and in that of its columns and beams relatively to the configuration of
the whole and its parts, becomes a matter of subordinate importance. And
with this disappears, on the one hand, as we have already noticed, the strict
distinction between burden and support, as on the other we find no longer
rectangularity is emphasized as essential to the building's purpose. Recourse
is made once more to an analogous form of Nature, namely, one that
prefigures a solemn place of assemblage and enclosure which freely soars

upwards. If we step into the interior of a cathedral of the Middle Ages we
have brought before us not so much the stability and mechanical purpose of
supporting piers and a vault that rests upon it. We are rather reminded of the
arches of a forest, whose rows of trees incline with their branches to one
another and form an enclosure by this means. A cross-beam requires a
secure centre of gravity and the horizontal position. In Gothic architecture,
however, the walls mount up freely and independently, and in the same way
the piers, which then expand above in several directions apart from one
another, and coalesce as though by accident. In other words their function,
to support the vaulting, is, although the same in truth reposes on the piers,
not expressly emphasized and independently set forth[105]. The effect is as
though they did not carry such, just as in the tree the branches do not appear
as though supported by the stem, but rather in their airy incurvation as a
continuation of the stem, and with the branches of other trees, form a roof
of leaves. A roofing of this kind, which is thus fixed upon as the cover of
the life of Spirit, this awful environment, which invites us to contemplation,
it is which the cathedral presents us, in so far as the walls and among them
the forest of piers freely coalesce in their summits. But for all that we do
not actually assert that Gothic architecture has accepted trees and woods for
the actual exemplar of its forms.
While the sharpening to a point offers us generally the basic type in Gothic
we find in the interior of churches this tendency take the more specialized
shape of the pointed arch. By this means the columns in particular receive
an entirely fresh significance and appearance.
The broad Gothic churches require a roofing to close them in, a roofing
which on account of the breadth is a severe burden and renders support
unavoidable. Here, therefore, the columns appear to be in their right place.
For the reason, however, that the straining upwards is precisely that which
converts support into the appearance of free soaring-up columns are unable
to be employed here with the significance they possess in classical
architecture. They become, on the contrary, piers which, in lieu of the cross-
beam, carry arches in a manner whereby they appear as simply a
continuation of the pier and coalesce together without definite object in a
point. We may, no doubt, conceive the unavoidable termination of two piers
that stand apart from one another as analogous to a gut-roof that rests on
corner posts; but taking into consideration the surfaces at the sides,

although they, too, are planted on piers in entirely obtuse angles, and incline
to one another in an acute angle, we find in the latter case none the less the
conception on the one hand of burden, and on the other of support. The
pointed arch, on the contrary, which apparently in the first instance mounts
up in a straight line, and only by imperceptible and slower degrees leans
forward in order to incline to the opposite side, presents for the first time
the complete idea as though it was just nothing but the continuation of the
pier itself, which forms an arch with another. Piers and vaulting appear, in
their contrast to columns and the beam, as one and the same image,
although the arches rest upon the capitals from which they spring. The
capitals, too, in specific cases, such as occur in Netherland churches, keep
away altogether, and by this means the inseparable unity above-mentioned
is made expressly visible to the eye.
Moreover, on account of the fact that this striving upwards is declared as
the fundamental character, the height of the piers exceeds that of the breadth
of their base in a proportion that we cannot calculate at sight. The piers are
thin, slender, and soar up so high the sight is unable to take in the entire
form at a glance, and is compelled to rove about in its upward flight until it
attains repose at last in the gently inclined vaulting of the uniting arch,
much as the soul moving with restlessness in its devotion from the ground
of finitude uplifts itself and finds rest in God alone.
The final point of distinction between piers and columns consists in this,
that the piers which are distinctively Gothic, and, where they are elaborated
in their specific character, do not, as columns do, remain in the circular
form, essentially secure in that, and one and the same cylinder, but to begin
with at their base in a reed-like way constitute a convolute, a bundle of
fibres, which break into varied distinction as the pier mounts and radiate
forth on all sides under various modes of continuation. And, while we find
already in classical architecture that the column represents an advance from
that which is merely subject to laws of gravity, from the solid and simple to
that which is more slender and more adorned, so, too, we find much the
same change visible in the pier, which, in this more slender upgrowth, ever
withdraws itself more from the mere service of support, and freely soars
upward albeit shut in at its summit.
The same form of piers and pointed arches is repeated in windows and
doors. More particularly the windows, not merely the lower ones of the side

aisles, but also in a still higher degree, the upper ones of the transepts and
choir, are of colossal size in order that the glance, which rests upon their
lower portion, may not at once take in the upper part as well and may be
uplifted as in the case of the vaultings. This adds to the restless motion of
the upward flight which it is intended to communicate to the spectator. Add
to this the window panes, as we have already remarked, are with their
coloured glass only partially transparent. Sometimes they present sacred
histories and sometimes they are merely panes of varied colour with the
object of increasing the twilight effect and permitting the light of the wax
candles to shine forth. For in these buildings it is another daylight than that
of Nature which illumines.
(γγ) Finally, as regards the entire articulation of the interior of Gothic
churches we have already seen that it is imperative that the particular parts
of such should be differentiated in their breadth, height, and length. The
primary distinction to consider in this respect is that of choir, transept, and
nave from the encircling aisles. These latter are constructed on the sides
external to the fabric by means of walls which enclose it, and from which
piers and arches are carried, and in their separation from the interior by
means of piers and pointed arches, which present openings toward the nave,
having no partition walls between. They receive therefore the converse
aspect to that of the colonnades in Greek temples, which are open on the
outside and are enclosed towards the interior, whereas the aisles in Gothic
churches permit free passage between the piers to the nave. In certain
examples we find two such aisles in juxtaposition; in fact, Antwerp
cathedral is an example which possesses three of them at either side of the
nave.
The nave itself soars up by means of enclosing walls on either side, at
different degrees of elevation, according to various modes of disposition,
above the aisles, broken by colossal windows in such a way that the walls
themselves at the same time have the appearance of being slender piers,
which everywhere separate in pointed arches and build up vaultings. There
are, however, churches in which the side aisles have the same height as the
nave, as, for example, in the later choirs of the Sebaldus Church in
Nuremberg, which offers the impression of an imposing, free, and
capacious type of slenderness and delicacy. In this way the whole is divided
by means of rows of piers, which are brought together at their summits like

a forest in flights of branching arches. Attempts have been made to discover
in the number of these piers, and generally in the relations of number much
mystical significance. There can be no question but that at the period of the
finest efflorescence of Gothic architecture, that, for example, of Cologne
Cathedral, a great significance was attached to the symbols of number, the
as yet more gloomy presentiment of what is rational falling in readily with
an insistence on external traits of this kind. But despite this fact the artistic
productions of architecture, which are carried through by means of that
which is always to a greater or less degree merely the capricious play of a
symbolism of subordinate rank, is neither of the profoundest significance,
nor of the most exalted form of beauty, for the reason that the genuine spirit
of these is expressed in entirely different forms and modes than those
applicable to the significance of numeral distinctions. We must therefore be
especially cautious not to carry such investigations too far. To attempt to go
to the root of everything and in every direction to desire to discover a
deeper meaning will tend quite as much to contract our horizon and destroy
our thoroughness of search as is common with all short-sighted learning
which passes over the depth which is clearly expressed and presented
without grasping it. In respect to the more detailed distinction between
choir and nave, I will in conclusion emphasize the following points. The
high-altar, this real centre of the ritual, is placed in the choir, which is thus
dedicated as the place for the priesthood as distinct from the community,
whose proper place is that of the nave, where we find the pulpit for the
preacher. A flight of steps, which varies in its height, conducts us to the
choir, so that this latter section and all that takes place in it is visible
everywhere. In the same way this choir section is relatively to decoration
more ornate, and, moreover, in its distinction from the more prolonged
nave, even where the vaultings in both cases are of equal height, is more
serious, solemn, and sublime. Above all we find here that the entire building
is finally enclosed with piers of greater thickness and more closely, by
means of which the breadth tends to disappear, and the entire effect is one
of greater stillness and height, whereas the transepts and the nave through
their towers still provide with their means of entrance and exit a connection
with the outside world. According to the points of the compass the choir is
placed to the east, the nave lies in a westerly direction, and the transepts
stand towards the north and south. We find, however, churches with a
double choir, in which the two choirs lie respectively in the direction of

morning and evening and the main entrances are placed in the transepts.
The stone font for baptism, that is, for the sanctification of human entry into
the Christian community, is placed in a porch by the main entrance into the
church. And, finally, we may note that, while the more express worship is
provided for by the entire building, and notably the choir and nave, there
are also small chapels which form in each case a fresh and independent
church.
This must suffice as a description of the articulate structure of the whole. In
a cathedral of this type there is space enough for an entire people. For here
it is the intention that the community of a city and district do not congregate
round the building, but within the same. And for this reason all the varied
interests of life which in any way come into contact with religion have, too,
a place assigned them. No fixed divisions of seats placed in rows divide and
diminish the broad space, but everyone comes and departs in peace,
engages for himself or takes a seat for immediate use, kneels down, offers
his prayer and removes himself once more. If it is not the hour of high mass
the most various things take place at the same time, and there is no
confusion. In one portion a sermon is delivered, in another a sick man is
brought in; between these points we may find a slow procession; at one
spot, we have a baptism, at another a deceased person is carried through the
church. Or we may find in one place a priest delivering mass or celebrating
the marriage services and in every direction the people in broken groups
kneel before altars and sacred images. All such things are embraced by one
and the same building. But this very variety and individualization
disappears, nevertheless, with its alternations when contrasted with the
expanse and size of the building. Nothing completely fills up the whole,
every incident passes by; individuals with all that they do are lost and
dispersed as points in this grandiose whole. What happens at a given time is
merely visible in its passing flight, and over and above all the huge and
almost measureless spaces soar up in their secure and immutable form and
construction.
Such, then, are the fundamental characteristics of the interior of Gothic
churches. We must not look here for any definite purpose as such, but rather
an object for the private devotion of the soul in its self-absorption in every
detail of the spiritual life[106], and its elevation over all that is isolated and
finite. For this reason these buildings are cut off from Nature by spaces

enclosed on all sides, built up in the atmosphere of gloom and at the same
time to the smallest detail in a spirit that strives upwards sublime and
immeasurable.
(β) If we direct our attention now to the external aspect we shall find, as we
have already above observed, that in contrast to the Greek temple the
exterior configuration in Gothic architecture, the decoration and co-
ordination of the walls and all else is determined from within outwards, the
exterior having to appear simply as an enclosure of the interior.
In this connection we have good reason to emphasize the following points:
(αα) In the first place in the form of the cross which we find dominates the
whole exterior we cannot fail to recognize in outline a similar construction
as that which obtains within, a form which cuts, the nave and choir in two,
and supplies, moreover, the distinctions of height which obtain between the
aisles, the nave and choir.
On closer inspection we find that the principal façade, as the external form
of the aisles and nave, corresponds in the portals to the particular
construction within. A more lofty principal door, by which we pass direct
into the nave, stands between the smaller entrances into the aisles, and
suggests by means of the contraction in perspective that the exterior must
draw together, grow more narrow, and disappear in order than an entrance
may be thereby provided. The interior is the background already visible,
into the depths of which the exterior is carried, just as the soul is
constrained to grow more profound as ideality when it enters its own
intrinsic wealth. Over the doors at the sides extend in the most direct
connection with the interior colossal windows, just as the portals rise up to
similar pointed arches, in a way similar to that in which they are employed
as the particular form for the vaultings of the interior. Between these doors
over the principal portal a large circular window branches out, the rose-
window, a form which is, we may add, the exclusive and peculiar
possession of this type of building, and only fitted to it. Where such rose-
windows are absent we find substituted for them a still more colossal
window with pointed arches. The façades of the transepts are divided in a
similar way while the walls of the nave, the choir, and the aisles in their
windows and their form, no less than in the position of the solid walls

between, repeat in all respects the form of the interior and set the same forth
on the outside.
(ββ) In the second place, however, the exterior begins to make itself at the
same time intelligible to itself[107] in this close association with the form
and subdivision of the interior for the very reason that it has its own
peculiar tasks to fulfil. In this connection we may mention the flying
buttresses. They represent the position of the many piers within the building
and are necessary as points of support for the elevation and security of the
whole. At the same time they further make apparent on the outside, so far as
interval, number, and other features are concerned, the rows of piers on the
inside, albeit they do not exactly reproduce the shape of the interior piers,
but the higher they mount up become reduced in the strength of their
springing buttresses.
(γγ) Inasmuch as, however, in the third place, it is only the interior which
has to be one essentially complete enclosure, this feature is lost in the form
of the exterior and makes way in every respect for the all-prevailing
characteristics of continuous elevation. And for this reason the exterior
receives at the same time a form independent of the interior, which asserts
itself mainly in a tendency to strive upwards on all sides into points and
pinnacles, breaking out in them one on the top of another. To this
fundamental feature belong the lofty uplifted triangles which, independently
of the pointed arches, soar upwards over the portals, pre-eminently the
principal façade, though also over the colossal windows of the nave and
choir, and in a similar way the slenderly pointed shape of the roof, whose
gable-end is especially prominent in the façades of the transepts. Add to
these the flying buttresses, which everywhere terminate in little pointed
pinnacles, and in this way, just as the rows of piers within the building
create a forest of stems, branches, and vaultings, on their part on the
exterior stretch up heavenwards a forest of points.
With most independence and most emphatically, however, it is the towers
which rise upwards in their sublime summits. In other words we find that
the entire mass of the building concentrates among other things itself in
them, in order that thus in its main towers it may be without hindrance
uplifted to an incalculable height without thereby losing its character of
repose and stability. Such towers are either placed in the principal façade
over the two side entrances, while a third and broader main tower springs

up at the point where the vaulting of the transepts, choir, and nave meet, or
one single tower constitutes the principal façade and is raised above the
entire breadth of the nave. Such are at any rate the positions which are most
usual. In direct connection with the worship such towers have belfries, that
is, to the extent that the ringing of bells properly applies to Christian
services. This merely indefinite tone of the bell is a solemn stimulus of the
soul-life, though in the first instance one that as yet prepares the worshipper
only on the outside of the building. The articulate tone, on the other hand,
wherein a definite content of feelings and ideas is expressed, is the song
which is only to be heard within the church. The inarticulate clang of the
bell finds its right place on the outside and only there and is sounded forth
from the towers that its peal may pass forth as from some pure height far
over the land.
(c) As to the mode of decoration I have already pointed to the main features
of determinate character.
(α) The first point we have to emphasize is the importance of ornament
generally for Gothic architecture. Classical architecture preserves as a rule a
wise mean in the adornment of its constructions. Inasmuch as, however, it is
the main interest of Gothic architecture to make the masses which it places
in position appear larger and considerably more lofty than they in fact are it
is not satisfied with plain surfaces, but subdivides the same throughout; and,
moreover, breaks them up with forms which themselves suggest on their
part a striving upwards. Piers, pointed arches, and triangles, which rise
above them with their pinnacles, occur, too, as decorative work. In this way
we find that the simple unity of the great masses is impaired, and the
elaboration is carried to the point of every conceivable detail, leaving the
entire effect, however, involved in the most flagrant contradiction. On the
one hand we cannot fail to observe the most obvious outlines in a clearly
defined co-ordination, on the other we have fulness and variety of delicate
embellishment impossible to follow with the eye, so that the most motley
particularity is directly set up in contrast to what is most universal and
simple, just as the soul, in the opposition implied in Christian worship, is
deeply engaged in finite things, and indeed carries its life into the mere
detail and the trifle. This very opposition acts as a stimulus to
contemplation, this striving up invites to a like action. For what is of
paramount importance in this style of decoration is this that it do not, by the

mass and alternation of its ornament, destroy or cover up the fundamental
outlines, but rather suffer them completely to make their way through such
variety as the essential feature of importance. Only when it can do this, and
I speak in particular of Gothic buildings, is the solemnity of their imposing
seriousness kept intact. Just as religious devotion has to permeate all
particular experiences of soul-life, the life-conditions of every type of
humanity, has further to engrave indelibly on the heart its universal and
incommutable ideas, so in the same way the simple and fundamental
architectural features should have strength sufficient to recall the most
varied articulation, diversity and embellishment of the structure once more
within the fundamental impression of those outlines and wholly thus absorb
them.
(β) A further aspect in decorative work is bound up in the same way with
the romantic type of art in general. The romantic has on the one hand for its
principle Ideality, the return of the Ideal to itself. On the other the Ideal has
to re-appear in that which is external, and then withdraw itself into itself
from the same. In architecture it is the sensuous, material mass in relations
of Space, in which the most Ideal essence itself is, so far as that is possible,
to be presented in visible shape. With a material such as this to deal with
there is no other alternative possible than that of not suffering this material
to assert itself with power in its materiality, but to break up and dismember
its masses in every direction, and to wrest from the same the appearance of
its immediate coherence and self-subsistency. In this connection the
ornamentation, more particularly that of the exterior, which has not to
display the fact of enclosure as such, assumes the character of a net-
work[108] carried in every direction, or rather interwoven over the surfaces;
and we have no example of an architecture which, taking into account the
enormous and heavily weighted masses of its stone and their secure
coherence, nevertheless has preserved to such a complete extent the
character of lightness and delicacy.
(γ) We have only further and thirdly to remark with reference to such
embellishments that in addition to pointed arches, piers, and circles, the
forms once more call to mind those of the real organic world. The fretwork
and working out of the mass already carries a suggestion of this. Regarded
in more detail, however, we actually find leaves, rosettes of flowers, and, in
entwining work of an arabesque character, human figures and those of

animals partly realistically and partly fantastically linked together; the
romantic imagination, in short, even in architecture, displays its wealth of
imaginative creation, and its power to unite in unexpected ways
heterogeneous elements, although from another point of view, at any rate
during the period of the purest type of Gothic architecture, even in the
matter of ornament, as, for example, in the pointed arches of the windows,
we may observe a decisive return to simple forms.

3. DIFFERENT TYPES OF BUILDING IN ROMANTIC ARCHITECTURE

The last point on which I have a few observations to make is that of the
principal types followed by romantic architecture in its course of
development at different periods. I must, however, add the premise that in
this work no attempt can be made to supply a history of this branch of the
art.
(a) We must wholly distinguish from Gothic architecture, such as I have
above described it, the so-called pre-Gothic, whose development originated
in Roman architecture. The most ancient form of Christian churches is that
of the basilica. These originated out of the public buildings of the Empire,
huge oblong halls, with the frame-work of their roofing of wood, such as
Constantine placed at the disposal of Christians. In buildings such as these
there was a tribune, on which, during congregational religious services
conducted by priests, there was singing and an address delivered, or merely
reading aloud. The conception of the choir may have originated with this. In
the same way Christian architecture accepted other of its forms such as the
use of columns with circular arches, the rotunda and the modes of classical
embellishment throughout, more particularly in the western Roman Empire,
while in the eastern section it appears to have remained constant to this type
until the time of Justinian. Even buildings erected by the Ostrogoths and
Lombards in Italy retained essentially the fundamental Roman type. In the
more recent architecture, however, of the Byzantine Empire several
modifications made their appearance. A rotunda supported on four great
piers forms the centre, to which different constructions were attached to
meet the particular objects of Greek as distinct from the Roman ritual. We
must not, however, confuse this genuine architecture of the Byzantine
Empire with that which, in its general relation to architectural types, goes

by the name of Byzantine, and which was employed in Italy, France,
England, Germany, and other places up to the close of the twelfth century.
(b) In the thirteenth century was evolved the Gothic architecture in the
distinctive form whose main characteristics I have above described in
detail. It is nowadays denied that it is the work of Gothic architects, and the
name given it is that of Deutsch or German architecture. We may, however,
retain the more customary and ancient nomenclature. In other words we
find in Spain very ancient indications of this type of construction, which
suggest an association with historical circumstances under which Gothic
kings, forced back into the mountains of Asturia and Galicia, retained their
independence in such localities. Under such conditions, no doubt, a close
affiliation of Gothic and Arab architecture appears probable, yet both may
be essentially distinguished. For the characteristic trait of Arab architecture
in the Middle Ages is not the pointed arch, but the so-called horseshoe
form. Moreover, these buildings, which are constructed for an entirely
different ritual, exhibit an Oriental wealth and splendour, embellishments
resembling plant-life and other forms of decoration, which, in an external
form, mix together what is of Roman ancestry and that which belongs to the
Middle Ages.
(c) On parallel lines with this evolution of religious architecture we find,
too, the course of civil construction, which from its particular point of view
imitates and modifies the character of ecclesiastical buildings. In an
architecture directed to the uses of citizen life, however, art has less
opportunity for display inasmuch as here objects of more restricted
character, combined with a great variety of requirements, are more strict in
the range of satisfaction presented, and do not suffer beauty to pass beyond
mere decoration. Except for the general harmonious disposition of its forms
and masses, art is in the main merely able to assert itself in the
embellishment of façades, staircases, windows, doors, gables, towers, and
the like, and has to do this throughout subject to the condition that the
practical purpose of the building is what finally determines everything. In
the Middle Ages it is pre-eminently the tower-like form of secure dwellings,
which is the fundamental type of structure not merely for particular
declivities and summits but also within the towns, where every palace,
every private dwelling, as in Italy for example, received the form of a small
fortification or keep. Walls, doors, towers, bridges and the like are executed

as necessity dictates, and are decorated and embellished by art. Stability and
security coupled with a grandiose type of splendour and a vital individuality
of single forms and their connecting links constitute the determining
factors, to enter into the detail of which would carry us beyond our present
purpose. By way of supplement we may in conclusion briefly allude to the
art of gardening, which does not only create under a wholly novel form an
environment for spirit, we may call it a second exterior Nature, but draws
the landscape of Nature itself within the operation of its constructive
purpose and treats the same architectonically as an environment of
buildings. I will only take as an example of what I mean the famous and
exceedingly imposing terrace of Sans-souci.
In our examination of the genuine art of gardening it is most important to
distinguish the painter's point of view of it from that of the architect. All
that pertains to mere park construction, for instance, is not truly
architectonic, no building, that is, with freely disposed natural objects, but
an artist's portrayal[109], which leaves the objects in their natural form and
aims at imitating wide Nature in its freedom. Everything is here suggested
in turn, which finds its glad place in a landscape—whether rocks and the
huge rough masses which are their substance, or dales, woods, pastures,
meandering brooks, broad streams with their animated banks, still lakes,
wreathed round with trees, rushing waterfalls, and everything else of the
kind, and is brought together with one total effect. In this way the gardening
art of the Chinese embraces entire landscapes together with their islands,
rivers, expanding views, and rockeries.
In a park of this kind, particularly in modern examples of such, everything
is, on the one hand, intended to hold intact the freedom of Nature, while, on
the other, it is artificially elaborated and constructed and conditioned by the
locality where it is situated. This involves a contradiction which is never
satisfactorily disposed of. In this respect, for the most part, it is impossible
to instance an example of worse taste than such an attempt to make visible
in all directions a studied purpose in that which is without purpose, and to
force that which refuses to be compelled. Add to this the fact that here the
genuine character of what is strictly a garden disappears, in so far, that is, as
a garden is primarily adapted for strolling about in at pleasure and
conversation within a certain place, which is no longer simply Nature, but a
Nature remodelled by man to meet his desire for an environment created by

himself. A huge park, on the contrary, particularly if it be garnished with
Chinese temples, Turkish mosques, Swiss châlets, bridges, hermitages, and
any other conceivable foreign importation, makes an independent claim on
our interest as spectator. It offers an independent pretension of being and
signifying something. A charm of this sort disappears as soon as it arises;
we do not care to see it twice, for an addition like this spreads before our
sight no suggestion of infinity, nothing that possesses a really existent
vitality[110], and is further only wearisome and tedious for conversation as
we pass through it.
A garden, strictly speaking, should be only a cheerful environment and
simply an environment, which will not pass for something independently
valid and withdraw men from their own life and concerns. It is here that
architecture, with its scientific lines, order, regularity, and symmetry, is in
its proper place and co-ordinates natural objects themselves
architectonically. The art of the Mongols on the other side of the great wall,
in Tibet, the paradise of the Persians, already adapt themselves more closely
to this type. They are no parks in the English sense, but halls with flowers,
springs, courts, and palaces, which have in the form of a retreat in Nature
been arranged on a splendid, grandiose, and extravagant scale for the needs
of mankind and their convenience. But we find the architectural principle
most thoroughly carried out in the French art of gardening, which, as a rule,
borders upon great palaces, plants trees in the strictest conformity of line in
long avenues, prunes them, builds up straight walls from trimmed fences,
and in this way converts Nature herself into a broad dwelling beneath the
open sky.

[34] Simply as a physical object.
[35] That of symbolic architecture.
[36] Als Momente eines Subjektes. That is as the constituent parts of the mind of
one individual.
[37] Herod. I, c. 181.
[38] I, c. 98.
[39] I, p. 469.
[40] As in obelisks, Memnons, etc.
[41] II, c. 162.
[42] c. 106.

[43] Symb. (2nd ed.), p. 469. The solar city of Heliopolis.
[44] XXXVI, 14, and XXXVII, 8.
[45] Creutzer I, p. 778.
[46] "History of Architecture," vol. I, p. 69.
[47] Wandungen. I presume this refers to every kind of subdivision no less than
boundary walls.
[48] Pracktgewänden. Presumably this refers to the isolated structures in which
the columns are built—having flat surfaces like walls.
[49] Balken. The word would suggest perhaps that Hegel means here beams of
any kind.
[50] II, c. 155.
[51] Her. II, c. 108.
[52] Herodotus dwells on this in the above passage.
[53] II, c. 148.
[54] Commentators of Herodotus point out that we have no direct evidence here
of their number, which, comparing this with Strabo's account, is doubtful, and
still more so the number of the chambers (οἱκήματα). Strabo says there were
twenty-seven courts. The connection between the halls was not an architectural
one but by means of the chambers and colonnades (παστάδες). See Blakesley's
notes, vol. I, pp. 279-80. Neither from Herodotus nor Hegel is it very easy to
form a clear notion of the building.
[55] "History of Ancient Building," vol. I, p. 75.
[56] XXXVI, 19.
[57] Ein Individuelles. Lit., An individual entity.
[58] The relative pronoun refers to the separation of both aspects.
[59] II, c. 126-7.
[60] Her. II, c. 125.
[61] Geschichte der Baukunst der Alten, I, S. 55.
[62] Symbolical significance.
[63] Wolff's and Buttmann's Mus., B. I, p. 536.
[64] Hegel uses the coined word osirirt I presume in this sense.
[65] Abstraction. Abstract in the sense of possessing no ideal complexity.
[66] Verständig. Comes under the categories of the Understanding.
[67] Lit., "Find the element that is congenial."
[68] That is, the principle of geometrical design and that of organic structure.
[69] That is the beauty and the ulterior aim of utility.
[70] Verständig. See note above.
[71] The sphere of mechanical gravity.

[72] I presume Aufwande means expense here; it would be more reasonable
perhaps to say "waste of room," columns being only too often so much more
expensive for their size.
[73] That is, the free treatment of line under scientific forms of abstraction rather
than limited to specific modes of organic form in Nature.
[74] Der Verständigen Gesetzmässigkeit. The principle of scientific architecture.
[75] Immediate imitation, that is.
[76] Of classical art.
[77] Symbol des Innern.
[78] That is, apart from the classical type.
[79] That is, the scientific reason of abstract principle or rule.
[80] Weil beim Oblongum in der Gleichheit und Ungleichheit ist. That is, more
pleasure is derived from contrast than mere similarity. He then qualifies or
explains the general principle.
[81] Eurhythmie, that is, eurhythmy or a rhythmic movement between the several
parts.
[82] I presume this is the meaning of die Theorie here. That is the purposeful
motive of the architectural skeleton of the fabric—what explains it rationally.
[83] Schiebens. It is possible that Hegel uses the word in its primary sense of
"shifting."
[84] The idea is slightly confused in the course of the sentence. It is not the
necessity (des Bedürfnisses) to build a stable house which has to be held in
position, etc., but the structure which that necessity forces men to construct in a
certain way.
[85] Ihre eigenen Momente. "Its unique traits" is possibly adequate here.
[86] Hegel probably has in his mind when using the expression verständig
bestimmte the close analogy between the self-exclusive concreteness of reason
and the completeness of the circular figure.
[87] It is not quite clear what Hegel means by the Köpfen der Deckenbalken. The
technical word that corresponds to Deckenbalken is "joists"; here, according to
the words that follow, it would appear to mean either the last horizontal line of
the architrave or the entire growth of the triglyph. As he uses the word
Zwischenraümen after we appear to be driven on the latter alternative. The
frieze, of course, was the entire space between cornice and architrave, including
both triglyphs and metopes.
[88] Called femora. They were divided by two gutters or drills. The triglyph
slightly projected and united perpendicularly cornice and architrave.
[89] Die Baukunst nach den Grunds. der Alten, Berlin, 1808, S. III.
[90] He means that the distinct functions are not assigned to those features of the
building to which they are naturally or most essentially related.
[91] Hirt, Geschichte der Baukunst, III, S. 14-18, and II, S. 151.

[92] He refers to the columns placed round.
[93] Gesch. d. Bauk. I, S. 251.
[94] By sebstständig Hegel means apparently that there must be nothing in their
external form that would divert attention from their essential character.
[95] Auf dem Unterbau. I presume this means generally that portion beneath the
ground.
[96] I presume what is meant is that in one case the drills or grooves are
hollowed in round shape and towards the base in square shape.
[97] What is precisely meant by the expression durch prismatische Einschnitte I
frankly do not know. The expression Balken is evidently used to mark the
association between the slabs of stone and beams or rafters.
[98] That is, the spaces between the lower part of the cornice and the uppermost
slab of the entablature.
[99] The coussinet is that part of the Ionic capital between the abacus and quarter
round, which serves to form the volute. There are four volutes or spiral scrolls in
the Ionic capital.
[100] The mutule is the projecting block worked under the corona of the Doric
cornice.
[101] Hirt, Gesch. der Baukunst, I, S. 254.
[102] This must, I think, refer to the main moulding of the architrave
immediately resting on the column.
[103] Seneca, Ep. 90.
[104] Lit., "Is raised to infinitude."
[105] As it is, for example, by Greek capitals.
[106] Lit., "In its penetration into the most spiritual (innerste, ideal)
particularity."
[107] Sich verselbstständigen. Hegel means that the main purpose of the exterior
is expressed on the face of it.
[108] I presume the word Durchbrechen is here used in its specific architectural
sense.
[109] Ein Malen.
[110] Keine in sich seyende Seele. I presume Hegel means that being an artificial
fragment of Nature's landscape it lacks the infinite horizon and the living relation
to the whole.

SUBSECTION II

SCULPTURE

INTRODUCTION

Over against the inorganic nature of Spirit, in the form we find given it by
art in architecture, Spirit opposes itself directly in the sense that the work of
art receives and displays spirituality as its actual content. The necessity of
this advance we have already adverted to. It underlies the notion of Mind,
which differentiates itself under the twofold aspect of subjective self-
substantive[111] existence and pure objectivity. In this latter form of
externality the ideal substance, it is true, makes its appearance by virtue of
the architectonic treatment; such, however, does not amount to a complete
transfusion of the objective material, or a conversion of it into an entirely
adequate expression of Spirit (Mind), such as suffers it, and only it, to
appear. Consequently art withdraws itself from the inorganic realm, which
architecture, under its yoke of the laws of gravity, has striven to bring
nearer as a means of Spirit's expression, to that of the Ideal, which forthwith
then independently asserts itself in its more lofty truth without this
intermingling with what is inorganic. It is during this, return passage of
Spirit to its own native realm[112] from out of the world of masses and
material substance that we come across sculpture.
The first stage, however, in this new sphere is, as yet, no withdrawal of
mind into the completely ideal world of subjective consciousness[113], so
that the representation of what is of Spirit would require what is itself a
purely ideal mode of expression. Rather Spirit grasps itself, in the first
instance, only in so far as it is still expressed in bodily shape, and therein
possesses its homogeneous and determinate existence. The art which
accepts for its content this attitude to the possessions of Spirit will
consequently have, as its due function, to clothe spiritual individuality as a
manifestation under material conditions, and we may add, in what is
actually material to the senses. For discourse and speech are also
indications[114] which Spirit assumes under the form of externality, but they
belong to a mode of objectivity, which, instead of possessing the attributes
we attach to matter in its immediate and concrete sense, is merely as tone,
motion, the undulation of an entire body and the rarified element, the
atmosphere, a communication of such Spirit. What I call immediate
corporeality, on the contrary, is the spatial mode of material substance such
as stone, wood, metal, or clay, wholly spatial in all three dimensions. The

form, however, which is adequate to Spirit is, as we have already seen, the
unique bodily form which belongs to it; and it is through this that sculpture
makes what is of Spirit actual in a whole which is subject to the spatial
condition.
From this point of view sculpture stands on the same plane as
architecture[115] to the extent, namely, that it gives form to the sensuous
material as such, or what is material according its spatial condition as
matter. It is, however, to a like extent distinguishable from architecture by
virtue of the fact that it does not work up the inorganic substance, as the
opposite of Spirit, into an environment created by Spirit and endowed with
its purpose in forms to which a purpose is attached which is exterior to it;
rather it sets before us spirituality itself in the bodily shape which, from the
standpoint of the notion, is adequate to Spirit and its individuality. In other
words its efficient function and independent self-subsistency brings
indivisibly before our sight both aspects, body and spirit, as one whole. The
configuration of sculpture, therefore, breaks away from the specific
function of architecture, which is to serve Spirit merely as an external
Nature and environment, and assumes a really independent position.
Despite, however, this separation the image of sculpture remains in
essential relation to its environment. A statue or group, and yet more a
relief, cannot be made without considering the place in which such a work
of art is to be situated. One ought not first to complete a work of sculpture
and then consider where it is likely to be put, but it should in the very
conception of it be associated with a definite exterior world, and its spatial
form and local position. In this respect sculpture retains a specific relation
to the architectural aspect of space. For the primary object of statues is that
of being temple images and being set up in the shrine of the sanctuary, just
as in Christian churches painting supplies images for the altar, and Gothic
architecture also attests a similar connection between works of sculpture
and their local position. Temples and churches, however, are not the only
place for statues, groups of statuary and reliefs. In a similar way halls,
staircases, gardens, public squares, doors, single columns and arches of
triumph receive an animation from the forms of sculpture; and every statue,
even though placed in dissociation from such a wider environment, requires
a pedestal of its own to mark its local position and base. And here we must
conclude what we have to say as to the association of sculpture with or
distinction from architecture.

If we further compare sculpture with the other arts we shall find that it is
more especially poetry and painting which will engage our attention. Small
statues no less than groups present to us the spiritual form in complete
bodily shape, man, in short, as he exists. Sculpture therefore appears to
possess the truest means of representing what is spiritual, whereas both
painting and poetry have the contrary appearance of being more remote
from Nature for the reason that painting makes use of the mere surface
instead of the sensuous totality of the spatial condition, which a human
form and all other natural things actually assume; speech, too, to a still less
degree, expresses the reality of body, being merely able to transmit ideas of
the same by means of tone.
However, the truth of the matter is precisely the reverse of this. For
although the image of sculpture appears no doubt to possess from the start
the natural form as it stands, it is just this externality of body and nature
reproduced in gross material which is not the nature of Spirit as such. If we
regard the essential character of it its peculiar existence is that expressed by
means of speech, acts, and affairs which develop its ideal or soul-life, and
disclose its true existence.
In this respect sculpture has to yield the place of honour and pre-eminently
when contrasted with poetry. No doubt clarity of outline[116] is superior in
the plastic arts, in which the bodily presence is placed before our sight, but
poetry too can describe the exterior figure of a man, such as his hair,
forehead, cheeks, size, dress, pose and so forth, though of course not with
the precision and sufficiency of sculpture. What it loses, however, in this
respect is made up by the imagination, which, moreover, does not require
for the mere conception of an object such a fixed and definite outline, and
before everything else brings before us man in his action, with all his
motives, developments of fortune and circumstance, with all his emotions,
discourses, everything that discovers the soul-life or throws light on
external incidents. This sculpture is either wholly unable to do, or only in a
very incomplete way for the reason that it neither can present to us the
individual soul[117] in its particular inward life and passion, nor as poetry a
sequence of expressed results, but only offer us the general characteristics
of individuality, so far as the body expresses such, and whatever happens
together in one particular moment of time, and this too in a state of repose
without the progressive action of real life. In these respects, too, it is

inferior to painting. For the expression of spiritual life receives in painting
an emphatically more defined accuracy and vitality by means of the colour
given to the human face and its light and shadow, not merely in the sense in
which it satisfies generally the material substance of nature, but pre-
eminently in the way it expresses physiognomy and the phenomena of
emotion. It is possible, therefore, at first to entertain the view that sculpture
requires merely for its greater perfection to associate the further advantages
of painting with that itself possesses in the spatial totality, and to regard it as
a mere act of caprice that it has made up its mind to dispense with the
palette of the painter, or, as indicating a poverty and incapacity of its
execution, that it entirely restricts its effort to one aspect of reality, namely,
that of the material form, and withdraws its attention from that, much as the
silhouette and the engraving may be set down as mere makeshifts[118]. We
are, however, not warranted in thus applying such a term as "caprice" to
genuine art. The form such as it is in the object of sculpture, remains in fact
merely an abstract aspect of the concrete human bodily presence. Its
presentments receive no variety from particularized colours and
movements. This is, however, no defect due to accident, but a limitation of
material and manner of presentment itself pre-supposed in the notion of art.
For Art is a product of mind, and we may add of the more exalted and
thoughtful mind. A work of this order claims as its object a content of this
defined character, and consequently implies a mode of artistic realization
which excludes other aspects. We have here a process similar to that
observed in the different sciences where we find, for example, geometry
exclusively adopts space as its object, jurisprudence law, philosophy the
explication of the eternal Idea and its determinate existence and self-
identity in the facts of experience, wherein each of the above mentioned
sciences develops these objects by differentiation out of their differences,
without one of them actually presenting to consciousness in its
completeness that which we are accustomed in ordinary modes of thought
to call concrete real existence.
Art then, as a creative informing activity of spiritual origination, proceeds
step by step, and separates that which in the notion, in the nature of the
thing, albeit not in its determinate existence, is separated. It retains such
stages consequently in their self-exclusive finity, in order to elaborate them
according to their distinct peculiarities. And what contributes to this
notional distinction and exclusive separation in the spatial material

substance, which constitutes the element of the plastic art is corporeality in
its aspect of spatial totality and its abstract configuration, in other words
bodily form simply, and the more detailed particularization of the same
relatively to the variety of its colorization. We find at this first stage the art
of sculpture so placed relatively to the human form, which it treats as a
stereo-metric body, merely, that is, according to form which it possesses in
the three spatial dimensions. The work of art, whose process is in and
through the sensuous material, must no doubt have an existence for
another[119], with which forthwith the particularization commences. The
primary art, however, which is concerned with the human bodily form as an
expression of spiritual life, only proceeds so far in this "being for another"
to the point of its first, or rather the still universal mode of Nature's own
existence, that is to the point of mere visibility and existence in light
generally, without uniting with the same in its presentment the relation of
the latter to darkness, in which that which is visible is particularized in its
own medium[120] and becomes colour. And the art occupying such a
position is that of sculpture. For plastic art, which is unable as poetry to
bring together the totality of the phenomenon in one equal element or world
of idea, inevitably breaks up this totality[121].
For this reason we get on the one hand objectivity, which in so far as it is
not the unique configuration of spirit, stands over against it as inorganic
Nature. It is this relation of bare objectivity which converts architecture into
a mere suggestive symbol, which does not possess its spiritual significance
in itself. The point of extreme contrast to objectivity as such is subjectivity,
that is the soul[122], emotional life in the entire range of all its particular
movements, moods, passions, exterior and interior agitations and actions.
Between these two we are confronted with the spiritual individuality which
no doubt has a definite structure, but which is not as yet deepened to the
extent of the essential ideality of the individual soul; in which, instead of
the full personal singularity, the substantive universality of Spirit and its
objects and characteristic traits is the prevailing factor. In its generality it is
not as yet absolutely withdrawn into its own exclusive domain to the point
of purely spiritual unity; rather it comes before us as this midway point[123]
still hailing from the objective side, that is the side of inorganic Nature, and
consequently even carries as part of itself corporeality, as the particular
form of existence appropriate to spirit, in the body that not merely is its

own, but also discloses it. In this mode of externality, which no longer
remains something simply opposed to what is ideal, spiritual individuality
has now to be displayed, not, however, as living form, that is to say as
corporeality continuously referred back to the point of unity implied in the
singularity of spiritual life, but rather as form set forth and manifested in its
external guise, into the mould of which Spirit has no doubt been poured,
without, however, being from this outward bond of association, made
visible in the sense that it is so when it withdraws into its own essential and
ideal domain[124].
From the above observations the two points to which we have already
drawn attention become more clear, namely, first, that sculpture makes use
of the human form directly, which is the actual existence of spiritual life,
instead of accepting a mode of expression which is symbolical with a view
to promoting the spiritual import of modes of appearance that are merely
suggestive. At the same time, secondly, it is content, as the manifestation of
that mode of subjectivity which does not express emotion and the soul
essentially unparticularized[125], with form and nothing more, where the
focus of subjectivity is dissipated[126]. This is also the reason why sculpture
does not on the one hand present Spirit in action, in a series of movements,
which both possess and testify to one aim nor in undertakings or exploits,
wherein a certain character is made visible, but rather as persisting
throughout in one objective way, and for this reason pre-eminently in the
repose of form, the movement and grouping of which is merely a first and
obvious commencement of action, not, however, in any sense a complete
presentment of the subjective life as agitated by all the conflicts that assail it
whether within or without, or as its development is variously affected in
contact with the external world. Consequently what we also miss in the
figures of sculpture is precisely this revealed focus of the subjective life, the
concentrated expression of soul as soul, namely, the glance of the eye, a fact
upon which we shall have something further to say later. We miss it because
such a figure presents to our sight Spirit embedded in corporeality, and
Spirit, too, which has to show itself visible in the entire form. From another
point of view an individuality, which is not as yet essentially separated into
its component parts, that is, the object of sculpture, does not as yet require
the painter's charm of colour as means to display it, a charm which is as
capable of making visible, through the fine gradations and variety of its

nuances, the entire wealth of particular traits of character, the absolute
manifestation of spiritual presence, its ideal significance[127], as by means
of the vital flash of the eye it will concentrate in a point all the vigour of the
soul. Sculpture must not, in other words, accept a material which is not
rendered necessary by its fundamental point of view. It only makes use of
the spatial qualities of the human figure, not the colouring which depicts it.
The figure of sculpture is in general of one colour, hewn from white not
vari-coloured marble. And in the same way metals are used as the material
of sculpture, this primitive substance, self-identical, essentially
undifferentiated, a light in fluxion, if we may so express it, without the
contrast and harmony of different colours[128]. The Greeks are indebted to
their unrivalled artistic insight[129] for having grasped and firmly retained
this point of view. No doubt we find, too, in Greek sculpture, to which we
must for the main part confine ourselves, examples of coloured statuary; we
must, however, take care in this respect to distinguish both the beginning
and end of this art from that which is created at its culminating point.
In the same way we must discount that which is admitted by art in
deference to traditional religion. We have already found it to be true in the
classical type of art that it does not forthwith and immediately set forth the
Ideal, in which its function is to discover its fundamental lines of definition,
but in the first instance removes much that is inconsonant with it and
foreign; it is the same case precisely with sculpture. It is forced to pass
through many preliminary stages before it arrives at its perfection; and this
initial process differs very considerably from its supreme attainment. The
most ancient works of sculpture are of painted wood, as, for example,
Egyptian idols; we find similar productions among the Greeks. We must,
however, exclude such examples from genuine sculpture when the main
point is to establish its fundamental notion. We are therefore in no way
concerned to deny that there are many examples at hand of painted statues.
It is, however, also a fact that the purer art-taste became, the more strongly
"sculpture withdrew itself from a brilliancy of colour that was not really
congenial, and with wise deliberation utilized, on the contrary, light and
shadow in order to secure for the beholder's eye a greater softness, repose,
clarity, and agreeableness[130]." As against the uniform colour of the bare
marble we may no doubt not merely instance the numerous statues of
bronze, but also in still stronger opposition the greatest and most excellent

works, which, as in the case of the Zeus of Pheidias, were artificially
coloured. But we are not here discussing absence of colour in such an
extreme abstract sense. Moreover, ivory and gold are not primarily the use
of colour as the painter employs it; and generally we may add that the
various works of a definite art do not ever in fact retain fixedly their
fundamental notion in so abstract and unyielding a way, inasmuch as they
come into contact with the conditions of life subject to aims of all kinds;
they are placed in different environments, and are thereby associated with
circumstances of an external kind, which inevitably modify their real and
essential type. In this way the images of sculpture are not unfrequently
executed in rich material such as gold and ivory. They are placed on
magnificent chairs or stand on pedestals which display all the extravagance
and luxuriousness of art, or receive costly decorations, in order that the
nation, when face to face with such splendid works, may likewise enjoy the
sense of its power and wealth. And sculpture in particular, for the reason
that it is essentially, taken by itself, a more abstract art, does not on all
occasions hold fast to such exclusiveness, but, on the one hand, introduces
incidentally much that is of a traditional, scholastic, or local character as a
contribution from its history, while, on the other, it ministers to vital popular
necessities. Active humanity demands for its diversion variety, and seeks in
diverse directions for a stimulus to its vision and imagination. We may take
as an analogous case the reading aloud of Greek tragedies, which also
brings before us the work of art under its more abstract form. In the wider
field of external existence we have still to add, to make a public
performance, living actors, costume, stage scenery, dancing, and music.
And in like manner, too, the sculptured figure is unable to dispense with
much that is supplementary on its own stage of reality. We are, however,
only concerned here with the genuine work of sculpture as such; external
aspects such as those above adverted to must not be permitted to prevent us
bringing before the mind the notion of our subject-matter in its most ideal
and exclusive sense of definition.
Proceeding now to the more definite heads of division in this section we
may observe that sculpture constitutes the very centre of the classical type
of art to such a degree that we are unable to accept the symbolical, classical
and romantic types as distinctions which affect throughout and form the
basis of our division. Sculpture is the genuine art of the classical Ideal
simply. It is quite true that sculpture has also its stages in which it is in the

grasp of the symbolical type, as in Egypt for example. But these are rather
preliminary stages of its historical evolution, no genuine distinctions which
essentially affect the art of sculpture when notionally considered, in so far,
that is, as these exceptional examples, in the manner of their execution and
the use that is made of them, rather belong to architecture than are strictly
within the aim and purpose of sculpture. In a similar way, when we find the
romantic type thereby expressed, sculpture passes beyond its rightful
sphere, and only receives with the qualified imitation of Greek sculpture its
exclusively plastic type. We must therefore look about us for a principle of
division of another character.
In agreement with what we have just stated we shall find that it is from the
particular way in which the classical Ideal means of sculpture acquires a
form of reality that most fully expresses it that the focus of our present
inquiry is derived. Before, however, we are in a position to make an
advance in this evolution of the ideal figure of sculpture we must by way of
introduction demonstrate what kind of content and form are pertinent to the
point of view of sculpture regarded as a specific art, and the course it
follows by virtue of both until the point is reached where the classical Ideal
is fully unfolded in the human form permeated by spiritual life, and in its
shape as subject to spatial condition. From another point of view the
classical Ideal stands, and falls with an individuality which is
unquestionably substantive, but also to an equal degree essentially
particularized, so that sculpture does not accept for its content the Ideal of
the human form in its generality, but the Ideal as specifically defined; and,
by virtue of this fact, it is variously displayed under forms distinct from
each other. Such distinctions partly originate in the conception and
representation simply, in part are due to the material in which such is
realized, and which further, according to the way it affects execution,
introduces points of severation on its own account, to both of which finally,
as the last ground of difference, the various stages are related in the
historical development of sculpture.
Having made these observations we will indicate the course of our inquiry
as follows.
In the first place we have merely to deal with the general determinants of
the essential content and form, such as are deducible from the notion of
sculpture.

Secondly, as a further step, we have to differentiate more closely the nature
of the classical Ideal, in so far as it attains a determinate existence in its
most artistic form.
Thirdly, and finally, we shall find that sculpture avails itself of various types
of presentation and material, and expands to a world of productions, in
which, either under one aspect or another, the symbolical or romantic types
also definitely assert themselves, albeit it is the classical which constitutes
the true point of centre between them in plastic art[131].

CHAPTER I

THE PRINCIPLE OF GENUINE SCULPTURE

Sculpture, to put the matter in general terms, conceives the astounding
project of making Spirit imagine itself in an exclusively material medium,
and so shape this external medium that it is presented to itself in such and
recognizes the presentment to be the objective form adequate to its ideal
substance.
In this respect our inquiry will take the following directions.
First, we have the question what kind of spiritual life is capable of being
reproduced in this material of a form entirely sensuous and spatial.
Secondly, we have to ask in what manner the forms of the spatial condition
have to be modified in order to permit us a recognition of the spiritual in the
bodily shape of beauty.
What we have generally to consider here is the unity between the ordo
rerum extensarum and that of the ordo rerum idearum, the primal fair union
of soul and body, in so far as spiritual ideality is expressed by sculpture
exclusively in its bodily existence.
This union, thirdly, corresponds to what we have already found to be the
Ideal of the classical type of art; and for this reason the plastic forms of
sculpture are nothing less than the very art itself of the classical Ideal.

1. THE ESSENTIAL CONTENT OF SCULPTURE

The elementary medium, in which sculpture realizes its creations is, as we
have seen, the elementary, still universal material subject to spatial
condition, in which no further particularization can be utilized for an artistic
purpose than the universal spatial dimensions, and the more detailed[132]
spatial forms which are compatible with these dimensions under their most
beautiful configuration. Now what most exceptionally corresponds as
content to this more abstract aspect of the sensuous material is the
objectivity of Spirit which reposes on its own resources, in so far, that is, as
Spirit has neither differentiated itself in contradistinction to its universal
substance, nor to its determinate existence in its bodily presence, and
consequently is not as yet withdrawn as independent self-subsistency into
its own subjective world. There are two points we would draw attention to
here.
(a) Spirit as Spirit[133] is no doubt always subjectivity, that is ideal
knowledge of the Self, the Ego. This Ego can, however, separate itself from
everything that constitutes, whether in knowledge, volition, conception,
feeling, action, or achievement, the universal and eternal content of Spirit,
and can concentrate its hold on that aspect of individual experience which is
unique and contingent. It is then subjectivity as such which we have before
us, which has let go the truly objective content of Spirit, and is self-related
formally, and without content. In the case of self-satisfaction, for example, I
can no doubt view myself from a certain standpoint in an entirely objective
way and remain satisfied with myself on account of moral action. I do,
however, as thus self-satisfied, already withdraw myself from the content of
such action. I separate myself as a distinct person, as this particular Ego,
from the universality of Spirit, in order to compare myself with it. The
sense of unison of myself with myself through this comparison produces
this self-satisfaction, in which this determinate Ego, as this core of unity,
rejoices in itself. No doubt this personal Ego is involved in all that a man
knows, wills, or carries out; but it makes an immense difference whether,
in-dealing with knowledge and action, the matter of concern is the man's
own unique Ego, or that in which the essential content of consciousness
consists; whether, in other words, a man sinks himself and his self-identity
in this content, or lives in the unbroken seclusion of his subjective
personality.

(α) In this exaltation over what is substantive[134] the subjective life passes
into the abstract and disrupt world of personal inclination, the caprice and
contingency of emotions and impulses, owing to which, in the changes to
which it is subject in particular acts and undertakings, it grows dependent
upon particular circumstances as they happen to arise, and is unable
generally to dispense with this association with something else. In such a
condition of dependence the individual life is nothing but finite subjectivity
as contrasted with a real spirituality. And if this personal state essentially
persists through the volition and knowledge which characterizes it in this
contradiction of its conscious life, it can only further become involved—to
put on one side the mere emptiness of its imaginings and self-conceits—in
the deformity of character and its evil passions, in crime and moral offence,
in malice, cruelty, obstinacy, envy, pride, insolence, and every other kind of
the reverse side of human nature and its insubstantial finiteness.
(β) This province of the subjective life must be excluded in its entirety and
without hesitation from the content of sculpture. The art is exclusively co-
extensive with the objectivity of Spirit. And by the term objectivity we
mean in this connection what is substantive, genuine, not transitory, the
essential nature of Spirit, apart from its involvement in that which is
accidental and evanescent, for which the individual person is responsible
simply in his unmediated state of self-relation.
(γ) Spirit, however, even in its truly objective sense, can only realize itself
as Spirit when associated with explicit self-identity. Spirit is only Spirit as
self-consciousness[135]. The position, however, of this aspect of individual
consciousness in the spiritual content of sculpture is of such a character that
it is not independently expressed, but displays itself as throughout
interfused with this substantive content, and not formally reflected back
upon itself apart from it. We may consequently affirm that though such a
mode of objectivity possesses a type of self-subsistency, yet it is a self-
knowledge and volition which is not released from the content it fulfils, but
forms an inseparable unity with it.
The presentment of Spirit in this complete and independent seclusion of
what is essentially substantive and true, this unperturbed and
unparticularized being of Spirit, is that which we name divinity in its
contrast to finitude, which is the process of disruption into contingent
existence, a world that is broken into complex forms and varied movement.

From this point of view the function of sculpture is to present the Divine
simply in its infinite repose and sublimity, timeless, destitute of motion,
entirely without subjective personality in the strict sense and the conflict of
action or situation. And in proceeding to the more detailed definition of our
humanity in shape and character, it must, nevertheless, exclusively rivet its
attention on what is unalterable and permanent, in other words what is truly
substantive in its characterization, and merely select such aspects for its
content, passing over what it finds there of an accidental or evanescent
nature; and it must do so for the reason that the objectivity which it presents
does not rightly include a differentiation of this fluctuating and fleeting
kind, and one which comes into being by virtue of a subjective
consciousness whose conception of itself is that of pure insulation. In a
biography, for instance, which gives an account of the motley incidents,
events, and exploits of some individual, we find as a rule the course of
varied developments and fortuities finally closed by a character sketch
which summarizes the entire breadth of detail in a few general qualities
such as goodness, honest dealing, courage, exceptional intelligence, and so
forth. Characteristics such as these we may term the permanent features of a
personality; the remaining peculiarities it possesses are merely accidental
features in the impersonation. It is just this stable aspect of life which it is
the part of sculpture to present as the unique being and determinate
substance of individuality. Yet we must not suppose that it creates allegories
out of such general qualities. It rather builds up true individuals, which it
conceives and informs as essentially complete and enclosed within their
objective spiritual presence, in their self-subsistent repose, delivered
thereby from all antagonism as against external objects. In the presentment
of an individuality of this character by sculpture what is truly substantive is
throughout the essential foundation, and neither purely subjective self-
knowledge and emotion, nor a superficial and mutable singularity[136] must
be permitted in any way to be predominant, but what is eternal in the god-
like and our humanity should, divested of all the caprice and contingency of
the particular self[137], be set before our eyes in its unimpaired clarity.
(b) The further point we would draw attention to consists in this, that the
content of sculpture, for the reason that its material requires an external
presentment in the complete form of the three spatial dimensions, is also
unable to be a spiritual content as such, that is, the ideality self-enclosed

within and absorbed into itself, but rather in the sense that it is only explicit
in its opposed factor, in other words, the bodily form. The negation of what
is external is already implied in the ideal subjective consciousness, and can
therefore have no place here, where what is divine and human is accepted
as content with exclusive reference to its objective characteristics. And it is
only this self-absorbed objective aspect, which does not comprise ideal
subjectivity in the strict sense[138], that gives free play to an externality
conditioned in all its three dimensions, and is capable of being associated
with such a spatial totality. For these reasons it is incumbent on sculpture
that it only accept out of the objective content of Spirit that which admits of
the fullest expression in external and bodily shape; if it do otherwise it
simply selects a content which its specific material is unable to assimilate or
to unite with an adequate mode of exposition.

2. THE BEAUTIFUL FORM OF SCULPTURE

We must now inquire into the nature of the bodily forms which are adapted
to give an impression of a content of this kind.
Just as in classical architecture the dwelling-house is the anatomical
skeleton framework which art has to inform with its accretions, in like
manner sculpture, on its part, discovers the human form as the fundamental
type for its figures. Whereas, however, the house is already a piece of
human workmanship, though not as yet elaborated artistically, the structure
of the human form, on the contrary, appears as a product of Nature
unaffected by man. The fundamental type of sculpture is consequently
given to it, that is, does not hail from human inventiveness. The expression,
however, that the human form is a part of Nature is a very indefinite one,
which we must submit to closer analysis.
In Nature it is the Idea, which is given there, as we have already found
when discussing natural beauty, its primary and immediate mode of
existence, receiving in animal life and its complete organic structure the
natural existence adequate to its notion. The organization of the animal
frame is therefore a birth of the notion in its essential totality, which exists
in this corporeal mode of being as soul, yet, as the principle of merely
animal life, modifies the animal frame in the most varied classifications,
albeit too every specific type continues to be subject to the general

notion[139]. The fact that notion and bodily form, or more accurately, soul
and body, correspond to one another—to fully understand this is the
problem of natural philosophy. We should have to demonstrate that the
different systems of the animal frame in their ideal[140] structure and
conformation no less than their association, and the more definite organs in
which the bodily existence is differentiated are in general accord with the
phasal steps of the notion's movement, so that it becomes clear, to what
extent we have here presented to us as real only the particular aspects of the
soul-life which are necessary. To develop this exposition, however, does not
lie within the scope of the present inquiry.
The human form is not, however, as the animal form, merely the corporeal
framework of the soul, but of Spirit. In other words, spirit and soul are
essentially to be distinguished. For the soul is merely this ideal and simple
unity of self-subsistence attaching to the body in its corporeal aspect[141],
whereas Spirit is the independent selfness of conscious and self-conscious
life together with all the emotions, ideas, and aims of such a conscious
existence. In contemplating the immense difference which separates merely
animal life from spiritual consciousness, it may appear strange that the
bodily frame attaching to the latter, the human body, is nevertheless so
clearly homogeneous with that of animal life. It will tend, however, to
decrease such an astonishment if we recall to mind the definition, which
Spirit itself has authorized us to make in accordance with its own notion,
that it is a mode of life and essentially therefore itself also a living soul and
natural existence. As such living soul the life of conscious spirit, by virtue
of the same notion that is inherent in the animal soul, is entitled to accept a
body, which fundamentally in its general lines runs parallel to the organic
structure of animal life. However superior to mere animal life Spirit may be
it is evolved through[142] a corporeal frame whose visible appearance
receives an identical articulation and principle of life with that which the
notion of animal life in general underlies. Inasmuch as, however, and
furthermore Spirit is not merely the Idea as determinate existence, that is,
the Idea as Nature and animal life, but the Idea which secures independence
in its own free medium of ideality as Idea, the spiritual principle elaborates
for itself its own specific mode of objectivity over and beyond that of
animal life, simply, in other words, science, the reality of which is
exclusively that of thought itself. Apart from thought, however, and its

philosophical and systematized activity, Spirit is involved within an
abounding life of feeling, inclination, idea, imagination, and so forth, which
is fixed in a more direct or less immediate association with its vital
being[143] and bodily frame, and consequently possesses a reality in the
human body. In this reality, which is part of its own substance, Spirit asserts
itself also as a principle of life, shines into it, transpierces it, and is made
manifest to others by means of it. Consequently, in so far as the human
body remains no purely natural existence, but has asserted itself also in its
configuration and structure as the natural and sensuous existence of Spirit,
it is, nevertheless, regarded as the expression of an ideality more exalted
than that compatible with the purely animal body to be distinguished from
it, despite the fact that the human body in its broad lines is in harmony with
it. For this reason, however, that Spirit is itself soul and life, that is, an
animal body, it is and can only be modifications, which the indwelling
Spirit of one living body attaches to this corporeal form. As a manifestation
of Spirit consequently the human shape is distinct from the animal by virtue
of these modifications, albeit the distinctions of the human organism from
the animal are as much the result of the unconscious creation of spiritual
activities, as the soul of the animal kingdom is the informing though
unconscious activity of the body that belongs to it.
We have thus reached the precise point of our present departure. In other
words, the human body is present to the artist as Spirit's expression. What is
more, he discovers it as such not merely in a general way, but also in
particular characteristics it is pre-supposed to be the type which, in its form,
its specific traits, its position and general habit, reflects the ideality of
Spirit.
We shall find it a difficult matter to fix in clear terms of thought the precise
nature of the association between spirit and body in their relation
respectively to feeling, passion, and other spiritual conditions. It has, no
doubt, been attempted to develop the same scientifically both from the
pathognomical[144] point of view and the physiognomical. Such attempts
have hitherto not met with much success. For ourselves the science of
physiognomy can only be of importance in so far as that of pathognomy is
exclusively concerned with the mode under which definite feelings and
passions are physically located in particular organs. It has been stated, for
example, that the seat of anger is in the gall, of courage in the blood. Such

statements, we may remark incidentally, are erroneous in their manner of
expression. For even assuming the activity of particular organs corresponds
to specific passions, we cannot say that anger, for instance, has its local
position in the gall bladder, but, in so far as anger is corporeally related, the
gall is pre-eminently that in which its active appearance asserts itself. In our
present inquiry this pathognomical aspect does not, as already stated,
concern us, because sculpture has merely to deal with that which passes
over from the ideal side of Spirit into the external aspect of form permitting
Spirit thus to be visible in the physical environment. The sympathetic
interaction between the internal organism and the feeling soul is no object
of sculpture; indeed, we may add, it is unable to accept much which appears
on the external surface itself, such as the tremble of the hand and the entire
body in an outburst of anger, the movement of the lips, and others of like
nature.
With regard to physiognomical science I will limit myself to this
observation. If the work of sculpture, which has as its fundamental basis the
human form, has to exhibit the way in which the bodily presence as such
manifests not only the divine and human aspect of Spirit in its broadest and
most substantive features, but also the particular character of a definite
individuality in this divine presence, we are no doubt compelled to discuss
what parts, traits, and conformations of the body are fully accordant with
any specific mode of ideality. We are indeed forced upon such an inquiry by
the sculpture of antiquity, which we must as a matter of fact admit includes
the expression of individual god-like characters with that of divinity
generally. Such an admission does not, however, amount to an assertion that
the association of spiritual expression with bodily form is merely a matter
of accident and caprice rather than the creation of a figure of self-subsistent
actuality. In this connection every organ must, in a general way, be looked
at from two points of view, as a mode of expression that possesses its
physical side no less than its spiritual. We need hardly caution our readers
that the method of Gall in conducting such an inquiry is inadmissible. This
writer reduces Spirit to what is little better than a Calvary.
(a) The advance of sculpture, in respect to the content which its function is
to declare, is limited to the investigation how far the substantive and at the
same time individual condition of spiritual life is made vital in bodily form,
receiving therein determinate existence and form. In other words, through

the content adequate to genuine sculpture the contingent individualization
of the external appearance is from one point of view excluded, and this
applies both to the spiritual and physical aspects of the presentment. Only
that which persists, and is universal and according to rule in the human
form is the object of a work of sculpture. And this is so albeit we have the
additional necessity to individualize the universal in such a way that not
only the abstract law but an individual form, which is brought into the
closest fusion with it, is placed before our eyes.
(b) From another point of view it is necessary that sculpture, as we have
seen, be kept unaffected by purely contingent personal life[145], and all
expression of such in the independent ideal mode under which it asserts
itself. For this reason an artist, in dealing with physiognomical
characteristics, is not entitled to move in the direction of individual
manner[146]. For a facial manner is simply just this appearance on the
surface of an individual idiosyncrasy and some particular aspect of emotion,
idea, and volition. A man by his chance expressions of countenance
expresses the feelings he has as some particular person, whether it be in his
exclusive relation to his own life, or in his self-relation to exterior objects,
or other persons. One sees, for example, on the street, more particularly in
little towns, in many, or rather the majority of men, that they are exclusively
preoccupied, in their demeanour and expression of face, with themselves,
their dress and attire, in general terms, that is, their purely personal
particularity, or, at least, matters of momentary importance, and any
unforeseen or accidental features thus presented. Countenances which
express pride, envy, self-satisfaction, depreciation, and so forth, are of this
nature. Moreover, the feeling and contrast of substantive being with my
personal idiosyncrasy may be responsible for such alterations of expression.
Humility, defiance, threats, fear, are expressed in this way. In a felt contrast
of this kind we find already a separation between the individual in the
subjective sense and the universal asserted. Reflection on what is truly
substantive continually leans in the direction of merely personal
considerations, so that it is the individual rather than the substantive
character which is predominant in the content. The form, however, which
remains severely true to the principle of sculpture ought neither to express
this severation nor the predominance of the personal aspect above adverted
to.

In addition to definite expressions of countenance[147] physiognomy
presents us with much that merely passes momentarily across the features
and indicates the human mood. A sudden smile, an instantaneous outburst
of anger, a quickly repressed expression of scorn, are a few of many
examples. In particular, the mouth and eyes possess most mobility and
resource in seizing and making apparent every shifting mood of soul-life.
Changes of this character, which are compatible with the art of painting, the
sculptor must exclude. Sculpture must rather concentrate its attention on the
permanent traits of spiritual expression, and retain and disclose such in the
posture and configuration of the body no less than in the face.
(c) The task of sculpture, then, essentially consists in this, that it implants
that which is of substantive spiritual import in that form of individuality
which is not yet essentially particularized in the narrow subjective sense
within the figure of a man, and contributes to the same such a harmony, that
it is only that which is universal and permanent in the bodily shapes
correspondent with the life of Spirit which is made to appear therein, while
that which is accidental or mutable is brushed aside, albeit a certain mode
of individuality is not absent from its forms.
An accord of this complete nature between what is ideal and what is
external, the goal of sculpture, in short, offers us a point of transition to the
third point which we have still to discuss.

3. SCULPTURE AS THE ART OF THE CLASSICAL IDEAL

The conclusion that most immediately follows upon the above observations
is this, that sculpture in a way, and to an extent unrivalled by any other art,
remains constant to the Ideal[148]. In other words, from one point of view it
is free of the symbolical type both by virtue of the translucency of a
content, which clearly grasps itself as Spirit, and on account of the fact that
it is able to disclose such a content with absolute mastery. And so, too, from
another it refuses as yet to enter into the subjective aspect of the personal
life, to which the external form is indifferent. Consequently it forms the
focus of classical art. No doubt both the symbolical and romantic types of
architecture and painting were shown to be adapted to classical ideality; but
the Ideal, in its genuine sphere, is not the supreme principle of these types
of art, inasmuch as they do not, as is the case with sculpture, take for their

object self-subsistent individuality, character, that is, throughout objective,
in other words, the beauty that is both free and inevitable[149]. The
configuration of sculpture must, however, entirely proceed from the pure
spiritual energy of an imagination and thought that denudes its content of all
the haphazard features of personal life and bodily presence; it must have no
leanings for idiosyncrasies, or any place for the mere emotion, desire, and
variety of accidental impulse and pleasantry[150]. What the artist has at his
disposal for his most elevated creations is simply, as we have seen, the
bodily presentment of Spirit in what is exclusively the general configuration
of the organic structure of the human form. His invention is therefore
restricted to promoting on the broadest lines the harmony between what is
ideal and what is external, and partly to making, in however an inobtrusive
way, the individuality of the presentment accommodate itself to and
interfuse with the truly substantive character of his design[151]. Sculpture
must give form, just as the gods create in their own sphere according to
eternal ideas, within what is in other respects the world of reality, but
exclude as rejected residue all licence and mere selfness from its creations.
Theologians make a distinction between the acts of God and all that man in
his folly and capriciousness accomplishes. The plastic Ideal is, however,
exalted above such questions. It stands at the very centre of this blessedness
and free necessity for which neither the abstraction of the universal nor the
caprice of the particular are valid or significant.
This insight into the consummate plastic union of the divine and human was
pre-eminently native to Greece. We fail to grasp Greece at her heart and
centre in her poets and orators, historians and philosophers, unless, as the
key to our problem, we are already possessed of an insight into the Ideal of
sculpture, and can contemplate from the standpoint of plastic art both the
figures of her epic and dramatic heroes and her actual statesmen and
philosophers. For characters in her practical life, no less than poets and
thinkers, possessed also in the palmy days of Greece, this plastic, universal,
and yet individual character, stamped with one mint, whether we look at its
external or more personal features. They stand up big and free, a self-
subsistent growth, on the basis of their essentially substantive individuality;
a growth of their own making, built up into that which they ultimately
became and intended to be. In particular the period of Pericles was rich in
such characters. Pericles himself was one of them. We may add Pheidias,

Plato, and pre-eminently Sophocles. So, too, Thucydides, Xenophon, and
Socrates, everyone with his own type, not one of them impairing the quality
of the rest; all are out-and-out artistic natures, ideal artists in the work of
self-creation, personalities of one mould, works of art, which stand before
us like figures of immortal gods, in whom we can detect no taint of Time
and mortality. We may find a similar plastic subsistency in the artistic
perfections of the bodily frames of the victors at the Olympic games; nay,
even in the apparition of Phryne[152] herself, who, as the fairest woman,
came from the sea naked before all the world.

CHAPTER II

THE IDEAL OF SCULPTURE

Now that we pass on to consider the really ideal style of sculpture we must
once again recall the fact that the perfected type necessarily presupposes the
imperfect as its predecessor; and it does so not merely in relation to its
technique, which, in the first instance, does not concern us here, but in
respect to the general notion, in other words the mode of its conception and
the particular way in which it sets forth the same ideally. We have in general
terms called the symbolical type that of inquiry; consequently pure
sculpture, too, has for its presupposition a certain stage of the symbolical
type, and by this we do not merely mean a stage of the symbolic form as
generally conceived, in other words of architecture, but a form of sculpture
which is itself characterized by the symbolical principle. We shall find an
opportunity of supporting this assertion with the example of Egyptian
sculpture in the third chapter.
We may in this place and from the point of view of the Ideal generally, and
for the present wholly in an abstract and formal manner, assume that which
we term symbolical in a specific art is its incompleteness; as, for example,
we may so apply this term to an attempt of children to draw the human
figure, or mould it from wax and clay. What they execute is to this extent
merely a symbol, as it only suggests the living reality it purports to exhibit,
remaining, however, wholly unfaithful to the actual object and its

significance. Art is consequently in the first instance hieroglyphical, no
mere accidental and capricious mark, but a haphazard delineation of an
object for the imagination. For this purpose a badly drawn figure suffices if
it recalls that object it is intended to suggest. In a similar way piety is
content with badly executed images, and still worships Christ, the Virgin,
and any other saint in the most bungling counterfeit, although such images
may merely derive such individualization purely from particular attributes
conveyed by such means as a lantern or a mill-stone. For piety refuses to be
reminded of aught save the object; the soul adds all else thereto, which will
be filled up with an image of the object, however untrue the counterfeit may
be. It is not the living expression of the present which is required; it is not
that which is presented which is intended to enkindle us by itself. Rather a
work of art of this kind already brings satisfaction if it excites the general
concept of the objects by virtue of its images, however insufficient they be.
A concept of this kind, however, already abstracts from the given content. I
can readily imagine some known thing, such as a house, a tree, a man; but
even in such a case, where the reference is to something quite determinate,
the concept merely includes wholly general traits, and is in fact only a true
concept[153] in so far as it has effaced from the concrete presentment the
wholly immediate singularity of the objects and simplified the same. If the
imaged concept, which the work of art has to arouse in us, is that of the
divine nature, and if this has to receive recognition from an entire people,
this object is especially attainable when no alteration is allowed in the
mode of presentation. For this reason art is on the one hand conventional,
and on the other scholastic[154]; and this is so not merely in the case of the
more ancient Egyptians, but also in that of more ancient Greek and
Christian art. The artist in such case was bound to restrict himself to definite
forms and to repeat their type.
The crucial point of transition, where fine art wakes from its sleep, must
consequently be sought there, where at last the artist is creative by virtue of
his own free conception, where the flash of genius strikes into the material
presented, and communicates freshness and vitality to the presentment.
Then for the first time the atmosphere of mind[155] enfolds the work of art,
which is no longer restricted to merely calling up in a general way some
idea before the mind, and recalling to it some deeper significance which the
spectator already is essentially possessed of, but which proceeds to make

visible this significance as throughout made vitally present in some
individualized creation, and which consequently neither makes no further
advance beyond the purely superficial generality of its forms, nor binds
itself on the other hand, in respect to the detail of its delineation, to the
characteristics of all that common reality offers it.
In the rise of ideal sculpture we presuppose perforce a complete passage to
such a sphere of creation. In establishing the facts of this appearance we
may emphasize the following points of view.
First, we have to address ourselves to the general character of the ideal
form in its contrast to the stages previously discussed.
Secondly, we shall have to adduce specific aspects of it, the importance of
which is most obvious, such as the way in which facial characteristics,
drapery, and pose are modelled or treated.
Thirdly, we have to enforce the position that the ideal figure is not merely a
general type of beauty in the formal sense of type, but includes, by virtue of
its principle of individuality, which belongs to the really living Ideal,
essentially, too, the aspect of differentiation and specific definition within
its own sphere, and by this means the province of sculpture is expanded in a
cycle of particularized images of gods and heroes.

1. THE GENERAL CHARACTERIZATION OF THE IDEAL FIGURE OF SCULPTURE

We have already examined at length what the general principle of the
classical ideal is. Our present inquiry is therefore limited to the particular
mode under which this principle is realized through the medium of
sculpture in the human form. In this connection the lines of difference
between the human physiognomy, expressive as it is of spiritual life and the
general build of the animal organism, which is unable to pass beyond the
mere expression of natural life in its unbroken association with natural
wants and an organism that is exclusively adapted to their satisfaction, will
supply us with a standard of comparison which carries us considerably
further. Yet even such a standard is still somewhat indefinite for the reason
that the human form alone neither is as bodily form, or as an expression of
Spirit, wholly and as we find it first of ideal type. On the contrary we may
observe with more closeness from the fine masterpieces of Greek sculpture

what the ideal of sculpture in the spiritually fine expression of its creations
has to bring before us. It was pre-eminently Winckelmann who, with this
intimate knowledge of and devotion for art of this kind, and by means of his
receptive enthusiasm, no less than his intelligence and critical faculty, made
an end of indefinite statements over the Ideal of Greek beauty by leaving
the characterization of detail in the form at once distinct and precise, an
endeavour which by itself is full of instruction. No doubt the results he
obtained supply abundant opportunity for further criticism, exceptions, and
the like; but we should be careful, before attempting to criticize details and
errors in his work, not to obscure the main result which he established.
However far aesthetic science may extend its borders that at least must be
pre-supposed as essential. Assuming this, it cannot, however, be denied that
since Winckelmann's death our knowledge of the antique has not only been
essentially enlarged in the number of examples submitted to criticism, but
also has been placed on a securer basis in its relation to the style of these
works and the true appreciation of their beauty.
Winckelmann, no doubt, passed under review a great number of Egyptian
and Greek statues; we have, however, added in more recent times the closer
acquaintance of the Aeginetan sculptures, no less than those masterworks
which in part are ascribed to Pheidias and in part we must recognize as
creations of his age and under his supervision. In a word we have secured a
more intimate knowledge of a number of sculptures, whether single statues
or reliefs, which, in their relation to the severity of the ideal style, are
referable to the age in which Greek art was at its fullest bloom. For these
astonishing monuments of Greek sculpture, as is well known, we are
indebted to the efforts of Lord Elgin, who, as English ambassador to
Turkey, had a number of statues and reliefs of the greatest beauty taken
from the Parthenon at Athens and other towns to England. People have
blamed such acquisitions and called them temple robbery. Lord Elgin has,
however, as a matter of fact, really rescued these works of art for Europe
and preserved them from complete destruction. Such an enterprise deserves
its true recognition. Moreover, it is due to this circumstance that the interest
of all connoisseurs and friends of art have been directed to an epoch and a
mode of presentation, which, in the exceptionally consistent severity of its
style, constitutes the true greatness and height of the Ideal. What the general
verdict has highly estimated in the works of this epoch is not the charm and
grace of form and pose, not the elegance of expression which already, as in

the times subsequent to Pheidias, makes an external appeal and distinctly
aims at pleasing the spectator, nor yet the delicacy and boldness of the
elaboration; rather the general chorus of praise is concentrated upon the
expression of self-subsistency and essential repose in these figures, and
more especially has this note of admiration been most emphatic by virtue of
the free vitality, the absolute transfusion of and command over the purely
natural and material aspect, a command by which the artist moulds the
marble, makes it alive and endows it with a soul. And we may add that
when all has been said that can be said in such praise the figure of the
reclining river-god remains as most emphatically its object, which is one of
the finest examples of antique art we have recovered.
(a) The vitality of these works consists in this, that they are the free product
of the genius of the artist. The artist at this stage is neither satisfied with
giving, by means of general and haphazard contours, suggestions and
expressions, a general conception of that which he desires to reproduce, nor
does he, on the other hand, in respect to what is individual and singular,
accept the forms as he has received them by chance from the external
world. For this reason also he does not present them again with loyalty to
this accidental aspect, but he is concerned to place within his own free
creation what is empirically particularized in isolated aspects that thus
appear in a further individual accord with the universal types of the human
form, an accord which is made to appear as throughout transpierced with
the spiritual configuration of that which he is called to make apparent, when
he suffers us to see his own vitality, conception and animation in the work
regarded on the side of the artist's activity. The universal aspect of the
content of his work is not due to his creation. It is presented him by means
of mythology and saga precisely in the way that he finds the general effect
and details of the human form; but the free and living individualization,
which permeates all portions on his work, is the result of his own personal
point of view, his efforts and services.
(b) The effect and charm of this vitality and freedom is only produced by
means of the sufficiency, the honest candour of the elaboration of all the
particular parts to which the most definite knowledge and review of the
construction of these parts belongs, no less in their position of repose than
also in that of their motion. The way in which the different members are
disposed and moulded with regard to rondure and smoothness, in every

condition of rest and movement, must be expressed in the most satisfactory
way. This fundamental elaboration and placing in relief of all the separate
parts we find in all products of antique art, and the animation thus produced
is only the effect of infinite pains and truth. When the eye contemplates
works of this kind it is, in the first instance, unable clearly to recognize a
mass of distinction; and it is only by virtue of a particular manner of
lighting that we can appreciate the same by means of a stronger contrast
between light and shadow. But though these fine nuances are imperceptible
at first glance, the general impression they produce is not for that reason
lost. In part they appear as the spectator varies his point of view, and in part
we derive from them what is essentially the impression of the organic
continuity of all the members and their forms. This spirit of vitality, this
soul of material configuration, is due wholly to the fact that, though every
part is entirely complete in its separable independence, yet it is to a like
extent throughout, by virtue of the wealth of its modes of transition,
associated not merely with the part that is immediately its neighbour, but
with the entire work. For this reason the form is vital in every part of it; the
least detail of it is stamped with purpose; every part of it is differentiated
from the rest, possesses that which distinguishes it and makes it distinct,
and yet is affected by the same fluidity of treatment, is only what it is vitally
as a part of the whole, so that we are able to recognize the whole in the very
fragments of it, and a part that is broken off enables us not merely to see but
to enjoy a totality that is not thus mutilated. The material surface, although
for the most part statues are now seriously impaired by the weather and
other causes in this respect, presents a soft and malleable appearance; and in
one particular example of the head of a horse I have in mind it literally
glows with the ardour of life on the face of the marble itself. This scarce
perceptible undercurrent of fluidity in all organic parts, united to the most
conscientious elaboration which avoids purely regular surfaces and
anything approaching the bare convexity of circular shape, supplies that
softness and ideality of all parts, that harmonious unity, which extends
throughout the whole as the spiritual breath of one animating presence.
(c) However true, notwithstanding, expression of detailed or general
configuration may be, this truth is no mere imitation of Nature simply.
Sculpture is always occupied with the abstraction of form, and is
consequently obliged, on the one hand, to omit from the bodily presentment
what is most essentially the natural aspect, in other words, what is

exclusively indicative of natural function. From a further point of view it is
unable to carry to extremes its particularization of detail, but rather as, for
example, in its treatment of hair, must restrict its attention and reproduction
to the more general of its forms. In this way, apart from any other, the
human figure, when properly treated by sculpture, is at once declared as the
form and expression of Spirit, rather than of a purely natural form. Closely
connected with this consideration is the fact that, though a spiritual content
is expressed by means of sculpture in the bodily form, yet in the genuine
Ideal it is not asserted so prominently in the exterior form to the extent of
making that which is simply external in its charm and grace either the
exclusive or predominant attraction to the spectator. On the contrary, though
the genuine and more severe Ideal of Spirituality is here presented in bodily
shape, and is exclusively thus presented by means of such shape and its
expression, yet this configuration must equally appear to be without
exception unified, supported and transfused by this ideal content. The swell
of life, the malleability and bodily presence, or sensuous fulness and beauty
of the bodily organism, must as little supply independently the object of the
presentation, as what is individual in the spiritual presence can be carried to
the length of expressing the more intimate and more closely related inner
life of the spectator, when we consider his own particularity.

2. THE PARTICULAR ASPECTS OF THE IDEAL FORM OF SCULPTURE AS SUCH

If we direct our attention now to the more specific consideration of the
fundamental phases, on which the ideal form of sculpture reposes, we shall
do well to follow Winckelmann in essentials, who has laid stress on the
several types with the finest intuitive sense, and with the most fortunate
results, as well as on the way in which the same have been treated and
shaped by Greek artists, with the result that they finally present to us the
Ideal of sculpture. The vitality, this floating emanation no doubt evades the
definitions of the understanding, which in the present case is unable to hold
fast and transpierce the particular as in architecture, which, however, asserts
itself in the entire work, as we have already seen, as the coalescence of free
spirituality and bodily forms.
The first general feature of distinction which arrests us concerns the
determination of works of sculpture in a general way, by virtue of which the
human form has to express that which is spiritual. The spiritual expression,

albeit it has to be poured forth over the entire bodily presence reaches its
highest degree of concentration in the facial form, whereas the remaining
members are merely able to reflect what is spiritual by means of their
position, in so far, that is, as the same proceeds from Spirit in its essential
freedom.
In our examination of these ideal forms we will make a beginning in the
first place with the head; we will, then, in the second place enlarge upon the
position of the body, after which we shall conclude with the principle of the
drapery.
(a) In the ideal configuration of the human head we are first and foremost
confronted with the so-called Greek profile.
(α) This profile consists in the peculiar union of the forehead and nose; in
the almost straight or merely slightly crooked line in which the forehead
unites without interruption with the nose, as also, to speak more accurately,
in the vertical direction of this line to another which, extending it from the
root of the nose to the orifice of the ear, forms a right angle with the line of
the forehead and nose above mentioned. In a line of this sort nose and
forehead stand throughout to one another in the ideal and fine art of
sculpture, and the question presents itself whether this is a merely national
and artistic contingency or a physiological necessity.
Camper, the famous Dutch physiologist, has, with more exactness and in an
exceptional way, characterized this line as the line of facial beauty; he in
fact discovers therein the main distinction between the form of the human
visage and the profile of animal life; and on account of this follows up the
modifications of this feature throughout the various human races. In this
respect his researches are no doubt in conflict with those of
Blumenbach[156]. Speaking generally, however, the line adverted to is in
fact a most marked means of distinction between the outward form of man
and animal. Among animals, it is true, muzzle and nasal bone also form a
more or less straight line, but the specific projection of the animal's snout,
which is forced to the front, as being in the nearest practical relation to
objects, is essentially determined through its connection with the skull,
united to which the ear is moreover placed above or below, so that in the
present instance the line that is carried forward from the skull to the root of
the nose or the upper jaw, where the teeth are in position, forms an acute

angle instead of a right angle as is found in the case of man. Everybody can
independently feel in a general way the strength of this distinction, which
no doubt opens the path to more definite thinking on the subject.
(αα) In the formation of the head of animals the most insistent feature is the
mouth as the organ by means of which it feeds in co-operation with the
upper and lower jaws, the teeth, and the muscles of mastication. All the
other organs are subordinate and in a position of subservience to this
principal feature. Notably the snout as a means of scenting food, the eyes
being to a lesser degree instrumental in spying it out. The express insistence
on these animal features as exclusively devoted to the natural wants and
their satisfaction gives to the head of the animal the appearance as though
intended merely to satisfy natural functions without any trace of spiritual
ideality. For this reason the entire animal organism is rendered intelligible
from the mouth as a point of departure. A specific mode of nourishment,
that is to say, requires a specific structure of the muzzle, a particular
formation of the teeth, together with which the structure of the jaw bones,
the muscles of mastication, cheek-bones, and, moreover, the vertebrae, the
thighbones, claws, and so forth all stand in the closest relation. The body of
the animal merely subserves natural ends and on account of this dependence
on the purely material aspect of nourishment gives the impression of
absence of spirit. If, then, the human countenance is, even in its bodily
conformation, to possess a spiritual stamp, those organs which in the animal
form are so predominant must in the case of man, retire from such a pre-
eminence and give way to those which do not so much suggest a practical
relation as one that is referable to the ideality of mind.
(ββ) The human countenance has consequently a second central point, in
which that attitude to facts, which indicates the relation of the soul or spirit,
is declared. We find this in the upper portion of the face, in the thoughtful
brow and the eye, through which we face the soul, which looms out beneath
it, together with its environment. Thought, reflection—that is, the
introspection of the spiritual identity—is necessarily connected with the
forehead, whose internal life in concentrated clarity looks forth from the
eye. Through the prominence of the forehead and the correspondingly
retreating appearance of the mouth and the cheek-bones the human
countenance derives its spiritual character. This projection of the brow is
therefore necessarily that which determines the entire formation of the

skull, which no longer falls back, forming the side of an acute angle as its
extreme point the mouth is pressed to the front[157], but rather permits of a
line being drawn from the forehead through the nose to the point of the
chin, which, with a second drawn over the rear of the skull to the apex of
the forehead, form a right angle, or one at least which approximates to it.
(γγ) Thirdly, we may say that the nose forms the passage and connection
between the lower and upper portion of the face, that is to say, between the
purely contemplative and spiritual forehead and the practical organ of
nutrition; and if we take into consideration its natural function as the organ
of smell it is rightly placed in this intermediate position between an attitude
to the external world which is either wholly practical or ideal. No doubt the
sense of smell in such a position is still associated with an animal want; it is
intimately connected with the taste; and for this reason, in the case of the
mere animal, the snout is at the service of the mouth and the organ of
nourishment. But the sense of smell is by itself as a fact no actual
consumption of objects, as eating and tasting are; it merely accepts the
result of the process in which the objects pass into the atmosphere and its
invisible and mysterious medium of dissolution. Assuming, then, that the
passage from forehead and nose is of such a formation that the forehead
viewed independently arches forward, and yet in relation to the nose
retreats, whereas this latter organ on its part, in proximity to the forehead, is
withdrawn back and only projects beyond this point, we see that both these
portions of the face—that is, the contemplative part, the forehead, and that
which suggests a practical use, with which we may associate the mouth,
form an emphatic contrast, in virtue of which the nose, as belonging in a
sense to both extremes, appertains equally to the practical aims[158] of the
mouth. Furthermore, the forehead, in its isolated position, receives the
appearance of severity and exclusive spiritual concentration in its contrast
to the eloquent sympathy of the mouth, which is primarily the organ of
nutritive support, and at the same time accepts the nasal organ into its
service as its instrument in creating the natural want by virtue of its smell,
and thereby declares its direct relation to the material side. And in close
connection with this reciprocity is the contingent character of the form to
the indeterminable modifications of which both nose and forehead may be
carried. The particular type of the forehead's arch, the nature of its

projection or retreat, loses its secure lines of definition, and the nose can be
fiat or fine, drooping, arched, more acutely flattened and a snub.
By virtue of amelioration[159] and accommodation, however, that beautiful
harmony, which the Greek profile asserts in the gentle and uninterrupted
communication between the spiritual forehead and the nose, that is,
between the upper and lower portions of the face, the nose appears on this
very account of closer affinity to the forehead, and consequently receives
itself a spiritual expression and character as though drawn up into the
spiritual system. The sense of smell becomes at the same time a sense
independent of purely practical ends, a nose refined for spiritual purpose;
just as in fact also the nose by its sneer and similar movements, however
unimportant by themselves they may be, is nevertheless shown to be in the
highest degree pliable as a mode of expressing the judgments and emotions
of soul-life. So, for example, we say of a proud man that he holds his nose
high, or ascribe sauciness to a young girl who tosses up her bit of a nose.
And the same thing may be said of the mouth. No doubt it is on the one
hand referable as an instrument to the satisfaction of hunger and thirst; it
expresses, however, in addition to this conditions of the soul, opinions, and
passions. Even among animals it is used in this relation as the organ of
animal cries, and by man as that of speech, laughter, sighs, and so forth, by
which means the lineaments of the mouth are themselves associated with
the facts of eloquent soul-sympathy, or of joy, sorrow, and similar
conditions.
It is no doubt asserted that, though for the Greeks, such a configuration of
the human countenance is presented as the true presentation of beauty, the
Chinese, Jews, and Egyptians, regarded on the contrary an entirely different
type, or rather forms absolutely in conflict with such, as equally beautiful,
or yet more beautiful, and the conclusion is made that, cancelling one
example by another, we have not proved that the Greek profile is the type of
genuine beauty. Such a statement, however, is wholly superficial. The
Greek profile must in fact not be regarded as any mere external and
accidental form, but approximates to the ideal of beauty by its independent
claims, namely, first, because it is the type of countenance in which the
expression of soul-life forces into the background all that is purely material,
and, secondly, because it to the fullest extent detaches itself from all that is

contingent in the form, without, however, displaying thereby mere
subservience to rule, and leaving no place for every kind of individuality.
(β) With respect to specific types and their closer consideration I will
merely touch upon certain fundamental aspects selected from the abundant
material which otherwise invites attention. In this respect we may in the
first instance refer to the forehead, the eye, and the ear, as those parts of the
face which are most nearly related to the contemplative, or at least spiritual
aspect, and, secondly, to the nose, mouth, and chin, as those relatively
speaking more connected with the organs of practical import.
Thirdly, we shall have somewhat to say of the hair as the external setting,
by virtue of which the head is rounded off in an oval shape of beauty.
(αα) The forehead is in the ideal form of classical sculpture, neither fully
arched forward, nor as a rule lofty; for, although the spiritual aspect has to
be prominently emphasized in its configuration of the visual features, yet it
is not as yet spirituality simply as such, which sculpture has to present
before us, but rather individuality as still exclusively expressed in bodily
form.
In heads of Hercules, for example, the forehead is preferably low, for the
reason that Hercules possesses rather the muscular vigour of the body
directed towards external objects than the introspective energy of mind.
And for the rest we find the forehead subject to many modifications, lower
in the case of charming and youthful feminine forms, and more lofty in the
case of figures that represent substantial character and serious reflection.
In speaking of the eye it is important at once to make it clear that in the
figure of ideal sculpture, in addition to the absence of any true colour such
as is found in painting, the glance of the eye is also absent. It is possible no
doubt to show on historical evidence that the ancients, in the case of
particular images of Minerva and other gods placed in temples, have
painted the eye, since we find actual traces of colour in certain statues; in
the case of images dedicated to a sacred purpose, however, artists have
frequently held fast so far as possible to traditional usage in the face of
good taste. In the case of other examples it is clear that they must have
possessed eyes in the shape of precious stones inserted. This practice,
however, is the result of a desire already adverted to of adorning the images
of gods in as rich and lavish a manner as possible. And we may affirm

generally that such either mark the beginnings of the art, or are due, as
exceptions, to the traditions of religion. Moreover, apart from this, mere
colour is still far from giving to the eye the essentially concentrated look,
which alone communicates to it an expression that is wholly complete. We
may therefore here assume it as a fact that in the case of statues and busts of
a truly classical type, unaffected by such exceptional conditions which have
come down to us from antiquity, the light focus of the eye, no less than the
spiritual expression of its glance, is absent. For although not unfrequently
the focus is inserted in the apple of the eye, or at least is indicated by a
conical depression, and a modification which expresses the light point of
this focus and by this means a kind of visual glance, such remains
nevertheless the purely external configuration of the eye-ball, and is no
presentation of its vitality; in other words it is not the glance of it simply,
the inward glance, that is, of the soul.
We can readily imagine that it must cost the artist a great deal to sacrifice
the eye in its simple aspect of animation. We have only to look a man in the
eyes to discover a point of arrest, a centre that explains and is basic to his
entire presentment, which we may grasp in its simplest terms from the
unifying declaration of its bare look. The eye-glance is in fact that aspect
which is most steeped in soul; it is the concentration of the inward life and
its subjective emotion. Just as a man by means of a handshake, so, too, with
yet more rapidity he is brought into unity with his fellow by virtue of the
eye-glance he faces. And it is this pre-eminently spiritual mode of
revelation which sculpture is forced to dispense with. In painting, on the
contrary, this outward expression of soul-life makes its appearance by
means of the subtle gradations of colouring either in its entire spiritual
effect, or in a manifest association with external facts and the particular
interests, feelings, and passions, which are called up by their presence. But
the province of the sculptor in his art is neither the essential inwardness of
soul-life, the concentration of the entire man in the simple centre of self-
identity, which gleams out in the human glance as its ultimate point of
illumination, nor the developed subjectivity as we find it diffused amid the
surrounding world. The end of sculpture is the totality of the external form,
into which the soul must disintegrate itself, and present itself by means of
the manifold of the medium thus utilized, so that the recourse to one simple
soul-focus, in other word the immediacy of the spirit-glance, is not here
permitted. The work of sculpture possesses no such ideal intimacy in its

simplest terms which is allowed to assert itself, as the human look does
assert itself in contrast to other parts of the human body, thereby unfolding
a contrast between the eye and the body; rather in sculpture what the
individual is in his ideal and spiritual significance remains wholly fused in
the total aspect of form, which the spirit that contemplates it, the spectator,
can alone grasp in its unity. And in the second place, and with equal truth
the eye peers into the world that surrounds it; it necessarily looks at
something positive, and thereby is witness to man in his relation to a
manifold world of objects, just as in the sphere of feeling he is united to his
environment and general experience. It is, however, precisely this union
with external objects from which the true figure of sculpture is withdrawn,
being rather absorbed in what is substantive in its own spiritual content,
essentially self-subsistent, that is without further diffusion or development.
Thirdly, the glance of the eye receives its fully evolved significance by
virtue of the expression of the rest of the bodily presentment, such as in its
general mien and speech, albeit as the purely formal point of subjective life,
in which the entire manifold of the form and its environment is
concentrated to a focus, it holds itself aloof and contrasted with this
development. A breadth of vision of this specific kind is, however, foreign
to the plastic art. For this reason the more specialized mode of expression in
the human vision, which did not at the same time immediately discover its
further reciprocal response of effect in the entire compass of its
configuration, could only be an accidental particularity, which the
sculptured figure must dispense with. For reasons such as these, sculpture
does not merely deprive itself of nothing when it leaves its figures bare of
the eye's full glance; but we may affirm that it is only true to its
fundamental principle when it totally disregards this mode of the soul's
expression. Consequently it is merely one more example of the fine insight
of antiquity, that it recognized firmly this limitation and restriction of
sculpture, and remained loyal to the abstract view it implied. It is an
evidence of the lofty intelligence of the ancients, based on the fulness of
their reasoning faculties, and the comprehensive grasp of their outlook. No
doubt we do meet with cases in antique sculpture, in which the eyes gaze
upon some definite point, as for example in the case of the faun we have
alluded to several times who glances at the young Bacchus. This smile of
recognition is expressed in a moving way; but even here the eye is itself
visionless, and the real statues of the gods in their simple situations are not

presented to us in relations of this specific character so far as the direction
of eye and glance is concerned.
With regard to the form of the eye in ideal sculpture it is large of size,
widely extended, oval and in respect to position placed at right angles
toward the line of the forehead and nose, and in considerable depression. As
far back as Winckelmann[160] the large size of the eye was accounted
significant of beauty, just as a great light is more beautiful than a small one.
"The size, however," his description continues, "is relative to the bone of
the eye or its cavity, and is expressed in the mode of incision[161] and in the
opening of the eyelids, of which in beautiful eyes the upper describes a
more circular arch toward the angle within than the lower one." In the case
of profile heads of superior workmanship the apple of the eye itself
possesses a profile and receives precisely by virtue of this opening thus cut
away a nobility and a free glance, whose very light, according to
Winckelmann's observation, is rendered visible on coins through an exalted
point or focus on the apple of the eye. At the same time mere size does not
make all eyes beautiful; they are this in the first place by virtue of the cast
of the eyelids, and in the second through being themselves deepset. In other
words the eye ought not to press forward, and by so doing be thrust on the
external world, for it is just this close relation to the external world which is
removed from the ideal, exchanging for this the self-retirement of
personality upon its own resources, that is, upon what is ideally substantive
in the individuality. The projection of the eye, however, also suggests the
thought that the apple of the eye is at one time pushed to the fore and at
another withdrawn, and, particularly in the case of the staring gaze, only
testifies to the fact that the individual is beside himself, either staring in
total absence of thought, or in an equally soulless way absorbed in the gaze
upon some material object. In the Ideal of antique sculpture the eye is
placed in even more pronounced retreat than we actually find it in Nature.
Winckelmann suggests as a reason for this that in the case of statues of
larger size which are placed more remote from the vision of the spectator,
without this more receding position, on account of the fact that apart from
this the apple of the eye was for the most part flat, the eye itself would have
been without meaning and practically lifeless, if by just this more emphatic
projection of the bone of the eye-socket, the thereby accentuated play of
light and shadow had not made the eye more apparently active. Yet this

deepening of the eye has a yet further significance. In other words, if the
forehead is thereby suffered to receive a prominence superior to that of
Nature the contemplative portion of the face is the predominant factor, and
we receive a keener sense of spiritual expression, while also the emphasized
shadow in the eye-sockets on its own account enables us to feel a depth and
unimpaired inwardness, a look that is shut off from external objects, and
retires on the essential presence of individuality, whose depths are suffused
over the entire presentment. In the case of coins, too, of the best period the
eyes are deep-set, and the enclosing bones of the eye are projected. The
eye-brows on the contrary are not expressed by a more extended arch of
tiny hairs, but merely suggested by means of the acute sharpness of the eye-
bone ridge, which, without interrupting the forehead in its form of
continuity as eye-brows actually do through their colour and relative
elevation, surround the eyes as with an elliptical garland. The more elevated
and consequently more independent arch of the eye-brows has never been
regarded as beautiful.
Winckelmann[162] further observes with regard to the ears that the ancients
devoted the greatest care to their elaboration, so that in the case of cut
stones indifferent attention to the execution of the ear is an infallible sign of
the spuriousness of the work in question. In particular he insists that statues
which are portraits often reproduced the characteristic and individual type
of the ear. It is consequently possible in many cases to ascertain the very
personality represented from the ear, if the same happens to be known, and
to take one example, from a single ear with an exceptionally large opening
into it, to deduce the presence of a Marcus Aurelius. Indeed, the ancients
have not failed to indicate in this respect what is actually misshapen. As
examples of a peculiar type of ear to be found in ideal heads, Winckelmann
draws attention to certain ears given to Hercules, which are beaten out flat,
and others which bulge out in their cartilaginous folds. They indicate
wrestlers and pancratiasts, just as Hercules himself carried off the prize at
Elis as a pancratiast in the games of Pelops.
(ββ) We have still to add some remarks with reference to that part of the
countenance which is more nearly related to the practical or sensuous side
of natural function, in other words the specific form of the nose, the mouth,
and the chin. The distinction in the form of the nose gives to the face a
variety of configuration and many various kinds of expression. A keenly cut

nose with thin folds[163] at the apertures we are accustomed to associate
with an acute understanding, whereas a broad and drooping one, or a snub
nose that is somewhat brutish, suggests as a rule sensuality, folly, and
bestiality. It is, however, the function of sculpture to hold itself aloof, not
merely from such extremes, but also the intermediate stages of design and
expression, and refuse consequently to accept, as we have already seen is
the case with the Greek profile, not simply the separation from the
forehead, but also the extreme curve, whether upwards or downwards, the
acute point and the more extended rounding off, the elevation in the middle
and the depression towards the forehead and the mouth, generally speaking
the extreme acuteness and thickness of the nose, setting in the place of these
varied modifications a comparatively indifferent type, if at the same time
one which in a quiet way is throughout vitalized by individuality.
Second only to the eye the month belongs to the most beautiful portion of
the face, provided that it is formed not so much in express relation to its
natural function as an organ for eating and drinking as in accommodation to
its spiritual significance. In this respect it only gives place to the eye in the
variety and wealth of its means of expression, and this though it is enabled
to express with vital force the finest nuances of scorn, disdain, envy, the
entire gamut of sorrows and joy through the slightest of movements and the
fullest play of such, and to a similar degree to express the charm of love,
earnestness, sensuous feeling, obstinacy, attraction, and other such emotions
by its state of repose. Sculpture, however, makes less use of it to express the
nuances of particular expression, and, above all, is bound to keep what is
entirely sensuous, and suggests natural wants away from the form and
delineation of the lips. For the most part, therefore, it models the mouth
neither over-full-shaped nor too spare, for extremely thin lips also suggest a
parsimony of emotional life; makes the underlip more full than the upper,
which was also the case with Schiller, upon the modelling of whose mouth
was inscribed every kind of significance and fulness of temperament. This
more ideal type of the lips in its contrast to the animal snout presents the
appearance of a certain absence of desire, whereas in the case of the beast,
if the upper portion projects, we are at once reminded of the headlong
devouring of food and the grasp for it. Among human beings the mouth is,
when we have regard for its spiritual relation, primarily the seat of human
speech, the organ for the free communication of self-conscious life, just as
the eye is that of the emotional spirit. Moreover, according to the ideals of

sculpture, the lips are not tightly closed; rather in the works of art in its
blooming season the mouth is set slightly open without suffering the teeth,
however, to be visible, which have nothing to do with the expression of a
spiritual significance. This attitude is so far supported by the fact that when
the organs of sense are strongly active, as, for example, when we gaze
intently at an object, the mouth is closed; when, on the contrary, we are
absorbed in visionless thought it opens slightly and the angles of the mouth
are to an appreciable extent inclined downwards.
Last in our review of the objects above named, the chin, in its ideal form,
completes the spiritual expression of the mouth, that is, assuming it is not
wholly absent, as in the case of animals, or only retained in a retreating and
meagre condition as in works of Egyptian sculpture, but as rather
lengthened out even beyond the degree which is usual, receiving thus in the
rounded fulness of its arched curve, more particularly where we have
shorter underlips, yet further increase of size. To sum up in fact a full chin
conveys the impression of a certain satiety and repose. Odd fussy wenches
wag with their withered-up chins and meagre muscles. Goethe, for example,
likens their chops to a pair of tongs that will be snatching at something. All
restlessness of this kind disappears with a full chin. The dimple, however,
which nowadays is held to have some claim to beauty is, as an accidental
grace itself, no essential accompaniment of beauty. In its place, however, a
rounded chin of considerable proportions is an infallible sign of antique
heads. In the case of the Medicean Venus it is not so noticeable, but it is
proved on good evidence that the statue has suffered a loss in this respect.

(γγ) We have only now in conclusion to refer to the hair. Generally speaking
the hair has rather the character of a vegetable than an animal formation; it
testifies less to the strength of the organism than it is indicative of
weakness. Barbarians allow the hair to hang in straight lines, or cut it off
close to the head rather than in undulating line or locks. The ancients, on the
contrary, devoted excessive attention to the elaboration of the hair in their
ideal works of sculpture, a direction in which more modern artists devote
less trouble and skill. No doubt the ancients also, when the stone on which
they worked was extremely hard, did not suffer the hair of the head to flow
in freely hanging locks, but arranged as though it was cropped short[164]
and, in that form, finely combed out. In the case of marble sculpture of the
better time the hair is in locks and of great vigour both in the case of male
and female heads, where we find it presented in upward rolls and bound
together on the crown of the head; one finds it at least, as Winckelmann
points out, drawn out in winding rolls and with express depressions the
better to indicate its various folds in light and shadow, which is impossible
if the drills are shallow. Add to this in the case of particular gods the line of
direction and the arrangement of the hair is different In a similar way in
Christian painting Christ is made recognizable by a definite type of the
crown of the head and the locks of hair, following which type in our own
time there are not a few who deliberately imitate such an appearance.
(γ) The parts above described in their form sum up collectively the head as
a whole. The beautiful form is here determined by a line which most nearly
approaches the oval of an egg, and thereby resolves every indication of
sharpness, pointedness, and angularity in harmonious form and a gently
progressive association, without, however, being exclusively regular and
abstractly symmetrical, or issuing in multifold variety of lines and their
direction and inclination as is the case with other portions of the body. In
order to form this self-collected oval shape, the beautiful and free
inclination from the chin to the ear contributes, particularly if we look at the
face from the front, no less than the line already indicated, which describes
the termination of the forehead, the bones of the eye-socket. And the arch
over the profile from forehead over the point of the nose to the chin is
equally noticeable, and the beautiful arching of the back of the head to the
nape of the neck. So much I have permitted myself, without entering on
further detail, to observe on the ideal shape of the head.

(b) In respect to the other organic members such as neck, breast, back,
belly, arms, hands, thighs, and feet, we find here another type of co-
ordination. They can no doubt possess a beautiful form, but the beauty is
sensuous, vital, without expressing by virtue of their form as such a
spiritual significance as the countenance expresses it. The ancients have
shown for the form of these parts of the body the highest sense of beauty;
but in genuine sculpture they must not merely pass as the beauty of a living
organism, but as members of the human form it is their further function to
present the appearance of a spiritual effect, so far as this is compatible with
what is purely bodily presence. Otherwise the expression of the soul would
be concentrated wholly in the face, whereas in plastic sculpture what is
spiritual must appear as permeating nothing less than the entire
configuration, and must not be permitted to isolate itself independently and
in contrast to what is corporeal.
If we now inquire what are the means which enable the breast, the torso, the
back, and the extremities to contribute to the expression of spirit and
thereby to receive over and beyond a beautiful vitality, the breath of a
spiritual life, we shall find the following:
In the first place there is the relation in which the limbs, in so far as that
relation proceeds from the ideality of Spirit, and is freely determined by that
ideality, are brought into juxtaposition.
Secondly, there is the motion and repose in their complete freedom and
beauty of form.
Thirdly, this type of position and motion in their definite affiliation[165] and
expression supplies the situation more closely, in which the Ideal, which
can never consist purely in the Ideal of abstraction, is comprehended.
I will add yet further some general remarks on the above points.
(α) With regard to position of first importance is that aspect we have had
already occasion to notice in a superficial way, namely, the upright position
of man. The body of animals moves in a parallel line with the ground;
mouth and eye follow the same direction, and the animal is unable
independently to raise himself from this relation to gravity. The opposite is
the case with mankind; the eye looking straight forward is placed in its
natural direction, that is, in a right angle with the line of gravity and the

body. Man is no doubt able to go on all fours just as animals do, and
children do so in fact; but as soon as consciousness begins to awaken, man
wrests himself from the animal chains of the earth, and stands up straight in
free independence. This stansion is an act of will, for if we cease to try to
stand our body collapses and falls to the ground. In this way the upright
position possesses a spiritual significance, in so far as the self-elevation
from the ground remains linked with the volition and thus with that which is
spiritual and ideal; just as we are accustomed to say of an essentially free
and independent man, who keeps his opinions, view's, principles, and aims
unaffected by others, that he stands on his own feet.
The upright position is, however, not yet merely as such beautiful; it is only
so by virtue of the freedom of its form. In other words if a man stands up
only straight in an abstract way, letting his hands fall glued to his side with
no interval of separation, his legs in the same way being close to each other,
we receive an untoward expression of stiffness, even although in the first
instance this is due to no compulsion. From this stiff effect we deduce on
the one hand the abstract and likewise architectonic principle of uniformity,
under which the limbs adhere together in the like position, and on the other
hand we do not discover in it any determination derived from what is
spiritual and the ideal principle. In such a case arms, legs, breast, body, all
the members stand and hang just as though they had from the first grown
there on man, without being brought by means of his spirit, his volition and
emotions into a change of position. The same thing may be said of the
sitting posture. Conversely also the squatting or perching on the ground is
destitute of freedom for the reason that it suggests an attitude of
subordination, dependence, and serfdom. The free position, on the contrary,
avoids in a measure this abstract uniformity and angularity, and places the
position under lines which approximate to the organic form; and to a further
extent it suffers spiritual relations to shine through, so that by virtue of such
a position the conditions and passions of the soul are cognizable. Only in
this manner can the position pass as a genuine exhibition of Spirit.
In the application of positions as significant pose[166], it is necessary,
however, that sculpture proceed with great circumspection, and it has
thereby many a difficulty to overcome. On the one hand, no doubt, the
reciprocal relation of the members is to be derived from the ideal principle
of Spirit; on the other hand, however, this determination from the ideal side

ought not to place the particular parts under a mode which contradicts the
corporeal structure and the laws of the same, and thereby produce the
impression of a constraint imposed on the members, or come into collision
with the material of substance, in which sculpture is set the task to execute
the artist's conceptions. And, in the third place, the pose must appear wholly
spontaneous, as though the body received it of its own initiative, otherwise
body and spirit have the appearance of being distinct and separable from
each other, and are involved in the relative position of mere direction from
one side and purely abstract obedience from the other, whereas both in
sculpture ought rightly to constitute one and the same immediately
congruent totality. This absence of constraint is here of the first importance.
Spirit, as the ideal principle, must throughout transfuse the members, and
these latter must in like degree essentially accept spirit and its determination
as to the content of its own soul. As to the pose itself and its character,
which we may empower to express the just attitude in ideal sculpture, we
can readily infer from our previous exposition that it ought not be one
wholly referable to change or instantaneous action. The representation of
sculpture must produce no effect such as is seen in the case where men,
while in the art of motion and action, were turned to stone or frozen by
means of Hüon's horn. On the contrary, it is necessary that the posture,
although it may without question point to some characteristic action,
express for all that merely a beginning and preparation, an intention, or it
must indicate the close of an action and a return from the same to the state
of repose. The repose and self-subsistency of a spiritual life, which
potentially encloses in itself an entire world, is the most suitable aspect for
the ideal form of sculpture.
(β) And, in the second place, what we have observed of posture is equally
applicable to motion. There is in sculpture as such less room for motion in
the full sense of the term than other arts[167], just in so far as the same does
not as yet advance to the mode of presentation which is more nearly related
to an art whose sphere of effect is more extensive. The tranquil image of the
god in his blessed self-seclusion is the presentment which it is its task
mainly to set before us in all its essential freedom from conflict. A variety
of movement is necessarily excluded from such. What we ought to have is
rather a stansion or reclining posture of essential self-absorption[168]. This
attitude of self wholly referable to self it is which does not proceed to a

definite action, and by doing so does not contract its entire energy to the
space of a single moment, making such of first importance, but rather
persists in the continued equilibrium of tranquillity. We ought to be able to
imagine that the figure of the gods will remain for ever in the same posture.
The escape from self-subsistency, the plunging of individual life within the
vortex of a particular action that implies conflict, the strain of the moment,
which is unable to continue as such—such relations are foreign to the
ideality of sculpture. We cross them rather where, in the case of groups and
reliefs, the particular moments of an action are presented with a distinct
inclination to the principle of painting. A result brought about by powerful
effects, and their passing exhibition, no doubt exercises upon us an
immediate impression; but after once having received it we do not readily
return to it. For that which is so prominent in the presentation is the affair of
a moment's passage, which we both observe and recognize in that moment,
whereas the ideal fulness and freedom, what is infinite in its significance, in
other words that which holds our attention permanently, is relegated to the
background.
(γ) In asserting this, however, we do not maintain that sculpture, where, in
the case where it adheres to its principle in all its severity and attains its
highest point, must necessarily exclude entirely the attitude of movement. If
it did so it would merely present to us the divine in its indeterminacy and
indifference. On the contrary, in so far as it is its function to comprehend
the substantive as individuality, and to present it to our vision in bodily
form, both the ideal and external condition, in accordance with which it
brings its content and form to an impression, is necessarily individual. And
it is this individuality of a definite situation which is pre-eminently
expressed by means of the pose and movement of the body. Inasmuch as,
however, the substantive in sculpture is of most importance, and
individuality is not as yet itself extricated from the same to the point of
particular self-subsistency, the specific determinacy of the situation must
not be of a kind that it impairs or annuls the simple sterling character[169] of
that substantiveness, by either making it one-sided or drawing it into the
conflict of collisions, or in a general way by placing it without reserve
under the overmastering importance and variety of what is particular. It
must rather remain, independently regarded, a determinacy less essential in
its result, or rather we may say a vivacious play of vital force, harmless in
effect over the superficial features of individuality, whose substantive

character in no respect suffers loss thereby in depth, subsistency, and
repose. This is, however, a point which I have at an earlier stage of this
investigation already[170] discussed at length in relation to the Ideal of
sculpture when the situation itself was under review, in which the Ideal
ought to appear in definite relation to the presentation: further discussion
may here be consequently dispensed with.
(c) The last point of importance we have now to consider is the question of
drapery in sculpture. At first sight it may appear as though the nude form
and its corporeal beauty permeated by spiritual significance, in the manner
of its pose and movement, were the most appropriate form for the Ideal of
sculpture, and drapery were simply a hindrance. In accordance with such a
view we hear the complaint raised, more particularly in our own time, that
modern sculpture is so frequently forced to drape its figures, whereas no
drapery should touch the beauty of human organic forms. And we have
finally the wail added that our artists should have so little opportunity of
studying the nude which was ever before the eyes of the ancients. In general
we may simply reply to this that though without question, from the point of
view of sensuous beauty, the preference must be given to the nude form, yet
merely sensuous beauty is not the ultimate aim of sculpture, so that the
Greeks do not give the lead to a false path when they presented the larger
number of their male figures no doubt in the nude, but by far the greater
number of female figures draped.
(α) And generally we may add that, apart from artistic purpose, drapery is
justified in real measure in the necessity of providing a protection from
climatic changes, Nature having failed to provide man with any covering of
hide, feathers, hair, such as animals possess. And from another point of
view it is the sense of modesty which compels man to cover himself with
raiment. Now this shame, regarded in a general way, is a beginning of
indignation over that which is coarse or crude. Man in fact, who is
conscious of his more elevated calling to be Spirit, must necessarily regard
what is purely animal as an incompatibility with that, and pre-eminently
seek to cover, as that which is not consonant with the Ideal of his soul[171],
those parts of his body, such as the belly, breast, back, and legs, which are
subservient to animal functions, or only are directed to external uses, and
possess directly no spiritual determinacy, and no spiritual expression. We
therefore find among every people, who have entered upon the life of

reflection, this sense of shame and the necessity of clothing in some degree,
whether great or small. As far back as the narrative of Genesis we have this
transition expressed in the shrewdest way. Before Adam and Eve have eaten
of the tree of knowledge they walk in Paradise in the nakedness of
innocence; but no sooner is their consciousness as spiritual beings[172]
aroused than they are ashamed of their nakedness. The same sense is
prevalent among all other Asiatic nations. So, for example, Herodotus
asserts in narrating[173] how Gyges came to the throne, that it was regarded
even in a man as a matter of shame among the Lydians, and almost all
barbarians, to be seen naked; and as a proof of this we have the tale of the
wife of Candaules, king of the Lydians. The tale runs that Candaules
exposed his wife in nudity to the gaze of Gyges, his satellite and favourite,
in order to convince him that her beauty as a woman was beyond compare.
She, however, discovered the outrage, which it was intended to conceal
from her, by chance seeing Gyges, who had been hidden in her sleeping
chamber, slip out of the door. Indignant at the outrage, she received Gyges
in audience the following day, and declared to him that, inasmuch as the
king had taken this step and permitted Gyges to see what he ought not to
have seen, he might select one of two courses, either kill the king as his
punishment, and possess himself both of her and the kingdom, or himself
die. Gyges selected the first alternative, and after assassinating the king
mounted the throne and married the widow. On the other hand the
Egyptians represented frequently, or, indeed, for the most part, their statues
in the nude to the extent that the male figures merely carried an apron; and
in the case of Isis the drapery was indicated by nothing more than a barely
perceptible fringe round the legs. This, however, was neither due to a
defective sense of shame, nor in virtue of their instinct for the beauty of
organic forms. For if we consider their symbolic point of view we can only
maintain that what concerned them was not the configuration of a
presentment consonant with a spiritual significance, but rather the meaning,
the essence and conception of that which the form was intended to present
to intelligence; and they permitted the human form to be thus, without
reflection upon the further and more remote adequacy of the same to Spirit,
in its natural state, which they moreover copied with great closeness to life.
(β) Finally, among the Greeks, we meet with both aspects, both nude and
draped figures. And in actual life also they were equally clothed, albeit from

other considerations they held it a point of honour to have first contested in
the games nude. To an exceptional degree the Lacedaemonians were the
first to wrestle naked. But this was with them not due so much to a sense of
beauty as to their general indifference to what savoured of refinement and
spiritual purport in the sense of modesty. In the national character of the
Greek people, among whom the feeling for personal individuality in all its
immediacy, and as it is the spiritual animation of their existence, is so
strongly developed, taking this as the instinct for free and beautiful forms, it
was also inevitable that what was human in its immediacy, the bodily
presence, that is, as it belongs to man and is suffused with his spirit, should
be elaborated in independent form, and that the human form should be
revered above all others for the reason that it is the freest and the most
beautiful. In this sense, no doubt, they threw aside that instinct of shame,
which will not suffer us to look at what is purely corporeal in' man, not out
of indifference to what was spiritual, but with an indifference to what is
purely sensuous in desire, for the sake of beauty; and this intention is
manifest in full play throughout a great number of their nude figures.
This entire absence of drapery, however, it was impossible wholly to justify
on principle. For, as I have already indicated when distinguishing the head
from other parts of the body, it is undeniable that the spiritual expression of
the form is restricted to the face and the pose and movement of the whole,
to the general mien, which is pre-eminently eloquent by virtue of the arms,
hands, and position of the legs. For these organs, whose activity is in an
outward direction, have still, and precisely by the nature of their pose and
movement, for the most part the expression of a spiritual deliverance. The
other members of the body, on the contrary, are and remain solely
productive of a sensuous beauty; and the distinguishing features which are
visible on them can only be bodily vigour, development of muscle, or
degrees of delicacy and softness, such as characterize respectively the two
sexes, age, youth, and childhood. As a means, therefore, of expressing what
is spiritual in the form, the nudity of these parts is also from the standpoint
of beauty indifferent; and it is only due to our moral sense, when, that is to
say, the main thing looked for is the paramount presentation of the spiritual
in man, that such parts should be veiled. What in general ideal art does in
the case of every separate part of the body is to remove the necessary
limitations of animal life in its detailed particularities, such as little veins,
wrinkles, hairs of the skin, and so forth, and simply to enforce and

emphasize the spiritual impression of the form in its vital outlines, and this
is precisely what drapery effects. It covers up the superfluity of the organs,
which are no doubt necessary for the body's self-support, but are in other
respects superfluous as an expression of the spirit's import. We are,
therefore, not entitled to assert without condition that the nudity of figures
of sculpture in every respect betrays a higher sense of beauty, and a greater
ethical freedom and emaculacy. It was in this respect, as in others, that a
just and spiritual instinct dominated the Greek.
Children, Cupid for example, where we find the bodily presentment one of
unreserved innocence, and the spiritual beauty consisting just in this; or, to
take other examples, youths, youthful gods, heroic gods, and heroes, such
as Perseus, Hercules, Theseus, Jason, in which cases heroic courage, and
the use and elaboration of the bodily frame in works of bodily strength and
permanence is of most importance; or wrestlers in the national games,
where it is not so much the content of the action, the spirit and individuality
of character, as the physical aspect of the exploit, the vigour, suppleness,
and free play of the muscles and limbs, which is the source of exclusive
interest; or finally fauns and satyrs, Bacchantes in the frenzy of the dance,
no less than Aphrodite, in so far as the sensuous charm of her beauty is
emphasized—such are the kind of examples which were rendered in the
nude by antique sculpture. Where, on the contrary, a more lofty significance
and reflection, a more ideal earnestness is made prominent, where in
general the natural features are not superlatively emphasized, there we get
drapery. So Winckelmann adduces a case where among ten statues of the
female form only one is wholly undraped. Among the goddesses Pallas,
Juno, Vesta, Diana, Ceres and the Muses are pre-eminently those which are
veiled in drapery, while among the gods such a treatment particularly
applies to Jupiter, and the bearded Indian Bacchus, with some others.
(γ) And finally with regard to the principle of drapery, it is unquestionable
that we have here a subject that critics are very fond of discussing, and
which has consequently to some extent been already well thrashed out. I
will, therefore, limit myself to the few following remarks.
Generally we have no reason to lament the fact that our modern feeling of
what is respectable is somewhat averse to setting up totally nude figures.
For if the drapery merely permits the pose in question to be entirely
transpicuous instead of covering it up, we lose nothing at all; rather the

drapery is just that which rightly fixes the emphasis, and is in this respect
even an advantage, in so far as it draws us aside from the direct view of that
which as merely sensuous is without true significance, and simply shows us
what is there in relation to the situation expressed by means of pose and
movement.
(αα) Once accept this principle, and it may at first sight appear that such
covering is of most signal advantage for the artistic treatment, which
conceals the contour of the limbs, and consequently also the pose as little as
possible, precisely in fact as this is the case with our sufficiently enclosing
modern garments. Our closely fitting sleeves and trousers follow the
outlines of the form, and stand in the way of the motion and mien least of
all by their making the entire form of the limbs visible. The long white
garments and bulging-out hoses of the Orientals, on the contrary, are
intolerable to our sense of vivacity and multifarious activities, and are only
fitting for folk who, like the Turks, sit the whole day long in one place with
legs crossed, or only perambulate slowly and with great gravity. And yet we
are conscious at the same time—indeed the very first glance at either
modern statues or pictures will establish the truth for us—that our modern
clothing is entirely unartistic. In other words what we behold in it really is,
as I have already in another passage, insisted, not the fine, free, and vital
outlines of the body in their tender and flowing elaboration, but stretched
out sacks with stiff folds. For albeit we do obtain the most generalized
form, yet the beauty of the organic undulations is lost; and what we really
look at is a contrivance of exterior aim, a matter of tailor's work, which in
one place is stitched together, in another folded back over, and yet in
another made tightly fitting—in other words, as a whole, forms that are not
free, folds and surfaces which are fastened together by stitch, buttons and
button holes. To all intents and purposes such a clothing as this is simply a
cover and veil, which, while devoid of any real form of its own, yet in its
other aspect, though in a general sort of way following the organic contour
of limbs, hides from the view just that sensuous beauty and vital rondour
and undulation which belongs to them, merely to replace it with the
material aspect of the mechanically elaborated stuff of which it is
composed. And thus we get what is so entirely inartistic in our modern form
of garments.

(ββ) The principle for an artistic type of clothing, then, consists in this that
it is at the same time treated as a work of architectonic design. Such a work
is simply an environment, in which a man can likewise move in freedom,
and which must essentially possess and declare on its part a determinate
shape of its own as its mode of covering quite apart from the form which it
encloses. Add to this such a work, in its aspect of a thing which is worn and
carried, must freely follow its own mechanical texture. A principle of this
type follows in the track of the kind of draping which we find adopted in
the ideal sculpture of the ancients. Particularly here do we find that the
mantle is as it were a house in which free motion is possible. It is no doubt
carried, but is only made fast at one point, namely, on the shoulder. For the
rest it evolves its particular form according to the modifications brought
about by its own weight; it hangs, falls along the ground, and casts folds
spontaneously, and only receives through the pose the varied changes of
this free kind of configuration. In like manner there is little to impair
essentially, if in varied degree, the freedom of disposition in other parts of
antique drapery. This it is which constitutes its artistic quality. It is only in
drapery such as this that we do not face something which is a burden, and
something artificial, whose shape merely displays an external constraint and
necessity, which is rather something itself independent in its form, and
which, however, accepts from a spiritual source, that is the pose of the
figure, its point of departure. For this reason the garments of the ancients
are only fastened to the body so far as is actually unavoidable, that is, to
prevent their collapse, and are modified by the pose of it. In all other
respects they hang freely about it, and themselves in their power of
movement through the motion of the body give yet further support to the
same principle. And this is wholly as it should be; for the body is one thing
and its drapery another, and the latter ought thereby to receive its full due
and be displayed in its freedom. Modern clothing on the contrary is either
wholly carried by the body and purely in subjection to it, so that even the
pose itself is too emphatically repeated, and it merely follows the forms of
the limbs, or, in cases where it is able to secure an independent form in the
formation of folds, it is after all merely the tailor's work who makes this
form according to the exigences of fashion. The material is, on the one
hand, dragged up and down by the various parts of the body and their
movements, and, on the other, by its stitches and seams. On grounds of this
description the antique form of drapery is by a long way to be preferred to

our modern style as the ideal standard for works of sculpture. No end has
been written with every resource of antiquarian research over the form and
details of the ancient ways of draping, for although men as a rule do not
permit themselves to chatter much over fashion in their clothes, the kind of
cloth, border, cut, and every other such detail, yet they find ample
justification from the antiquarian standpoint for treating these trifling
matters also as important, and of talking about them with even greater
prolixity than is permitted to woman herself in her unchallenged field of
supremacy.
(γγ) It is, however, a totally different problem we have to consider when the
question is asked whether modern clothing, that is, the kind so greatly to be
contrasted with the antique, is in all cases to be rejected. This question is of
particular importance when we examine the case of portrait statues; and
inasmuch as its main interest closely touches a principle of importance to
art as we have it now, we will consider it at rather greater length. When
nowadays we have to create a portrait of some contemporary it becomes
necessarily a part of it that the drapery and the environment are both
accepted from the actual facts of their individual existence, for, inasmuch as
it is just this actual person which is here made the object of art, this external
framework, to which the clothing essentially belongs, is in its reality and
truth precisely that which is most important. And this is more especially to
be observed when what is aimed at is the presentment before our vision in
our individuality of well-defined characters whose greatness and activity in
any particular sphere have been remarkable. Whether it be in a picture, or
in the marble, an individual is, in fact, exhibited to our immediate vision in
a bodily mode, in other words under external conditions, and to seek to
carry the portrait beyond such a restriction would virtually imply the self-
contradiction that the individual was associated with that which was
essentially untrue, and this for the reason that the service, what is peculiar
and distinguished in actual men, consists precisely in their active relations
to the real, that is in their life and action in definite professional spheres.
And if this individual activity is to be made clear to us the environment
must exhibit nothing that is foreign to or tends to impair the effect. A
famous general, for example, has lived in respect to his professional
surroundings with cannon, rifles, and powder before his eyes. If we intend
to depict him in his professional activity we recur most naturally to the way
he gives orders to his adjutants, commands the line of battle, and advances

against the enemy. And with yet more detail such a general is not merely
one of a class, but is distinguished by the particular style of his uniform. He
is either a leader of infantry or a stalwart hussar, and so forth. In every
example of this kind we have some exceptional form of habiliment which is
appropriate to the circumstances. Moreover a famous general is simply a
famous general, not necessarily a law-giver, poet, or even very possibly a
religious man; he commands in all respects as a soldier; he is just that; he is,
in a word, no complete totality, and this alone gives us the ideal and divine
type. For the divinity of the ideal figures of sculpture is to be sought in
nothing so much as this that their character and individuality are appertinent
to no particular relations and professed callings, but are rather removed
from such division, or, in the case that the idea of such relations is mooted,
it is so placed before us that we are forced to believe about such individuals
that their powers of performance are unlimited. For reasons such as the
above a demand to represent the heroes of our time or the more recent Past,
when their heroism is of a restricted nature, in ideal drapery is very
superficial. Such a demand testifies no doubt to a zeal for artistic beauty,
but a zeal which is unintelligent, and in its devotion to the antique
overlooks the fact that the greatness of the ancients likewise reposes
essentially in the lofty comprehension of all that they accomplished. In
other words, they have, no doubt, represented what is essentially ideal, but
they have not sought to enforce a form that is opposed to reality. If the
entire content of the individuals in question is not of an ideal character, then
their draping ought not to be such; and if a powerful, determined, and
resolute general does not already possess a countenance indicative of the
lineaments of Mars, then to drape him with Greek drapery would be as
much a folly as though we popped a bearded man in a maiden's petticoats.
Despite this truth, however, modern clothing does involve us in
considerable difficulty because it is subject to fashion, and consequently
subject to change. For the rational principle of fashion consists in this that it
exercises over Time the claim to be always subject to modification. A robe,
according to some particular cut, soon passes out of fashion, and it is only
in fashion so long as it pleases. But when the fashion is over, we cease to be
used to it, and what pleased us a few years back now appears suddenly
ridiculous. For this reason only those forms of garments are appropriate for
statues which carry the specific character of a period in a more permanent
type; but, in general, it may be advisable to find a middle way, as our artists

attempt to do. Yet, despite of the rule, it is generally a mistake to clothe
portrait statues in modern clothing when they are either small, or the object
sought after is simply a familiar presentation. In such cases mere busts are
best, which are the more easily lifted to an ideal elevation, simply neck and
breast being retained, inasmuch as the head and the physiognomy thus
remain of most importance, and everything else is relegated to incidental
insignificance. Where we have large-sized statues on the contrary, more
particularly where the pose is one of tranquillity, we see at once, because
they are in repose, how they are draped; and large-sized male figures, even
in the painted portrait, when clothed after modern wont can only with
difficulty be raised over what is insignificant. As instances we may mention
the full-figure seated portraits by old Tischbein of Herder and Wieland, of
which we have excellent engravings on copper. One feels at once, when
looking at them, that it is a somewhat stale, flat, and unprofitable business
to gaze at their breeches, stockings, and shoes, and absolutely so to see their
cosy, self-contented posture on a sofa, where they have their hands lying
happily together over their paunches.
It is another matter with portrait statues of individuals where, either in
respect to the period of their activity they are far removed from our own, or
are themselves essentially of an ideal greatness. In such cases what is old is
already divested of the temporal aspect and has passed into the more
indefinite background of the general idea, so that in this release from its
particular form of actuality it is also in the mode of its drapery capable of an
ideal presentation. And this is still more true in the case of individuals, who
by virtue of their self-subsistency and the ideal fulness of what are
otherwise the mere limitations of their particular profession, and detached
from what is merely the activity of a definite period of time, create
independently for themselves a free totality, a world of relations and
activities, and consequently should appear, even in the aspect of their
habiliments, as exalted above the familiar guise of every-day life in their
ordinary temporal costume. As far back as the Greeks we find statues of
Achilles and Alexander, on which the more individual traits of portraiture
are of so fine a quality that we should rather imagine them to be sons of
gods than human beings. In the case of the genial and greathearted youth
Alexander this is quite as it should be. And in much the same way,
moreover, Napoleon himself has been lifted to such a fame, and is a genius
of so comprehensive a grasp, that there is no reason why he should not be

depicted in ideal drapery, which indeed would not be unfitting for Frederick
the Great, when the object is to celebrate him in all his greatness of soul. No
doubt the size of the statues is here, too, of importance. In the case of small
figures, which carry an air of familiarity, the three-cornered little hat of
Napoleon is out of place no less than the famous uniform and the arms
crossed over breast, and, if we desire to have before us the great Frederick
as "old Fritz," we may have him pictured for us with hat and stick as we
find him on tobacco boxes.

3. THE INDIVIDUALITY OF IDEAL FIGURES OF SCULPTURE

Hitherto we have considered the Ideal of sculpture in its general character
and in the further aspect of the more detailed forms which distinguish it. We
have thirdly only left us to emphasize the fact that the Ideals of sculpture, in
so far as, in respect to their content, they have to manifest what is
substantive in individualities, and in respect to their external form the
human bodily shape, are also under the necessity of an advance in which
the particularity of their presentation is differentiated, and an aggregate of
specific individuals is thereby created, just as we already, in the classical
type of art, recognize the embracing circle of the Greek gods. We may, no
doubt, very possibly imagine to ourselves there can only be one exemplum
of the finest beauty and perfection, which may be, moreover, concentrated
in its absolute completeness in one statue. Such a conception of one Ideal in
its purity is deficient in insight and indeed ridiculous. For the beauty of the
Ideal consists just in this, that it is no purely general form or standard, but
essentially individuality, and consequently possesses both particularity and
character. It is simply owing to this that vitality is imported into works of
sculpture, and it is this[174] which expands the one abstract beauty, in a
totality of essentially definite creations. Taken as a whole, however, this
aggregate is, if we regard its content, one with marked limits; and the
reason is that a number of categories, which we are, for example,
accustomed to employ in our Christian outlook, fall absolutely away in the
case of the genuine Ideal of sculpture. The ethical points of view and
virtues, for example, such as were brought together by the Middle Ages and
our modern world in a synthetical nexus of duties which yields to some
modification, moreover, in every epoch, has no meaning at all when applied
to the ideal gods of sculpture; it is simply absent from such a circle

altogether. Consequently we can as little expect to find here the presentation
of sacrifice, of egotism overcome, of the conflict, against what is sensuous,
of the victory of chastity and so forth, as that of incommutable fidelity, of
the honour and honesty of either man or woman, or of the expression of
religious meekness, subjection, and blessedness in God. All these virtues,
qualities, and conditions repose in part on the breach between what is
spiritual and what is corporeal; and in part they retire altogether beyond
what is of the body within, the intimate shrine of the soul, or betray the
individual personal life in its separation from its entirely concrete and
explicit substance, as also in its struggle to find again mediation in the
same. Moreover, the circle of these veritable gods of sculpture is no doubt a
totality, but, as we already discovered in our consideration of the classical
type of art, it is, when we examine the distinguishing differences of its
notion, no stringently articulated and unified system. Moreover, the
particular examples are every one of them to be distinguished from all the
others in their essentially definite and self-exclusive individuality, albeit
they are not thus set apart by virtue of the characteristics of a purely
abstract mintage, but rather, on the contrary, include much which they share
in common relatively to their ideal and divine substance.
We will now pass in review the distinctions above indicated under the
following aspects:
First, we have to examine purely external marks, incidental attributes, style
of drapery, style of armour, and such like, indications with the detail of
which Winckelmann deals at exceptional length.
Secondly, we shall see how the most important differences do not merely
consist in external marks and traits of this kind, but rather in the individual
configuration and habitus of the entire figure. What is most important in
this respect is the distinction of age, sex, no less than that of the different
sphere, from which the works receive their content and form, whether they
are the impressions of gods, heroes, satyrs, fawns, or such representations
as reach their final dissolution in the attempt to render animal images.
And, thirdly, we propose to direct the attention on a particular example of
each class, in the individual form of which sculpture elaborates these
general differences. Here, no doubt, we are faced with a multiplicity of
material, and can only permit ourselves to deduce parts of it by way of

example, a province, too, as it moreover is which implies a large
experience.
(a) In considering these first mere attributes and all such external
accessories, the kind of ornament, armour, tools, vessels, and in general all
that is associated with mere environment, we find that such things are of a
very simple character in superior works of sculpture, and retained only in a
temperate and restricted degree, so that we see little of them beyond what is
suggestive or sufficient to appeal to our minds. It is the independent figure,
that is its expression and not outside accessories, which has to give us the
spiritual significance and its manifestation. Conversely, however, marks of
this kind are nevertheless necessary, in order to enable us to recognize the
particular gods. In other words divinity in its universal guise, which is the
source of the substantive part of the presentment in the case of each
individual, asserts, by virtue of this very equality of ground-basis, close
affinity between the expression of each example and also between the
individual figures, so that every god is to this extent withdrawn from the
aspect of his particularity, and can indeed further pass through other
conditions and modes of expression, than would otherwise belong to them.
For this reason we do not as a rule have set before us the particular
characterization with complete seriousness; and it is frequently these
external additions which exclusively make the particular god intelligible.
Among these indicating marks I will allude briefly to the following.
(α) I have already discussed the real attributes when the classical type of art
and its gods presented an opportunity. In sculpture the same lose yet more
their self-subsistent, symbolical character, and merely retain the right to
appear as the external presentation and form which is referable to simply
one aspect of the specific gods, a presentment which is true to this extent or
approximately so. Such marks are frequently borrowed from animal life, as
for example when Zeus is represented with the eagle, Juno with the
peacock, Bacchus with the tiger and panther, who are harnessed to his car,
because, as Winckelmann observes[175], this animal is an exceptionally
thirsty one, and, moreover, fond of wine; and in the like manner we have
Venus with her hare. Other attributes are tools or utensils of some kind,
which are related to activities and actions, which may be ascribed to any
particular god by virtue of his or her specific individuality. So we have
Bacchus depicted with the thyrsus wand, in order to entwine thereon the

ivy-leaves and garlands; or he receives a wreath of laurel leaves, to indicate
him as victorious in his expedition to India, or a torch, with which he
lighted Ceres home.
Accessories such as these, among which I have here, of course, only
adduced the most famous examples, are an exceptional stimulus to the
acuteness and learning of our professors, and carry them into a kind of
commerce in trifles, which too frequently leads them out of bounds, and
finds significance in things where there is really none. As an example we
are assured that two famous sleeping female figures in the Vatican and the
Villa Medici are representations of Cleopatra, simply because they have a
bracelet in the shape of a viper, and to the vision of such archaeologists a
serpent at once suggests the death of Cleopatra, much as it would suggest to
a pious father of the church the original serpent who seduced Eve in
Paradise. It was, however, a prevailing custom for Greek women to wear
bracelets in serpent coils, and such bracelets in fact were called by that
name. Consequently the just sense of Winckelmann[176] has long ago
rejected this interpretation, and Visconti has finally recognized[177] them as
figures of Ariadne, as she at lasts sinks to sleep after her sorrow at the
departure of Theseus. Although in uncounted cases acuteness of this quality
shows itself at fault in dealing with detail of this kind, and makes itself
appear contemptible in its departure from such insignificant facts, yet
unquestionably both research and criticism of apparently unimportant facts
are necessary, because it is only thereby that we can arrive at the closer
determination of a figure. Yet even here the difficulty crops up, that
attributes no less than form, do not in all cases point our conclusions to one
god, but may be shared in common by several. We have the vase, for
example, not only associated with Jupiter, Apollo, Mercury, Aesculapius,
but also with Ceres and Hygiaea. Several goddesses receive the ear of corn;
we find the lily in the hand of Juno, Venus, and Hope; and even the
lightning is not the exclusive possession of Zeus, for it is shared by Pallas,
who on her part again does not alone carry; the Aegis, but on equal terms
with Zeus, Juno, and Apollo[178]. The source of the individual deities from a
general significance of less determinate character which, they share itself is
associated with ancient symbols, which were appertinent to this more
general and consequently more widely shared nature.

(β) Accessories of this incidental nature are more in place with works
which, already departing from the simple repose of the gods, represent
actions, groups, or the series of figures such as we find on reliefs, and for
this reason are able to make more extensive use of a variety of external
indications and suggestions. On gifts dedicate to a devout purpose, which
are frequent in all kinds of works of art and nowhere more frequent than, in
the case of statuary, on statues of Olympic victors, but more particularly on
coins and cut stones, the rich and prolific invention of the Greek found
ample scope for the presence of symbolical references of this type, such as
that to his city's locality and others like it.
(γ) Other signs are more removed from purely external significance, and
penetrate deeper within the individuality of such deities. These themselves
are a part of the particular type in question, and are an integrating factor in
it. Among such we may mention the specific type of the drapery, armour,
adornment of the hair, and other attire of a similar nature, in respect of
which I must here content myself in elucidation with a few examples
borrowed from Winckelmann, who exercised great acuteness in such
matters. Among the several gods Zeus was pre-eminently recognizable by
the general treatment of his hair, and our authority maintains[179], that any
particular head can at once be determined as one intended for this deity or
no by the hair over his forehead, or his beard, even though there be nothing
else significant to arrest us. In other words he asserts that, "the hair is
elevated in an outward curve on the brow, and its different divisions fall in a
narrow curve with broken lines[180] down again." This type of hair-
treatment was so rigorous, that we even find it persisted in among the sons
and grandchildren of Zeus. So, for example, the head of Zeus is barely to be
distinguished from that of Aesculapius in this respect, who consequently
receives another kind of beard, more particularly over the upper lip, where
the same is more depressed in its curve, whereas that of Zeus is rather
folded over the angle of the mouth and intermingled with the beard on the
chin. Winckelmann further recognizes the fine head of a statue in the Villa
Medici, later in Florence, by means of the more curled beard, which,
moreover, folds over the upper lip, and is of greater thickness, and must be
distinguished from the heads of Zeus with their greater tendency to curled
locks. Pallas, in direct contrast to Diana, wears her hair long, bound
together in its downward fall from the head, and then beneath the fillet

flowing in a series of locks. Diana, on the contrary, wears hers thrown up
from all sides, and fastened in a knot on the crown of the head. The head of
Ceres is up to the back portion covered with her veil. Add to this, in
addition to the corn she carries, she holds a diadem as Juno does, in front of
which, to quote our authority once more[181], the scattered hairs are thrown
into a charming confusion, as though to suggest possibly her sorrow at the
robbing of her daughter Proserpine. Individuality of the same kind is
emphasized by other exterior means, as for example, when we recognize
Pallas by her helmet and its particular shape, in her type of drapery and
various other things.
(b) The truly vital individuality, however, in so far as it should find its
mintage in sculpture by means of the spontaneous and beautiful bodily
form, ought not to be asserted merely by such accessories as the external
attributes or modes of things we have cited, but should be displayed no less
in the form itself than in its expression. In attempting such an
individualization the fine insight and creative power of the Greek artist
increased in proportion as the figures of their deities possessed a substantive
basis of essentially the same kind, from which, without wholly departing
from it, it was their task so to elaborate the characteristic individuality that
this ground-root of their conception was still maintained as a wholly vital
and present fact. Nothing invites our admiration so much in the best works
of antique sculpture than the exquisite attention the artist directed to the
task of bringing the smallest traits of the presentment and expression into
harmony with the entire figure, an attention which is, in fact, the source of
such a harmony.
(α) If we inquire further after general distinctions of main importance which
assert themselves as the substantive bases in most direct relation to the
more individual severation of the bodily forms and their expression we may
note, first, the distinction of more youthful figures in contrast to those of
more mature age. In the genuine Ideal, as I have already stated, every trait,
every particular part of the figure is expressed; and, moreover, the direct
line, which is taken straight forward, avoids the abstractly level surface
precisely as the circular form avoids the geometrical circle; and instead of
this the vital variety of lines and shapes is elaborated in the finest way
throughout by the nuances of their transitional forms which unite them. In
juvenile and youthful age the boundaries of forms are less noticeably fluent,

and pass into each other so finely, that we may compare them, I borrow the
simile from Winckelmann[182], with the surface of a sea unruffled by the
wind, of which we may say that, although in continuous motion, it is still.
In the case of more advanced age, however, such distinguishing features are
more definitely emphasized, and have to be elaborated with more
pronounced characterization. Consummate male figures consequently are
more likely to please us at the first glance, because the expression is
throughout more distinct, and we wonder more readily at the knowledge
and ability of the artist. Youthful examples appear more easy in their
accomplishment because of their softness, and the smaller number of their
distinguishing features. As a matter of fact, however, the opposite is the
case. That is to say, in so far as "the forming of their parts in the interval
between their first growth and their completion is permitted to be
indefinite[183]," the joints, bones, sinews, muscles, are necessarily more
delicate and tender, yet are none the less suggested. Antique art celebrates
its triumph in just this fact, that even in its most delicate figures all parts
throughout and their appropriate organization are somehow made
perceptible in barely visible nuances of elevation and depression, by means
of which the science and virtuosity of an artist is only followed by an
observer whose research and attention is equally thorough. If, for example,
to take the case of a delicate human figure, such as the youthful Apollo, the
entire structure of the human body were not reproduced actually, and in all
its essentials with consummate, if half veiled insight, the members might
indeed appear well and fully rounded off, but they would be at the same
time flaccid, without expression and variety, so that the entire effect could
hardly satisfy. As a striking example of the distinction between the youthful
body and a man's in mature age, we may adduce the sons and father in the
Laocoon group.
Speaking generally the Greeks, in the representation of their deities,
preferred the still youthful age, and even in heads and statues of Zeus and
Neptune do not indicate old age.
(β) In the case of the sex, in which the figure is portrayed, the difference,
that is, between male and female figures, we meet with a distinctive mark of
still more importance. In general we may affirm of the latter what I have
already briefly stated in the contrast drawn between the more youthful and
more advanced age. The female figures are more tender and soft, the sinews

and muscles, albeit they must be there, are less pronounced, the transitional
lines are more flowing and malleable, yet in the wide interval of expression
from the point of quiet earnestness, greater severity of power and dignity to
that of the most delicate charm and grace of the love attraction, there is
room for the richest gradations and variety. We find a wealth of form
equally great in the male figures, in the treatment of which we have,
moreover, the expression of elaborate bodily strength and courage. The
cheerful tone of delight, however, is shared by all, a blithesomeness and
blessed indifference, which soars above all particularity, associated not
unfrequently with a trait of tranquil sorrow, a kind of smile through tears, in
which we neither have wholly smile nor tears.
There is not a marked line of distinction here between the masculine and
feminine character, for the more youthful figures of Bacchus and Apollo
frequently are fined out to the point of feminine delicacy and softness, nay,
we even find representations of Hercules in which there is so much the
appearance of a young woman's form that critics have confused him with
Iole, his sweetheart. And it is not merely this point of transition but even the
combination of the male and female figure, which the ancients have
expressly represented in their hermaphrodites.
(γ) Thirdly, and in conclusion, there is the question as to the main
distinctions which the figure of sculpture receives in order that it may be
classed within one of the specific divisions of subject-matter which
constitute the content of the ideal outlook on the world appropriate to this
art.
The organic forms which sculpture can utilize generally in its plastic effort
are on the one hand the forms of humanity, on the other those of animal life.
In respect to the animal forms we have already seen that in the case of the
more severe type of the art at its culminating perfection they will only be
found as attributes associated with the divine form, as when we find a hind
with the hunting Diana, or Zeus with an eagle. And the same thing may be
said of the panther, griffin, and similar figures. Apart from the genuine
attributes animal forms are, however, accepted partly in combination with
human shapes, and in part entirely by themselves. The extent, however, of
such representations is of a limited character. Apart from figures of the
roebuck it is above all the horse whose beauty and fiery animation obtains a
recognition in plastic art, whether it be in union with the human form, or in

its own free and independent shape. In fact, we find that the horse stands
generally in a close relation to the courage, bravery, and dexterity of human
heroism and heroic beauty, whereas other animals, such as the lion, which
Hercules overcomes, and the wild boar, which Meleager kills, are objects of
heroic deeds themselves, and consequently are entitled to a place within the
circle of representation, when such are expanded in groups and reliefs
where a freer field is admissible for situations of movement and action.
The human figure on its part, in so far as it is conceived in form and
expression as pure Ideal, supplies the adequate form for the divine, which,
being still in union with the sensuous material, is not capable of being
concentrated in the simple unity of one God, and can merely embrace a
collective whole of divine figures. And similarly, to put the matter
conversely, the human, whether we regard it according to its form or its
expression, cannot pass out of the province of human individuality, albeit
the same is at one time brought into intimacy and union with the divine, and
at another with the animal nature.
For these reasons sculpture is faced with various sources out of which it can
select and elaborate its subject-matter, and which I will now review. The
essentially central source is, as I have already several times indicated, the
sphere of the particular gods. Their distinction from humanity pre-
eminently consists in this, that as they, in respect to that which they express,
appear essentially gathered up over and beyond the finitude of care and
mortal passion within a blessed repose and everlasting youth, so, too, their
bodily shapes are not merely purified from the finite particularity of
mankind, but they are further detached from everything which would
suggest the needs and necessary limitations of sensuous life, without,
however, losing their vitality. We have, for example, an object of human
interest in the way a mother pacifies her child. The Greek goddesses,
however, are always represented as childless. Juno, according to the myth,
tosses the young Hercules from her, and the Milky Way is the result. To
associate a son with the majestic spouse of Zeus was beneath the dignity of
the antique point of view. Even Aphrodite does not appear in sculpture as
mother. Cupid is no doubt very near to her, but scarcely in the sense of her
child. In the same way Jupiter is nursed by a goat, and Romulus and Remus
are suckled by a wolf. Among Egyptian and Hindoo representations, on the
contrary, we find many, in which deities receive mother's milk from

goddesses. Among Greek goddesses the maiden form is that which is pre-
eminent, this being that which to the least extent asserts the purely natural
functions of the wife.
The above constitutes an important contrast between classical art and
romantic, in the latter of which maternal love is a leading subject. After the
gods we find that sculpture deals with heroes and those figures which have
both the human and animal form in their composition, such as centaurs,
fauns, and satyrs.
The line of distinction between heroes and gods is a very fine one; and
much the same interval separates them from ordinary human life.
Winckelmann observes with regard to a Battus on a coin of Cyrene, "With a
single glance of tender jollity we could make a Bacchus of it, and one trait
of god-like greatness would leave us an Apollo." And yet even in such cases
human forms, where the object is to envisage the force of the will and
bodily strength, tend in certain directions to make for greatness; the artist
gave to the muscular development a vital activity and movement, and in
violent actions set in motion all the springs of Nature's workmanship.
Inasmuch as, however, we find the same hero subject to an entire series of
conditions not merely distinct, but opposed to each other, the masculine
forms here also frequently approximate to the feminine. This is, for
example, the case where Achilles first appears among the maidens of
Lycomedes. Here we do not find him in his full heroic strength such as he
displays before Troy, but in drapery resembling that of a woman and a
fascination of figure which almost conceals his sex. Hercules, too, is not
always depicted in the gravity and power suggestive of the tedious labours
which he performed, but in the milder impersonation of his service to
Omphale, as also in the repose of his deification, and generally in a variety
of situations. In other relations heroes possess the closest affinity for the
figures of the deities themselves, Achilles for that of Mars, for instance; it is
consequently only after the most profound study that we can recognize the
specific meaning of a piece of statuary merely from the characterization
without further suggestion from attributes. Really expert connoisseurs can,
however, deduce the character and shape of the entire figure from isolated
pieces and supply what is missing; from which fact we again are instructed
to admire the fine insight and the consequential character the
individualization of Greek art displays to us, whose masters knew how to

preserve and execute even the smallest detail in consonance with the entire
effect.
Coming now to satyrs and fauns we find in them made visible what is
throughout excluded from the lofty Ideal of the gods, the needs of mankind,
the jollity of life, sensuous pleasure, satisfaction of excessive desire, and the
like. Yet we find in particular young satyrs and fauns so remarkable for the
beauty in which they are represented by the ancients that, to adopt a phrase
of Winckelmann[184], "Every example of such figures may be exchanged, if
we except the head, for a statue of Apollo, I refer to that one which is styled
Sauroktonos, and possesses the same stansion of the legs." The heads of
fauns and satyrs may be known by their pointed ears, their stiffly erected
hair, and their little horns.
A second province of sculpture is occupied by what is human simply. In this
we have above all else the beauty of human form as we find it set before us
in its elaborate power and dexterity in the sacred games. Wrestlers,
discoboli, and the like are its main subject-matter. In such productions
sculpture proceeds in a way that is somewhat opposed to the mere portrait,
in which department the ancients, even in cases where they actually copied
real personages, still understood how to hold fast throughout to the
principle of sculpture as we have come to know it.
The last field that sculpture makes its own is that of independent animal
figures, more particularly lions, hounds, and some others. Here, too, the
ancients did not fail to grasp, make vital in its individuality, and enforce the
principle of sculpture, the substantive significance of form, and indeed
attained to such a perfection that, to take one example, the cow of Myron
has become more famous than all his other works. Goethe, in "Kunst und
Alterthum[185]," has described it with great charm of style, and pre-
eminently drawn attention to the fact that, as we have already seen, such as
animal function as suckling is only presented by Greek art in the entirely
animal world. He entirely sets on one side poetical conceits such as we find
in ancient epigrams, and with acuteness confines his attention to the naïveté
of the conception out of which this most familiar of artistic themes arises.
(c) In concluding this chapter we have now to refer a little more closely to
the particular individuals, in the characterization and vitality of which the

distinctions above mentioned are elaborated, that is to say, for the most part
to the presentment of gods.
(α) However much, speaking generally—and we may no doubt seek to
enforce our conviction in reference also to the spiritual deities of sculpture
—this spiritual significance is at bottom the emancipation of individuality
—and the remark applies to Ideals also according to the degree of their
ideality and nobility—to that extent as individuals their distinction from one
another is less marked. And the astonishing thing in the problem of
sculpture, as solved by the Greeks, consisted just in this, that despite of the
universality and ideality of their gods they have none the less preserved
their individuality and lines of distinction; they have done so despite the
fact that in certain directions we are conscious of the endeavour to eliminate
hard-and-fast boundaries and to depict particular forms in their transitional
state. If, moreover, we are inclined to regard individuality in a way that
suggests definite traits as being appropriate to definite deities, much as the
traits of a portrait are so, a fixed type will thereby necessarily appear to be
substituted for a vital creation and art will suffer accordingly. But this is
quite as little in accordance with the facts. On the contrary we find that their
invention in such individualization and vitalization gained in subtlety just in
proportion as a substantive type lay at the roots of the same.
(β) Again, in considering the particular deities, we are inevitably led to the
conviction that one individual is of commanding influence in determining
all these ideal figures. This supreme value and dignity Pheidias attached in
an unrivalled degree to the form and expression of his Zeus, albeit the
father of the gods and mankind, is set before us at the same time with a
blithe and benignant look throned in serenity of mature age, that is not in
the first flush of youth, without, however, on the other hand emphasizing in
the least any harshness of form or suggesting the feebleness of age. The
most obvious parallels in form and gesture with Zeus are his brothers
Neptune and Pluto, whose interesting statues in Dresden, for example,
despite all that they share with him, nevertheless retain a clear line of
distinction—Zeus himself, by virtue of the benignity of his lofty presence,
Neptune, by virtue of his greater ruggedness, Pluto, who is a kindred type to
the Egyptian Serapis, by virtue of his profounder gloom and melancholy.
Essentially more apart from Zeus are Bacchus and Apollo, Mars and
Mercury, the first pair in their more youthful beauty and the greater delicacy

of their figures, the second more masculine albeit beardless. Mercury, too,
is more robust, more slender in shape, with exceptional fineness noticeable
in the facial traits. Mars is not so much marked out from the others as
Hercules might be in the strength of his muscles and other parts of his
figure, but rather as a more youthful and beautiful hero of an ideal form.
Among the goddesses I will only refer to Juno, Pallas, Diana, and
Aphrodite.
Just as Zeus among the masculine deities, so, too, Juno among the feminine
displays in her figure and its expression the greatest dignity. The large
circular-arched eyes are proud and commanding, in like manner, too, the
mouth by which she is at once recognized more particularly in profile.
Generally she presents the appearance of "a queen, who will rule, is to be
revered and must awaken devotion[186]." Pallas, on the contrary, receives
the expression of more austere maidenhood and chastity. Tenderness, love,
and every kind of womanly weakness are kept away from her; her eyes are
less expanded than those of Here, less emphatically arched and somewhat
downcast in the tranquillity of reflection, just as her head is, which is not
proudly erect as in the case of the spouse of Zeus, although it is armed with
a helmet. A very similar type of maidenhood characterizes the figure of
Diana. She is, however, endowed with a more fascinating quality, more
lightly poised, more slender, albeit there is no self-conscious delight in her
charm. She is not given the pose of tranquil observation, but is generally in
motion, pressing forward as toward some object in her vision.
Finally we have Aphrodite, the goddess of beauty as such, who is, along
with the Graces and the Hours, alone depicted by the Greek artists as
undraped and even here subject to exceptions. In her case nudity is justified
on the good ground that she expresses, above all, sensuous beauty and its
conquest, grace, attractiveness, tenderness, elevated and tempered by
spiritual qualities. Her eye, even in cases where a more grave and lofty
expression is emphasized, is smaller than that of Pallas and Juno, not so
much in length, but narrower by reason of the lower eyelid being slightly
raised, by which means Love's yearning look is admirably expressed. She
varies, however, very considerably in the type expressed. In some cases her
pose is more serious and powerful; in others delicacy and tenderness are
most insisted upon; her age, too, is sometimes that of maidenhood, at other
of riper years. Winckelmann compares the Medicean Venus to a rose which

blossoms in the fair light of its own colour at daybreak. Uranian Aphrodite
is, on the contrary, indicated by a diadem which resembles that worn by
Juno, and which Venus victrix also wears.
(γ) The discovery of this plastic individuality, whose entire expression is
wholly elaborated through abstract form and nothing further, was in a like
degree of consummate perfection peculiar to the Greeks and is due to
religion itself. A more spiritual religion can rest satisfied with the
contemplation and devotion of the soul, so that works of sculpture pass for
it simply as so much luxury and superfluity. A religion so dependent on the
sense vision as the Greek was must necessarily continue to create, inasmuch
as for it this artistic production and invention is itself a religious activity
and satisfaction, and for the people the sight of such works is not merely so
much sight-seeing, but is part of their religion and soul-life. And in general
the Greeks did everything with a public and universal aim in view, in which
every man discovered his enjoyment, pride, and honour. In this public
aspect the art of the Greeks is not merely an ornamental object, but a vital
thing that meets a really felt want, in much the same sort of way as that of
painting in its most glorious season responded to the life of Venice. Only on
grounds such as these can we find a rational explanation, if we consider the
great difficulties which the technique of sculpture implies, for the host of
sculptured figures, this forest of statues of every kind, which in their
thousand and indeed thousands, were to be met with in one single city, in
Elis, in Athens, in Corinth, and even in towns of lesser importance, and in
the same way in the greater Greece beyond and the islands of the Cyclades.

CHAPTER III

DIFFERENT TYPES OF PRESENTMENT, MATERIAL, AND
HISTORICAL STAGES IN THE EVOLUTION OF SCULPTURE.

We have hitherto in our inquiry in the first instance looked about us for the
general determinants, out of which it is possible to develop the most
adequate content for sculpture and the form which best responds to it. We
discovered the classical Ideal supplied this content, so that in the second

place we were called to establish the precise mode, in which sculpture
among the particular arts is most readily adapted to give shape to this Ideal.
Inasmuch as we found, moreover, that this Ideal is only to be comprehended
in its essential import as individuality, not only did we find that the ideal
outlook of the artist expand to a collective cyclus of ideal figures, but the
external mode of representation and execution in actual works of art breaks
up into particular types of sculpture. In this latter direction we have still
several points of view left us to discuss as follows:
First, there is the manner of representation, which, in so far as actual
execution is concerned, either creates single statues, or groups, until finally
in the relief we are confronted with the step of transition to painting.
Secondly, there is the external medium, in which these distinctions are
given actual effect to.
Thirdly, we have to deal with the historical stages of evolution, or the
process within which works of art are executed in the various types and
material.

1. THE SINGLE STATUE, THE GROUP AND THE RELIEF

Just as, in the case of architecture, we made an essential distinction between
independent building and that which was subservient we may also here
establish a similar dividing line in sculpture, that is between such works that
have an independent position and those which rather contribute to
architectural decoration. In the case of the first the environment is nothing
more than an artificially prepared locality, whereas in the latter cases their
relation to the building which they adorn is of the first importance, and does
not merely determine the form of the work of sculpture, but in a large
measure even its content. Speaking in a summary way we may assert in this
respect that single statues are set up on their own account, while groups and
a fortiori reliefs tend to lose this independence and are utilized by
architecture for its own artistic purposes.
(a) As to the single statue their original function is that of sculpture
generally, that is to supply temple images as they are set up in the shrine of
the temple, and all that surrounds them is in direct association with them.

(α) In such a case sculpture retains its most adequate purity. It displays the
figure of the god apart from all situation, in beautiful, unimpaired, and
inactive tranquillity, or at least free, unmolested, without definite action and
development, such as I have on several occasions depicted, that is, in
unconstrained situations.
(β) The earliest departure from this austere loftiness consists in this that the
entire pose suggests the beginning of an action, or the conclusion of the
same, without the god-like repose being thereby disturbed, or the figure
being presented as in struggle or conflict. We place under this type the
famous Medicean Venus and the Belvedere Apollo. In the times of Lessing
and Winckelmann the admiration of the critical world over these statues, as
the highest Ideal of art, was unconditional; nowadays, since we have come
to know works more vital and substantial in their configuration, and more
profound in their expressive power, we must deduct somewhat from this
estimate; critics, in fact, place them in an age somewhat subsequent to the
great period, an age in which the smoothness of their elaborate
workmanship already suggests that to please is the main object, and the
genuine grand and severe style is not persisted in. An English traveller goes
so far as to say that the Apollo is "a theatrical coxcomb," and while
admitting that the Venus has extraordinary softness, sweetness, symmetry,
and coy grace, yet only finds in this a spiritual quality that is wanting in
much, a negative perfection, and—a good deal of insipidity. We may
generally review that transition from the former more severe repose and
holiness as follows. Sculpture is no doubt the art of lofty seriousness, but
this elevated austerity of the gods, inasmuch as the same are no
abstractions, but individual figures, brings with it the absolute
blithesomeness, and thereby a reflex attitude to reality and finite life, in
which the blithesomeness of the gods does not express the feeling of
absorption in such finite content, but the feeling of reconciliation, of
spiritual freedom and alertness.
(γ) In consequence of this Greek art is throughout permeated with all the
blithesomeness of the Greek genius, and has found its satisfaction, delight,
and an object for its activity in a countless number of gratifying situations.
When it once had discovered a way from the constraint of the abstractions
of its presentment to an appreciation of vital individuality, which is the
unifying factor of the whole, its joy in all that is indicative of life and

cheerfulness became a real thing, and artists became occupied with a great
variety of subjects, which, without glancing aside at anything suggestive of
pain, horror, distortion or injurious, fixed as its final limit unoffensive
humanity and remained thus. The ancients have in this respect executed
much of the greatest excellence. I will here only mention, among the many
mythological subjects of playful, that is playful in the most innocent way,
interest, the sports of Cupid, in which we already see a close approach to
the ordinary life of mankind, just as there were others in which the vitality
of the presentment is the main interest, and indeed the very attempt to
secure and execute such subject-matter itself contributes this
blithesomeness and innocence to the effect. In this kind of way we may
point out that the dice-players and satellite of Polycleitus were thought quite
as highly of as his Argive statue of Here. The discus-throwers and racers of
Myron were equally famous. How dear to this folk, too, and admired is that
youth in a seated posture who extracts a thorn from his foot? There were
many others of the same type of production in great measure merely by
name. We are face to face with the fleeting moment of natural existence,
which is here arrested for ever by the sculptor.
(b) Beginning with examples such as the above of a movement towards
external objects, sculpture proceeds further in the representation of
situations, conflicts, and actions yet more involved with motion, and at last
arrives at the group. For with an increase of specific detail in the action we
have placed before us the more concrete animation, which expands in
contradiction, reactions, and thereby, too, in the presence of several figures
essentially related and intertwined with each other.
(α) At first we have, however, merely tranquil juxtapositions, such as, for
example, the two colossal horse-tamers, which are set up in Rome on
Mount Cavallo, and indicate Castor and Pollux. The one statue is
commonly ascribed to Pheidias, the other to Praxiteles. There is, however,
no strong evidence for this, although the extraordinary excellence of
conception, and the no less exquisite thoroughness of the execution justifies
names as famous. Such are entirely independent groups, which as yet
express no real action, or the result of it, and are wholly appropriate as
representations of sculpture and public exposition before the Parthenon,
where it appears they were originally placed.

(β) Sculpture, however, is equally occupied in the group with the
presentment of situations, which have as their content conflicts, discordant
actions, pain, and other similar conditions. In this direction, too, we can
only speak highly of the genuine artistic insight of the Greeks, which did
not set forth such groups independently, and by themselves, but brought
them, for the reason that sculpture has already made a departure from its
peculiar, that is to say its self-subsistent, province, into closer relation to
architecture. The temple figure, that is the isolated statue, stood in
unimpaired tranquillity and sacredness within the inner shrine. The external
pediment, on the contrary, was decorated with groups which represented
definite actions of the god, and consequently admitted of more animated
movement in its elaboration. The famous group of Niobe and her children is
of this type. The general form for the co-ordination of each part is
determined by the space which the group in question had to fill. The
principal figure stood in the middle, and was thus able to be the largest in
size and most prominent. The rest according as they were placed in the
direction of the acute angle of the gable-end had to submit to other postures,
the limit being reached by that of a reclining figure.
Of other famous works I will here only mention the Laocoon group. It has
now for over forty years been the object of much inquiry and controversy.
In particular it has been regarded as a matter of real importance, whether
Virgil in his description followed this work of sculpture, or the sculptor
adopted his work to the scene depicted by Virgil, whether Laocoon here is
actually crying out, and whether it is appropriate in a work of sculpture to
attempt to express such a cry, and many more criticisms of this kind. Critics
have worried themselves up and down with such matters of psychological
interest for the simple reason that they have not as yet secured the sort of
enthusiasm and critical acumen which Winckelmann possessed; and,
moreover, arm-chair professors are more readily disposed for such
investigations for the reason that not unfrequently they have neither the
opportunity granted them to see real works of art, nor the capacity to grasp
them for what they are when they do so. The most essential thing which can
occupy our attention in this group is this namely, that in the supreme pain,
the supreme truth, the convulsive tension of the body, the distention of all
the muscles, the noble aspect of beauty is still preserved, and the process
has not been carried in the remotest degree to the extremes of grimace,
distortion, and over-strain. Despite of this, however, the entire work belongs

without doubt—we have only to consider its subject-matter, the artificiality
of its co-ordinate grouping, the disposition of each posed figure and the
type of its elaboration—to a much later period, which already seeks to pass
beyond simple beauty and vitality by means of a deliberate obtrusion of
science in the configuration and muscular development of the human body,
and no less is anxious to please by refined excess in its executive
elaboration. The step from the ingenuous ease and greatness of art to a mere
mannerism is already taken.
(γ) Works of sculpture may be set forth in very various places, such as in the
entrances to columned halls, forecourts, landings of staircases, niches, and
so forth. It is just in this variety of local position and architectural setting,
which, on its account too, is variously related to human circumstances and
conditions, that the content and object of such works of art are for ever
changing, approaching as such art does in the group yet more closely our
humanity. It is, however, a serious defect to place groups that embody much
movement and variety of figure on the top of a building without further
background against the sky. In other words the colour of the sky may
sometimes be gray, at others blue and dazzlingly bright, so that it is
impossible to see the outlines of the figures. Yet these outlines, that is, the
silhouette we find in them, is just what is most important; it is the main
thing which we recognize, and which simply makes the rest intelligible. For
in the case of a group we find that many portions stand in front relatively to
others, an arm before the trunk of the body, or one leg in front of another.
Now the fact of distance alone disturbs the clearness and intelligible
articulation of such parts, or at least tends to do this more emphatically than
in the case of outlined portions which are independent. We have only to
imagine a group depicted on a piece of paper in which certain parts of a
figure are strongly and sharply indicated, while others on the contrary are
marked with lines of less defined and arresting definition. This is precisely
the effect of a statue's lines, and yet more those of groups, which have no
other background but that of the sky; in the latter case we only see a sharply
indicated silhouette, in which, so far as what is within the compass of that
outline, only relatively weaker articulation is visible.
This is the reason that, to take an example near home, the Victory on the
Brandenburg gate in Berlin not only affects us strongly by virtue of its
simplicity and repose, but can be readily followed through its separate

figures. The horses, in fact, stand far from each other, without either of
them impairing the view of the other; and similarly the figure of Victory
rises sufficiently high above them. Conversely the Apollo drawn in a car by
griffins, which we have on the Opera House, is less satisfactory from this
point of view, however artistic the entire conception and technical work
may be in other respects. By the favour of a friend I saw these figures
before they were taken from the workshop. The effect promised was noble.
But as we see them now at such a height, we have far too much of one
outline partly obscuring another, which in its turn is backed by something
else, and consequently is less freely and clearly silhouetted than would be
the case were all the figures silhouetted in their simple outlines[187]. The
griffins, which necessarily, on account of their shorter legs, do not stand up
either so highly or so freely as horses, have wings into the bargain, and
Apollo, too, has his tuft of hair and his lyre. All this detail is too much for
the position, and only tends to make the outlines obscure.
(c) The final mode of representation, in which sculpture makes an important
step in the direction of the principle of painting is the relief; in the first
instance the high-relief, and after it the low-relief. The condition here is the
surface, the figures standing on one and the same plane, so that the spatial
totality of the figure, which is the point of departure of sculpture, more and
more tends to disappear. The older form of relief, however, does not as yet
approximate so closely to painting, which involves distinctions of
perspective between the foreground and background, but rather holds fast to
the surface or plane as such without permitting the different objects to
project into or to retire within the distinctions of their spatial position by
means of an artificial reduction of size. In the present case figures in profile
are preferred, and they are placed side by side on an even surface. A simple
treatment of this kind does not admit the content of complicated actions, but
actions which in real life already adopt more or less of one and the same
line of motion, processions of all kinds, whether those of sacrifice or
Olympian victors or others. Add to this the relief is capable of the greatest
variety of form. It not only fills up and decorates the friezes and walls of
temples, but is attached to utensils of all kinds, sacrificial bowls, votive
gifts, shells, goblets, urns, lamps, and so forth; it is the adornment of seats
and tripods, and is closely allied to the skilled crafts. Here as nowhere else
the ingenuity of invention receives the fullest scope in every kind of form

and combination, and is no longer in position to retain the true object of
independent sculpture.

2. THE MATERIAL OF SCULPTURE

We have, by our acceptance of the principle of individuality, which is
fundamental to sculpture, been compelled not merely to emphasize in
separation the different provinces of the divine, human and natural, from
which plastic art accepts its subject-matter, but also to classify the several
modes of presentation in the single statue, group, or relief. In the same way
we have to discover a like variety of division in the material which the
artist can make use of in his works. For different kinds of content and mode
of presentation are more particularly congenial to different kinds of
sensuous material, and betray a secret attraction to and affinity with such.
By way of generalization I will merely here permit myself the remark that
the ancients, in addition to the extraordinary excellence of their invention,
equally excite our astonishment by reason of the amazing elaboration and
versatility of their technical accomplishment. Both aspects present an equal
difficulty in sculpture, because the means at hand here for such presentation
are without the ideal many-sidedness, which is at the disposal of the other
arts. Architecture is no doubt poorer still in this respect; but it is not her
province to embody spirit in its vitality, or what is actually alive in Nature
in a material which is by itself wholly inorganic. This elaborate dexterity in
the absolutely consummate treatment of pure material is, however, bound
up with the notion of the Ideal itself, for its very principle is a complete
entrance into the sensuous concreteness and the blending together of the
Ideal with its external mode of existence. The same principle is therefore
once again asserted, where the Ideal attains its executed form and
realization. In this respect we have no reason to wonder, when it is asserted
that artists, in periods distinguished by great executive ability, either
executed their works of marble in clay without models, or, if they had
recourse to them, set about their work in a much freer and unconstrained
manner than is the case in our own times, where, to put the fact bluntly, it
only makes copies which are now executed in marble after originals carried
out in the clay[188]. The old artists retained in fact the vital enthusiasm,
which is always to a more or less extent lost in the case of copies and
replicas, although it is undeniable that now and again we meet with

defective work in famous masterpieces, as, for example, eyes that are not of
the same size, ears one of which is placed lower than the other, feet that are
of unequal length and others of the same kind. They did not lay so much
stress on the absolute precision of the compass in such things as ordinary
production and art criticism, that mediocrity of talent which imagines itself
so profound, is wont to do; and it can do little else.
(a) Among the different materials in which sculptors have executed images
of gods, wood is one of the most ancient. A trunk, a post at the top of which
a head can be indicated, such was the beginning. Among the earliest
examples of the temple image many are of wood, but the material was also
used even in the days of Pheidias. The colossal Minerva of Pheidias at
Plataea was mainly carved from wood which was gilded, the head, hands,
and feet being of marble[189]; Myron, too[190], executed a Hecate out of
wood here with only one head and body, and no doubt for Aegina, where
Hecate was most revered and a festival took place annually in her honour, a
festival which the Aeginetans maintained the Thracian Orpheus had
inaugurated for them.
Generally speaking, wood, when it is not covered over with gilding or some
other precious material, by reason of its texture and the grain of it, appears
too fine a material for works of importance and more appropriate to smaller
figures, for which purpose it was frequently used in the Middle Ages, and is
still thus utilized nowadays.
(b) Other materials of most importance are ivory, associated with gold,
founded bronze and marble.
(α) As is well known, Pheidias employed ivory and gold for his
masterpieces, such as his Olympian Zeus, and also for his famous colossal
Athene in the Acropolis of Athens, who carried on her hand an image of
Victory, itself being larger than life-size. The nude portions of the body
were made out of sheets of ivory, the drapery and mantle from gold plates,
which could be removed. This type of workmanship in yellowish ivory and
gold dates from a period in which statues were coloured, a kind of
representation which steadily approximated to the one colour tone of bronze
and marble. Ivory is an extremely pure material, smooth and without the
granular character of marble, and, moreover, costly. And among the
Athenians the costliness of the statues of their gods was itself of

importance. The Pallas at Plataea had merely a superficial gilding, that at
Athens solid metal plates. The statues had to be both of colossal size and of
the richest material. Quatremère de Quincy has written a masterly work
upon these works, upon the "toreutic" of the ancients. "Toreutic"—τορεύειν,
τόρευμα—is primarily applicable to figures whose lines are brought out by
engraving in metal, or cutting of some kind such as cut stones; one uses the
expression, however, to indicate entire works or parts of entire works in
metal, which are executed by means of moulds and the founder's art, that is,
not by means of engraving, then, still more remotely from the original
meaning, of superb figures on earthenware utensils, and finally in the
widest sense of mouldings[191] on bronze. Quatremère's researches have
particularly been directed to the technical aspect of the execution; he
calculates what must have been the size of the plates made of elephants'
tusks, and, among other things, how much space, in proportion to the
gigantic dimensions of the figure, they would leave covered. From another
point of view he is equally concerned to reproduce for us from the sketches,
or other evidence[192] we possess from antiquity, a drawing of the seated
figure of Zeus, and, most of all, the great chair with its rich decorations of
bas-reliefs, and by so doing to give us in every respect some conception of
the splendour and perfection of the work.
In the Middle Ages ivory is mainly used for smaller works of very varied
character, such as Christ on the Cross and the Virgin Mary, or yet again for
drinking vessels with scenes of hunting and the like, in which cases ivory,
on account of its smoothness and hardness, is in many respects preferable to
wood.
(β) The material which was most favoured and most widely employed by
the ancients was bronze, in the casting of which it attained a success of the
highest mastery. Preeminently during the period of Myron and Polycletus it
was the prevailing material utilized in statues of deities and other kinds of
sculpture. The darker, less defined colour, the sheen, the smoothness of
bronze generally, has not reached the abstract formality of the white marble,
and it is at the same time warmed. The bronze which the ancients used was
partly gold and silver, partly copper, varying considerably in the degrees of
its component parts. The so-called bronze of Corinth is, for example, a
composition unique of its kind which originated after the burning of Corinth
from the almost incredible wealth of this city in statues and vessels of

bronze. Mummius had many statues carried off on his ships; and the
excellent man was so full of anxiety for their safe deliverance in Rome that
he informed the captain that in case of loss he must recreate the same
exactly or suffer, such was the threat, heavy punishment. In the founding of
bronze the ancients attained an incredible mastery, by aid of which it was
possible to them to cast it securely despite its extreme thinness. It is
possible to regard such a feat as merely a matter of technical dexterity
which is unconnected with true art. Every artist, however, works upon a
certain material, and it is an essential quality of genius to be complete
master of the same. Dexterity and adaptability in matters which concern the
technique and instruments of its work constitute one distinct aspect of
genius. On account of this virtuosity in the founder's art a work of sculpture
in this medium involved a less expensive process, and was in the reach of a
larger number than the chiselling out of marble statues. A second advantage,
which the ancients were able to attain in casting their work in bronze, was
the purity thereby acquired, which they carried so far that their bronze
statues did not require further enchasening, and consequently lost nothing
of the finer marks of expression, which is almost inevitable where such a
process is necessary. If we consider, then, the extraordinary number of
works of art, which originated in this facility and mastery over technical
matters, we cannot fail to be astonished and admit that the artistic sense for
sculpture is a distinctive impulse and instinct of spirit, which can only, that
is, in so overwhelming a degree, appear in one period and one people. In the
whole of the Prussian State, for example, at the present time we can easily
reckon up the number of bronze statues, the single bronze door of a church
we find in Gnesen, and, with the exception of the standing figures of
Blücher at Berlin and Breslau, and Luther at Wittenburg, we have merely a
few more in Königsberg and Düsseldorf[193].
The very various tone and the infinite adaptability to form and fusibility of
this material, which may accommodate itself to every kind of
representation, gives to sculpture the pass into every conceivable variety of
production, and makes its sensitive material suitable for a host of conceits,
prettinesses, utensils, ornaments, and innocent trifles of all kinds. Marble,
on the other hand, is limited in its suitability for the depicting of objects and
their size; it is, for instance, possible to execute bas-reliefs in it of a certain
size on urns and vases. It is, however, unsuitable for smaller objects. In the
case of bronze, however, which is not merely cast into specific forms, but

can also be beaten into shape and informed by the engraver's tools, there is
hardly any type or size of representation which it does not command. We
may here, by way of more definite example, instance the case of coinage
minting. In this art, too, we find that the ancients executed masterworks of
beauty, albeit in the technical aspect of the mere mintage[194] they stand as
yet far behind our present elaboration of all that is mechanical in the design.
The coins in fact were not really minted, but beaten but of pieces of metal
closely resembling a globular form. This department of the art attained its
culmination in the time of Alexander. The coins of the Roman Empire have
already deteriorated. In our own time Napoleon endeavoured to revive the
beauty of antique work in his medals and coinage, and they are of great
excellence. In other states, however, the mere worth of the metal and
accurate weight is mainly important in the mintage of coin.
(γ) The last kind of material exceptionally favourable to sculpture is stone,
which possesses independently the external aspect of consistency and
permanence. The Egyptians long before chiselled out their sculptured
colossi with a labour that spared no pains from the hardest granite, syenite
and basalt. Marble is, however, most directly, as a material, in harmony
with the aims of sculpture through its soft purity, whiteness, no less than by
the absence of definite colour and the mildness of its sheen, and in
particular possesses, by virtue of its granular texture and the soft interfusion
of light which it carries, a great advantage over the chalk-like dead
whiteness of gypsum, which is too bright, and easily kills with its glare the
finer shadows. We find a distinct preference given to marble, only at a later
epoch of the Greek school, that is during the period of Praxiteles and
Scopas, who executed their most famous works in marble. Pheidias no
doubt worked in marble, but for the most part only in the execution of head,
hands, and feet. Myron and Polycletus mainly made use of bronze.
Praxiteles and Scopas, on the other hand, appear to have sought to remove
from sculpture that feature which is alien to its main principle, namely
colour. No doubt it is undeniable that the beauty of the ideal of sculpture is
capable of being embodied in bronze as in marble, with no diminution
whatever of its purity. When, however, as was the case with Praxiteles and
Scopas, art begins to approach the softer forms of grace and charm of
figure, the marble asserts itself as the more congenial medium. For marble
"encourages, by virtue of the transparency of its surface, a softness of

outline, its gentle articulation[195] and mild conjunction; add to this that the
tender and artificial elaboration of consummate work always appears more
clearly on the soft whiteness of stone than on bronze, however noble it may
be, which, in proportion as the transition of green is beautifully gradated,
makes the lustres and the reflections all the more disturbing to the effect of
repose[196]." For the same reason the careful attention, which at this period
was paid to effects of light and shade, whose nuances and gradations are
more clearly marked by marble than by bronze, was a further reason why
stone should be preferred to metal.
(c) In conclusion we ought to associate with the above more important
kinds of material precious stones and glass.
The ancient gems, cameos and pastes are invaluable. They repeat in fact on
the smallest scale, yet with consummate finish, the entire survey of
sculpture, from the simple figure of a god, through all the varied forms of
grouping to every possible kind of conceit in dainty delight and prettiness.
Winckelmann, however, observes with regard to the Stosch collection[197]:
"It was while looking at this that I was made aware of a truth, which
afterwards became to me of great value in elucidating monuments, very
difficult to understand; and the truth is this, that on cut stones, no less than
on imposing works of sculpture, we very rarely come across events which
took place after the Trojan war, or after the return of Odysseus to Ithaca, if
we only except the one case of the Heracleidae and the descendants of
Hercules; for in this latter case the limits of history and fable still overlap,
and fable is the main subject of these artists. Only one example of the tale
of the Heracleidae, however, is known to me personally." As for gems, the
genuine and most consummately executed figures are of the greatest beauty,
fine as the work of organic Nature, and may be inspected through a
magnifying glass without any loss to the purity of their delineation. I refer
to this fact in proof that the technique of art in such cases is almost an art of
intuition; the fineness is such that the artist is unable as the sculptor is to
follow the work with his eyes, but is rather compelled to feel after it. He
holds the stone which is made fast on wax against tiny sharp wheels which
are made to spin by means of a flying-wheel, and in this way cuts out the
forms. By this process what we have is a kind of instinctive sense, which
takes in and directs so consummately the conception, the intention of line

and drawing, that we can almost fancy ourselves to have before us in these
stones, when one sees them properly illuminated, a relief work.
The work on cameos is to be contrasted with the above. These represent
figures finely cut in out of the stone. The onyx was particularly utilized as
material for this kind of work. In dealing with these, the ancients were
expert in setting off to advantage and with taste the various strata, in
particular the white and yellow-brown. Aemilius Paulus had a number of
such stones and other trinkets carried to Rome.
In the representations which were depicted upon all this varied material the
Greek artists adapted as the basis of their work no situations which were
poetically conceived by themselves, but selected their subject-matter
invariably, if we only except examples of Bacchanals and dances, from
myths about the gods and sagas. Even in the case of urns and
representations of events relative to deceased persons they had definite facts
before them, which were associated with the individual, whom it was
thought right to honour by reason of his decease. The direct allegory, in
fact, does not belong to the genuine Ideal, but only becomes perspicuous in
art's later development.

3. THE HISTORICAL EVOLUTION OF SCULPTURE

We have hitherto regarded sculpture as the most adequate expression of the
classical Ideal. The Ideal, however, has not merely an intrinsic forward
development on its own account, by virtue of which it approximates to that
which it is in virtue of its notion, and by doing so equally begins a forward
movement beyond this absolute harmony with its own essential nature.
Quite apart from this, as we have already seen in the second main division
of this work during our review of the particular types of art as a process, it
contains, putting on one side its mode of presentation under the symbolical
type, a certain aspect pre-supposed, which it is bound to pass beyond in
order generally to establish itself as Ideal, and moreover a further type of
art, that is the romantic, from which it will once more pass away. Both types
of art, the symbolical no less than the romantic, likewise seize upon the
human figure as an element of their presentment, whose spatial outlines
they adhere to, and consequently set forth as sculpture sets them forth. We
have, therefore, when it is a question of drawing attention to the historical-

development, not only to speak of Greek and Roman sculpture, but also
Oriental and Christian. It was, however, the Egyptian people pre-eminently
among all, among whom the symbolical type sums up the fundamental
character of their art-production, who first began to associate with their
deities the human figure as it emerges from a mode of existence that is
purely natural, and for this reason it is mainly among them that we meet too
with sculpture, inasmuch as they gave as a rule to their general outlook an
artistic existence in that which was simply material. The sculpture of
Christianity is of wider range and richer development. We do not merely
refer here to its uniquely romantic character in the Middle Ages, but also to
that further elaboration, in which we find it made an effort once again to
approach more closely the principle of the classical Ideal, and establish that
type most specifically consonant with sculpture.
I will in concluding the present section of my work in its entirety, and
following the above general observations, add a few words, first, upon
Egyptian sculpture as contrasted with the Greek as the introductory stage of
the true Ideal.
The characteristic elaboration of Greek sculpture makes our second stage,
which closes with Roman sculpture. On the present occasion what will
mainly concern us will be to survey the stage which precedes the really
ideal mode of presentation, because we have already in our second chapter
considered at length ideal sculpture.
Thirdly, we have merely left us to indicate briefly the principle of Christian
sculpture. I can only undertake in this place to refer to it in the most general
terms.
(a) When we have the intention to investigate on the soil of Greece the
classical art of sculpture from the historical standpoint, we find ourselves
already confronted with Egyptian art in the form of sculpture before we
have arrived at our object; and we must add not merely is this so in regard
to great works which bear witness to the highest technique and elaboration
in an entirely unique artistic style, but as the point of departure and source
for the forms of Greek plastic art. That this last result on the ground of
historical fact amounts also to an external contact, an acceptance and an
instruction to which Greek artists submitted, this must be left to the history
of art to establish, whether it be in reference to the significance of figures of

deities represented from the field of mythology, or to the particular methods
of artistic treatment. The association between Greek and Egyptian ideas of
the gods is a conviction set forth with proofs by Herodotus. Creuzer is of
the view that we find this external association of these arts most clearly
demonstrated on coins, and he lays exceptional stress on ancient Attic
examples. He has showed me one in his own possession in which without
question the face, a profile possessed quite the outline of the physiognomy
of Egyptian figures in every respect[198]. We must, however, here leave this
purely historical aspect to stand on its own merits, and confine ourselves to
the inquiry whether apart from it a more ideal and necessary bond of
connection cannot be established. This bond of intrinsic causality we have
already adverted to above. It is necessary that the art which is incomplete
must precede the complete form of art, the Ideal, by means of the negation
of which, that is by the stripping off of that aspect which adheres to it as a
defect, the Ideal is first realized. In this respect unquestionably classical art
is a becoming or a process, which, however, apart from it must necessarily
possess an independent existence, inasmuch as quâ classical it must leave
all deficiency, all the mere becoming behind it, and be essentially rounded
in "completion." This process as such consists in this, that the form of the
presentation first begins to run counter to the Ideal, and yet remains
incapable of an ideal grasp, belonging as it does to the symbolical synthesis,
which is unable to embody in union the universal aspect of the significance,
and the individual embodiment as it appears to sense. That Egyptian
sculpture possesses such a fundamental character, is the single point that I
will now briefly touch upon.
(α) The primary fact that calls for attention is the deficiency we find here in
ideal and creative spontaneity, despite the greatest technical perfection. The
source of works of Greek sculpture is the vitality and freedom of the
imagination, which builds up individual figures from the religious ideas
which are prevalent, and in the individuality of this its production makes an
actual fact of its own ideal outlook and classical perfection. The Egyptian
figures of deities, on the contrary, receive an inherited[199] type. As Plato
long ago observes[200], the representations were long before fixed by the
priestly caste, and it was neither permitted to painter nor any master of
sculpture to introduce novelty, nor indeed to invent anything at all, but to
accept instead what was already among them and traditional; neither is such

permission conceded now. We consequently find that what was made and
fashioned, it may be myriads of years before (to allow oneself a
hyperbolical expression for the great number that is actual verity), is neither
more beautiful nor more ugly than the work of to-day. The circumstance
must also be associated with this scholastic accuracy, that in Egypt, as
appears clear from Herodotus[201], artists did not enjoy the same respect as
other citizens, but were forced with their children to defer to all who were
not engaged in artistic work. Add to this art among the people was not
followed according to natural inclination; the institution of caste was
paramount, and the son walked after his father, not merely in the matter of
profession, but also in the way in which he made himself efficient in his
duties and his art. One man simply placed his feet in the steps of another, so
that, as Winckelmann has already observed[202], "Not a soul appears to have
left behind him a footmark, which he can appropriate as his own."
Consequently art, when fully confronted with this enforced serfdom of
Spirit—in conjunction with which the mobility of free and artistic genius, in
other words, not the mere impulse after external honour and reward, but the
more elevated impulse to be artist, is banished—maintained itself simply as
the mere craftsman working in a purely mechanical and abstract way
according to forms and rules ready to hand, rather than with the vision of
the artist of his own individuality in his work, viewed in this way as his
own unique creation.
(β) Coming now in the second place to the actual works of art, here, too, we
may borrow from Winckelmann, whose descriptions attest once more his
exceptional acuteness of observation and distinction, and whose account of
the character of Egyptian sculpture is in its main lines as follows[203].
Speaking generally we may say that both grace and vitality, which are the
result of the genuine sweep and balance of organic line, are absent from the
entire figure and its detailed parts; the outlines are straight or in lines that
show less deviation from it, the pose appears constrained and stiff, the feet
are thrust close together, and in cases of figures in the upright position
where one foot is placed before the other, both point in the same direction
instead of having the toes turned outwards. In the same way, in masculine
figures, the arms hang down straight and glued to the body. Further, the
hands, such is Winckelmann's view, are shaped much as we find them in
men who possess hands not badly shaped originally, but deteriorated and

neglected; feet, on the other hand, are too flat and spread out, the toes are of
equal length and the little toe is neither crooked nor curved inwards: in
other respects hands, nails, and toes are not badly shaped, although neither
the joints of fingers nor toes are indicated. And similarly we may say of all
the rest of the nude figure the muscles and bones are but slightly indicated,
and the nerves and veins not at all. In short, so far as detail is concerned,
despite the laborious and able execution, just that aspect of the elaboration
is absent which alone communicates to the figure its true animation and
vitality. The knees, however, bones, and elbows are traceable in relief, as
we find them in Nature. Masculine figures are conspicuous for their
exceptionally narrow waist above the hips. The backs of figures, on account
of their position against columns and their being sculptured from one block
with them, are not visible.
Together with this lack of mobility, which is not entirely due to the
technical inferiority of the artists, but must be regarded as a result of their
primitive conception of the figures of deities and their mysterious repose, is
nearly associated the absence of any true situation and any sort or kind of
action, which are asserted in sculpture by means of the position and motion
of the hands and the demeanour and expression of delineation. No doubt we
do find among Egyptian representations on obelisks and walls many figures
in movement, but these are purely reliefs and are for the most part painted.
To add a few more examples of even more intimate detail, the eyes are not
deeply set as in the Greek ideal, but are almost on a level with the forehead;
they are flattened and extended obliquely. The eye-brows, eyelids, and rims
of the lips are mainly suggested by the graver's lines, or the brows are
indicated by a stroke in relief, which extends as far as the temples and is at
that point cut off angular wise. What we above all find wanting here is the
projection of the forehead, and along with this, together with uncommonly
high placed ears and arched noses, as is the rule with vulgar natures, we
have the retreating form of cheekbones, which in contrast to other parts are
strongly indicated and emphasized, whereas the chin is always retiring and
small; the rigidly closed mouth, too, draws its corners in an outward rather
than an under-ward direction, and the lips appear to be separated from each
other by a mere slit. Speaking generally, then, such figures are not only
wanting in freedom and vitality, but more than anything else the head fails
to show us the expression of spiritual significance; the animal aspect is the

prevailing one, and Spirit is not as yet suffered to appear in its self-poise
and independence.
The execution of animal figures is, on the contrary, according to the same
authority, carried through with much knowledge and an exquisite variety of
gently gradated outlines and of parts that flow one into the other without a
break. And if in the human figures spiritual life is not as yet liberated from
the animal type and the interfusion of the Ideal with what is sensuous and of
Nature on a new and free model is absent, yet we find here that the
specifically symbolical significance of the human no less than the animal
figures is directly expressed by means of sculpture in these embodiments of
forms, in which human and animal shapes pass into one mysterious union.
(γ) Consequently the works of art, which carry on their face this character,
remain at the stage where the breach between significance and form is not
yet bridged over. For such a stage significance is still of main importance,
and what is aimed at is rather the conception of that in its general aspect,
than the vitalization of any one individual figure and the artistic enjoyment
derived from such presentment. Sculpture proceeds here from the genius of
an entire people, about which we may on the one hand affirm, that it has in
the first instance arrived at the point where the need of imaginative
conception is disclosed; and it is satisfied to find that indicated in the work
of art, which is present in the conception, and here of course is a conception
which is religious. We are not therefore entitled, taking into consideration
the great strides they have made in laborious activity upon and actual
perfection in technical execution, to call the Egyptians uneducated in their
sculpture merely on the ground that, despite all this, they did not as yet in
great measure seek to attach truth, vitality, and beauty to their results, by
virtue of which qualities the free work of art receives a soul. Doubtless
from another point of view the Egyptians did advance beyond the mere idea
and its necessary demand. They sought further to envisage and embody the
same in human and animal forms, nay, they knew how to comprehend and
set forth the forms, which they reproduced, clearly, without distortion and
in their just relations. They failed, however, to impart to them the breath of
vitality, which the human form in its natural state already possesses, and to
infuse with them that more exalted life, by virtue of which an active and
fluent motion of spirit could be expressed in a created image that was
adequate to its significance. Their works rather attest a seriousness that is

entirely lifeless, an unsolved riddle, so that the configuration does not so
much embody their own individual ideality as permit us to surmise a further
significance which is still alien to it. I will here only adduce one example,
namely, the frequently recurring figure of Isis, holding Horus on her knees.
Here we have, so far as externals are concerned, the same subject-matter
that we meet with in Christian art as the Madonna and her Child. In the
symmetrical, straight-lined, and immovable pose of the Egyptian example
we discover, to quote a recent description[204], "neither a mother, nor a
child; there is no trace of affection, smile, or endearment, in a word there is
no real expression at all. Tranquil, unperturbed, and immovable is this
divine mother, who suckles her divine babe; or rather we have here neither
goddess nor mother, nor son, nor god. It is simply the sensuous sign of a
thought, which is capable of no result and no passion; it is not the genuine
presentation of a real action, still less the just expression of a natural
emotion."
And it is precisely this which constitutes the breach between signification
and determinate being, which creates the absence of figurative expression in
the artistic results of the Egyptian people. Their ideality or spiritual sense is
still so imbruted, that it has no imperative desire to possess the precision
bound up in a true and vital representation carried through with detailed
accuracy, to which the onlooker has nothing to add, but may simply
surrender himself to the attitude of reception and translation, because
everything is already a gift of the artist. We must have a more lofty feeling
of the individual's self-respect aroused than the Egyptians possessed, before
we cease to be content with the indefinite and superficial features of art, and
make valid in its products a claim to reason, science, motion, expression,
soul, and beauty.
(b) We find this artistic self-consciousness, so far as sculpture is concerned,
first wholly alive among the Greeks. By its presence all the defects of the
Egyptian phase of art vanish. Yet in this further development we do not
have to make a wide leap from the imperfections of a type of sculpture still
symbolical to the perfected result of the classical Ideal. Rather the Ideal has,
in its own distinctive province—I have noticed this more than once—
although lifted to a higher range, to remove the defects whereby in the first
instance its onward path of perfection is obstructed.

(α) I will here very briefly refer to Aeginetan and ancient Etruscan works of
art as examples of such beginnings within the sphere itself of classical art.
Both these stages, or rather styles, already pass beyond that point of view,
which is satisfied, as was the case with Egypt, in repeating forms, we will
not say absolutely opposed to Nature, but at least forms that are lifeless,
precisely as they have been received from others, and is further content to
place before the imagination a figure, from which the same can abstract its
own religious content and recover the same for memory, without, however,
attempting to work it out under a mode, by virtue of which the work is
made apparent as the individual conception and vitality of the artist himself.
But along with this and to the same degree this preliminary stage of ideal
art fails as yet to force its way entirely to the true classical ground, and this,
first, because it is still clearly constrained within the bonds of the type and
therewith the lifeless; secondly, because though it makes an advance in the
direction of vitality and motion, yet in the first instance all that it attains to
is the vitality of what is wholly of Nature, rather than that beauty, whose
animation is Spirit's own gift, and which manifests the life Spirit
inseparably conjoint within the living presentment of its natural form,
accepting the individual modifications of this fully completed union with
equal impartiality from present vision of actual fact and the free creation of
genius. It is only in recent times that we have obtained a more detailed
knowledge of Aeginetan works of art, over which it has been a matter of
controversy, whether they belonged to Greek art or no. In considering their
artistic quality, as representations, we must at once make an essential
distinction between the head and the rest of the body. The whole of the
body, if we except the head, attests the most faithful apprehension and
imitation of Nature. Even accidental features of the skin are copied and
excellently executed with an extraordinary manipulation of the marble's
surface; the muscles are set forth in full relief and the skeleton framework
of the body well indicated; the figures are thickset in their severity of
line[205], but are reflected with such knowledge of the human organism, that
they appear alive to a limit of actual deception, ay, to an extent, so Wagner
assures us[206], that we are almost scared at the sight and hardly like to
touch them.
On the other hand, in the execution of heads all attempt to represent Nature
is abandoned. One uniform design of face is throughout apparent in all the

heads despite every divergence of action, character, and situation; the noses
are pointed; the forehead is still the retreating type, which fails to rise up
straight and with freedom; the ears are set high in the head; the long slit
eyes are flat and oblique; the closed mouth ends in corners which are pursed
outwards; the cheeks are stretched flat-shaped; the chin, however, is strong
and angular[207]. Of a similar uniformity is the form of the hair and the fall
of the drapery, in which symmetry, a principle which is also uniquely
conspicuous in the pose and groupings, and second to that, a peculiar kind
of exquisiteness are the prevailing characteristics. This uniformity has been
in part imputed to a lack of the sense of beauty in seizing national traits, and
in part traced to the fact that reverence for the ancient traditions of an art
still immature has fettered the hands of the artists. An artist, however,
whose life is that of his personality, and who lives in his work, does not
suffer his hands to be thus shackled; consequently we can only explain this
type of work, associated as it is with great ability in other respects, by
assuming some bondage of spirit, as yet not wholly conscious of its
freedom and independence of its creative powers.
The pose of these figures is of the same kind of uniformity, not so much a
quality of stiffness as uncouthness, lack of enthusiasm, and in a measure,
where we have the attitudes of warriors, resembling what we sometimes
find from artisans at their trade, such as the rough work of joiners with the
plane[208].
The net result, which we gather from the above description, we may affirm
to be that, however interesting they may be for the history of art, what is
wanting in such works of art, in the conflict they disclose between tradition
and the imitation of Nature, is spiritual animation. For we must remember
that, in accordance with what I have already explained in the second chapter
of this part of my work, spiritual significance is exclusively expressed in the
countenance and the pose of the figure. The other parts of the body no
doubt indicate natural distinctions of soul, sex, and age, but what is spiritual
in the full sense can only be reflected by the general pose. But it is precisely
the traits of countenance and the posture which in Aeginetan sculpture is the
relatively spiritless.
The Etruscan works of art, that is, such whose genuineness is fully
authenticated by inscription, display the same imitation of Nature in a yet
higher degree; they are, however, freer in their pose and facial

characteristics, and, in fact, some of them approximate closely to the
portrait. Winckelmann, for example[209], mentions the statue of a man
which appears to be simply a portrait, though it would also appear to date
from a later period of art. It is a man of life-size, representing some kind of
orator, a magisterial, worthy sort of person. It is executed with an
extraordinary spontaneity and naturalness both of pose and expression.
Remarkable and significant it would indeed be, if we did not recollect that
on Roman soil it is not the Ideal but actual and prosaic natural fact which is
from the first at home.
(β) In the second place truly ideal sculpture, in order to reach the highest
point of classical art, has above all, to abandon the mere type and the
respect for what is traditional, and to give free scope to the principle of
spontaneity in artistic production. It is alone possible to a freedom of this
kind entirely to incorporate the significance in its generality in the
individual presentment of the form; or, from another point of view, to
elevate the sensuous forms to the high level of a true expression of their
spiritual import. Only after doing this do we find the rigid and inflexible
aspect which is native to the origins of the more ancient art, no less than the
emphatic prominence of the significance over the individuality, by means of
which the content ought to be expressed, liberated as that vital creation, in
which the bodily forms also on their part equally lose the abstract
uniformity of a traditional, character, and an illusive realism, and by doing
so move in the direction of the classical individuality, which quite as much
makes, vital the universality of the form in the particularity of its object as,
on the other hand, it makes the sensuousness and actuality of the same
throughout interfused with the expression of a soul's inspiration[210]. A
vitalization of this type affects not only the form, but also the pose,
movement, drapery, grouping, in short every aspect of the sculptured figure
to which I have already drawn attention. What here communicates unity are
these two principles of universality and individualization. They have,
however, not merely to be brought into harmony in respect to the spiritual
content, but also in relation to the material form, before they can be
participant in the indissoluble association which is the classical type in its
full flavour. This identity, however, has itself a series of stages. In other
words, under one extreme we find that the Ideal still somewhat inclines to
the aspect of loftiness and severity, which it is true does not deprive the

individual object of its living impulse and movement, yet does tend to
concentrate it more securely under the lordship of the general type. At the
other extreme we find that the universal aspect more and more tends to
dissolve in the individual; and while it pays the penalty for doing so in loss
of depth it can only replace this loss by further elaboration of this sensuous
individuality. Consequently it descends from the heights to the lower levels
of that which gives pleasure, is exquisite, blithesome, and displays the
charm which flatters. Between these two there is a further phase, one,
namely, which carries forward the severity of the first to increased
individualization, without reaching that point where mere charm of aspect is
held to be the supreme object.
(γ) Thirdly, in the art of Rome we have indications of the dissolution of
classical sculpture. In this art it is no longer upon the true Ideal that the
entire conception and execution depends. The poetry inherent in the vital
action of Spirit, the breath and nobility of the soul apparent in the
essentially perfected presentment, these peculiarly emphasized excellences
of Greek plastic art disappear, and give place, as a rule, to a preference for
portraiture studies. And this insistence on realistic truth in art is carried out
in all possible modifications. Notwithstanding, this Roman sculpture
maintains so lofty a position in this its own province, that it is only in so far
as it withdraws from that which brings a work of art to its full perfection, in
other words, the poetry of the Ideal in the true sense of the word, that it
essentially falls behind Greek art.
(c) Fixing now our attention on Christian sculpture we shall find that the
principle of artistic conception and its mode of embodiment is from the
commencement one that does not so directly commend itself to the material
and forms of sculpture as we find to be the case in the classical Ideal of the
Greek imagination and art. The romantic Ideal in short is essentially
concerned, as we discovered in the second portion of this work, with a
personal withdrawal of the self into its own realm from the external world,
with a self-absorbed individuality, which no doubt possesses its external
reflection, but which permits this external appearance to issue
independently from it in its aspect of particularity, without enforcing a
fusion between it and its ideal and spiritual self. Pain, torture of body and
soul, martyrdom and penance, death and resurrection, the personality of the
individual soul, inner life, love, and emotional life in general—this

characteristic content of the romantic imagination, in a religious sense, is no
object, for which the external form taken simply for what it is in its spatial
entirety, and the material which belongs to it in its more sensuous existence
unrelated to ideality, can supply either a form that is wholly relevant to it, or
one similarly congruent with it. It is therefore not in romantic art sculpture
contributes the fundamental type and the affiliating quality of membership
in a system[211] to all the other arts as in Greece, but yields the palm in this
respect to painting and music, as arts more adequate to express the life of
the soul, distinct from the external world of particularity which is
withdrawn from it. No doubt we find also in Christian art repeated
examples of sculpture in wood, marble, bronze, and both silver and gold
work, examples of the greatest excellence. Yet for all that sculpture is not
here the art which, as in Greek art, is most fitted to reveal the Divine image.
Religious romantic sculpture, on the contrary, is to a larger extent than in
the case of the Greek, an embellishment of architecture. The saints are
placed as a rule in the niches of towers and buttresses, or at the entrance
doors. Likewise the birth, baptism, the histories of the passion and
resurrection, and many other incidents in the life of Christ, the day of
Judgment and so forth, accommodate themselves naturally by the
multiplicity of their subject-matter to reliefs over church doors, on church
walls, and stalls in the choir, and readily approximate to the character of
arabesques. All such sculpture contains, for the reason that it is the life of
the soul which is herein pre-eminently expressed, characteristics suggestive
of the painter's art in a higher degree than is permitted in the plastic of ideal
sculpture. And from another point of view, for the same reason, such a
sculpture seizes more readily upon aspects of ordinary life, and therewith
inclines to portraiture, which, as in the case of painting, it is quite prepared
to associate with religious representations. The goose-seller, for example, in
the Nürnberg marketplace, which is highly prized by Goethe and Meyer, is
an ordinary rustic of very realistic appearance in bronze (it would be
impossible in marble), who carries a goose under either arm to market.
There are, too, the many sculptured figures, which we find upon the St.
Sebaldus Church and on many other churches and buildings, especially
dating from the period previous to Peter Vischer, and which in their
representation of religious subjects such as the Passion, make clear to us
with great vividness this particular type of individualized form, expression,

mien and attitude, more particularly in their reflection of every degree of
sorrow.
As a rule, then, romantic sculpture, which has deviated only too frequently
into every kind of confusion, remains most loyal to the genuine principle of
plastic art in those cases where it approaches most nearly the Greek, and
either is concerned to treat in the mode of sculpture ancient subject-matter,
much as the ancients would have done, or to model the standing figures of
heroes and kings, and portraits, with an intention to imitate the antique. This
is exceptionally the case nowadays. Much of the most excellent work,
however, has been accomplished by sculpture, even in the religious field. It
is only necessary here to mention the name of Michelangelo. We can hardly
admire sufficiently his dead Christ[212], of which we have a plaster cast in
our Royal Museum. The authenticity of the sculptured figure of the
Madonna in the Frauenkirche at Bruges, a consummate work, is disputed by
certain critics. Speaking for myself, nothing has ever more impressed me
than the tomb of the Count of Nassau at Breda[213]. The Count reposes with
his lady, life-size figures both in alabaster, on a slab of black marble. At the
angles of this are placed Regulus, Hannibal, Caesar, and a Roman warrior in
a bowing posture, and they support above their heads a black slab similar to
the one beneath. Could anything be more interesting than to see a character
such as that of Caesar placed before our eyes by Michelangelo. Even when
dealing with religious subjects the genius, the power of imagination, the
force, thoroughness, boldness, in short all the extraordinary resources of
this master tended, in the characteristic production of his art, to combine the
plastic principle of the ancients with the type of intimate soul-life which we
find in romantic art. But as we have seen, the direction as a rule of the
Christian emotion, where the religious point of view and idea are
paramount, is not towards the classical form of ideality, which primarily
and with highest results is the determinant factor of its sculpture.
From this point we may now fix the transition from sculpture to another
principle of artistic apprehension and presentment, which requires for its
realization another sensuous material. In classical sculpture it was the
objective and substantive individuality in its human shape, which
constituted the vital core, and the human form was placed thereby at such a
lofty level, that it was in fact retained in its abstract simplicity as the beauty
of form, and as such converted to the Divine image. Under such a one-sided

aspect of content and representation man is not fully himself in his concrete
humanity. The anthropomorphism of art remains in its incomplete state in
ancient sculpture. For that which fails us here is humanity in its objective
universality, a universality which we identify at the same time with the
principle of absolute personality, quite as much as that aspect of it which in
common parlance is called human, in other words the phase of subjective
singularity, human weakness, contingency, caprice, immediate sense life,
passion, and so forth, a phase or factor which must be taken up into that
universality in order that the entire individuality, the subject of conscious
life, that is, in its entire range, and in the infinite compass of its reality, may
appear as the vital principle both of the mode of presentment and its
content.
In classical sculpture one of these phasal aspects, that is the human from the
side of immediate Nature, is in part only brought before us in animals,
quasi-animals, fauns and the like, without being reflected back again into
the personal life of soul, and stated as a negation of that; and also in some
measure this type of sculpture only accepts the factor of particularity, only
directs its interest to external things in the pleasing style, in the countless
sallies of delight and conceits, in which the antique plastic lives and moves.
Owing to this we wholly fail to meet here the profundity and infinity which
lies at the root of man's personal life, that inmost reconciliation of Spirit
with the Absolute, that ideal union of humanity with the humanity of God.
No doubt Christian sculpture is the instrument which makes visible the
content which here enters the domain of art more consonant with the above
disregarded principle. But it is precisely its modes of art's embodiment
which expose to us the fact that sculpture is insufficient for such a content,
that other modes of art will infallibly arise able to reach in very truth the
mark which sculpture failed in its work to achieve. We may collectively
unite these new arts under the title of the romantic arts. They are indeed the
modes most adequate to express the romantic type of art.

[111] Sein subjektives Fürsichseyn. Subjective independence of material
conditions. Self-consciousness.
[112] Rückkehr in sich. Into itself, its own ideal world of conscious thought and
emotion.
[113] In seine innerliche Subjektivität. That is, what is essentially the world of
soul. Spirit here stands for mind and Gemüth or emotional life.
[114] Ein Sichzeichen des Geistes, i.e., are signs of itself which mind evolves in
a mode of externality.
[115] Here called generically Baukunst.
[116] Die plastische Deutlichkeit.
[117] Das subjektive Innere, i.e., spiritual experience of a personality.
[118] That is in comparison with the fully independent arts.
[119] That is to say it must be a distinct object of the senses.
[120] In sich materiell particularisirt. We see Hegel's false notions of the theory
of colour influencing his expression. It is really false to say that sculpture has
nothing to do with colour. Light and shadow at least are necessary and colour is
implied.
[121] That is, lets fall some of its aspects.
[122] Das Gemüth. Strictly the more emotional part.
[123] Between the extremes of architecture and poetry or music.
[124] Lit., "Without being manifested in its return to itself as ideal substance."
[125] Unparticularized, that is in its essential experience.
[126] He explains this lower down. The concentrated point is in the flash of the
eye. Perhaps here he merely refers to it generally.
[127] Als Innerlichkeit.
[128] This is only partially true of bronze, and any marble that has had
weathering.
[129] By grosse geistige Sinn Hegel means no doubt more than "taste." He refers
to the deep-rooted instinct in the genius of the race.
[130] Meyer, "History of the Plastic Arts among the Greeks," vol. I, p. 119.
[131] Die acht plastische Mitte. Hegel means that plastic art comes to its most
important focus, as it were, between the arts that either incline too much to the
material as in architecture, or to ideality as in poetry.
[132] Näheren.
[133] The reader must always bear in mind that Spirit (Geist) includes
intelligence. It might no doubt in some places be better translated as "mind."
[134] Substantielle. That is what is the concrete fulness of real spiritual content.
[135] Als Subjekt.
[136] Besonderheit. The isolated self of the Aufklärung.

[137] Zufälligen Selbstischkeit. Contingent selfness. The ego above described.
[138] Ohne innere Subjektivität als solche. That is, in the wholly abstract sense.
[139] Begriff appears to refer here to the notion of animal life generally, rather
than the generic notion in its narrow sense.
[140] Innern Strukture. The structure that ideally motives the whole.
[141] Dieses ideelle einfache Fürsichseyn des leiblichen. Apparently this
includes the vegetable world.
[142] Macht sich. That is an operative principle in the working out of.
[143] Als Seele, i.e., in the narrow sense of the expression above defined.
[144] Pathognomik, i.e., the science, that is, of the expression of the passions,
together with that of their physiological aspect.
[145] Lit., contingent subjectivity.
[146] Hegel's expression Mienen is not easy to translate by a single English
equivalent. It signifies the passing look—the general variety of facial expression
as contrasted with the permanent expression of substantive character.
[147] Den eigentlichen Mienen. The definite aspects of the face which express
relatively permanent states of soul-life.
[148] Persists in the line of direction of the Ideal.
[149] Die schöne freie Nothwendigkeit.
[150] By Witzigkeit I presume Hegel means oddity and funniness of every kind
—perhaps "humorous eccentricity" would interpret it.
[151] I think this gives the sense, though the language is rather confused because
his image is that of invention attaching itself to what is already presented rather
than creating a form that is based on external suggestion.
[152] The celebrated courtesan. She entered the sea with dishevelled hair at a
celebrated festival at Eleusis. She had a statue of gold at Delphi.
[153] Eigentlich Vorstellung ist.
[154] Statarisch. That is, modelled on historical associations or the results of
former work; perhaps "eclectic" would be a better word.
[155] Der geistige Ton.
[156] De varietate nationum, § 60.
[157] As in savage animals.
[158] The word system is used, which is not readily translated in this context,
though I have adopted the literal translation lower down.
[159] Mildrung. The softening of its severe lines.
[160] Werke, vol. IV, bk. 5, c. 5, § 20, p. 198.
[161] It is difficult to see what Hegel means exactly here by Schnitte. I suppose
he means the external lines of the eye-socket.
[162] L.c. § 29.

[163] Flügeln must here refer to the orifices of the nose.
[164] Winck, l.c. § 37, p. 218.
[165] Hegel's word is habitus. Customary attitude and mode of connection
appears to be included.
[166] Gebehrde, a word somewhat difficult to translate here. It seems to combine
the ideas of gesture and pose.
[167] The reference is, of course, to painting and indirectly to poetry.
[168] Ein in sich versunkenes Dastehn oder Liegen.
[169] Gediegenheit.
[170] See vol. I, pp. 268-272.
[171] Das höhere Innere.
[172] Das geistige Bewusstseyn.
[173] Her. I, c. 10.
[174] This vitality.
[175] Vol. V, bk. 2, p. 503.
[176] Vol. V, bk. 6, ch. 2, p. 56.
[177] Mus. Pio-Clement. Tom. 2, pp. 89-92.
[178] Winck., vol. II, p. 491.
[179] Vol. IV, bk. 5, ch. I, § 29.
[180] I am not sure what is exactly meant by gekrümmt here. The description is
not very lucid.
[181] IV, 5, 2, § 10.
[182] Winck., vol. VII, p, 78.
[183] Winck., vol, VII, p. 80.
[184] Vol. IV, p. 78.
[185] Vol. II, § I.
[186] Winck., vol. IV, p. 116.
[187] Such is, I think, the general meaning, though the literal translation of the
words als den Figuren sämmtlich die Einfachheit abgeht is not quite clear. I take
the word sämmtlich to mean "taken collectively as separate units."
[188] Winck., Werk., vol. V, p. 389. Anmerk.
[189] Meyer's Gesch. der bild. Künste bei den Griechen, vol. I, p. 60.
[190] Pausanias, II, 30.
[191] I presume this is the meaning of Bildnerei.
[192] I am not sure whether Angaben refers to actual sketches, or merely other
evidence handed down.
[193] In the year 1829.

[194] That is in the accuracy of mechanical line as the result of machine.
[195] Sanftes Verlaufen, i.e., passage from one plane surface to another.
Zusammen-stossen appears to me the melting together of lines, i.e., conjunction,
fusion.
[196] Meyer's Gesch., vol. I, p. 279.
[197] Vol. III, Vorr. XXVII.
[198] That is in 1821.
[199] Statarischen, scholastic, eclectic.
[200] "De Leg.," Lib. II, ed. Bekk., III, 2, p. 239.
[201] Herod, II, c. 167.
[202] Vol. III, bk. 2, ch. I, p. 74.
[203] Vol. III, bk. 2, ch. 2, pp. 77-84.

[204] "Cours d'Archéologie par Raoul-Rochette, 1-12me leçon," Paris, 1828.
[205] I am not sure if this rightly gives the sense of the words Die Gestalten bei
strenger Zeichnung gedrungen.
[206] Ueber die Aeg. Bildwerke mit kunstgesch. Anmerk. von Schelling, 1817.
[207] That is, it does not approach Egyptian type so nearly.
[208] Hegel's words mean this, I suppose, though the German is somewhat
compressed and not very clear as it stands.
[209] Vol. III, ch. 2, § 10, p. 188 and Pl. VI, A.
[210] Hegel uses the unusual word Begeistigung, I presume somewhat in the
sense of Begeisterung, signifying the personal inspiration of the artist.
[211] This appears to be the meaning of the difficult phrase that sculpture
supplies das gesammte Daseyn, i.e., is the affiliating link of the collective body.
All the different arts are stamped with its characteristics.
[212] I presume the Pietà in St. Peter's.
[213] Hegel's "Vermisch. Schriften," vol. II, p. 561.

SUBSECTION III

THE ROMANTIC ARTS

The source of the general transition from sculpture to the other arts is, as we
have seen, the principle of subjectivity, which now invades art's content and
its manner of exposition. What we understand here by subjectivity is the
notion of an intelligence which ideally exists in free independence,

withdrawing itself from objective reality into its own more intimate domain,
a conscious life which no longer concentrates itself with its corporeal
attachment in a unity which is without division.
There follows from this transition, therefore, that dissolution, that
dismemberment of the unity which is held together in the substantive and
objective presence of sculpture, in the focus of its tranquillity and all-
inclusive rondure and as such is apprehended in fusion. We may consider
this breach from two points of view. On the one hand sculpture, in respect
to its content, entwined what is substantive in Spirit directly with the
individuality, which is as yet not self-introspective, in the exclusive unit of
a personal consciousness, and treated thereby an objective unity in the sense
in which objectivity suggests what is intrinsically infinite, immutable, true
—that substantive aspect, in short, which has no part in mere caprice and
singularity. And from another point of view sculpture failed to do more than
discharge this spiritual content wholly within the corporeal frame as the
vital and significant instrument of the same, and by doing so create a new
objective unity in that meaning of the expression, under which objectivity,
as contrasted with all that is wholly ideal and subjective, indicates real and
external existence.
When we find, then, that these two aspects, at first thus reconciled in one
another by sculpture, are separated, that which we call self-introspective
spirituality is not merely placed in opposition to that which is external, but
also, in the domain of what is spiritual throughout, what is substantive and
objective in that medium, in so far as it no longer continues to be retained in
what is substantial individuality simply, is dissevered from the vital
particularity of the conscious life, and all these aspects which have been
hitherto held together in perfect fusion are relatively to each other and
independently free, so that they can be treated too by art as free in this very
way.
1. If we examine the content, then, we have through the above process, on
the one hand, the substantive being of what is spiritual, the world of truth
and eternity, the Divine in fact, which however here, in accordance with the
principle of particularity, is comprehended and realized by art as a subject
of consciousness, or as personality, as the Absolute, which is self-conscious
in the medium of its infinite spiritual substance, as God in His Spirit and
Truth. And in contrast to Him we have asserted the worldly and human

condition of soul-life, which, regarded now as no longer in direct union
with the intrinsic substance of Spirit, can unfold itself in all the fulness of
that particularity which is simply human, and thereby permits the heart of
man wherever and whenever represented[214], the entire wealth of our
human mortality, to be open to art's acceptance.
The meeting-ground upon which these two aspects once more coalesce is
the principle of subjectivity, which is common to both. The Absolute is, in
virtue of this, disclosed to us to the full extent a living, actual, and equally
human subject of consciousness, as the human and finite conscious life,
viewed as spiritual, makes vital and real the absolute substance and truth, or
in other words simply the Divine Spirit. The new bond of unity which is
thus secured no longer, however, supports the character of that former
immediacy, such as sculpture disclosed it; rather it is a union and
reconciliation which asserts itself essentially as a mediation of opposed
factors, and whose very notion makes its apprehension only possible in the
realms of the soul and ideal life.
I have already, when the general subdivision of our science in its entire
compass offered an opportunity for doing so, laid it down, that if the Ideal
of sculpture sets forth in a sensuously present image the essential
solidity[215] of the individuality of the God in the bodily form alone able to
express that substance, the community thereupon essentially confronts such
an object as the intelligent reflection of that unity. Spirit, however, that is
wholly self-absorbed can only present the substance of Spirit under the
mode of Spirit, in other words as a conscious subject, and receives thereby
straightway the principle of the spiritual reconciliation of individual
subjective life with God. As particular self, however, man also possesses his
contingent natural existence, and a sphere of finite interests, needs, aims,
and passions, whether it be more extensive or restricted, in which he is able
to realize and satisfy his nature quite as much as he can in the same be
absorbed in those ideas of God and the reconciliation with God.
2. Secondly, if we consider the aspect of the representation on its external
side, we find that it is by virtue of its particularity at once self-subsistent
and possesses a claim to stand forth in this independence, and this for the
reason that the principle of subjectivity excludes that correspondence in its
immediacy, and disallows to itself the absolute interfusion of the ideal and
external aspects in every part and relation of it. For the subjective principle

is here precisely that which comes to be, in self-subsistent seclusion, that
inward life which retires from real or objective existence into the realm of
the Ideal, the world of emotion, soul, heart, and contemplation[216]. This
ideal life is manifested no doubt in its external form, under a mode,
however, in which the external form itself appears, that is to say it is merely
the outer shell of a conscious subject that is growing independently within.
The hard and fast association of the bodily form and the life of Spirit in
classical sculpture is not therefore carried to the point of an all-dissolving
unity[217] but in so light and slack a coalescence that both aspects, albeit
neither is present without the other, preserve in this connection their
separate independence relatively to the other, or at least, if a profounder
union is really secured, the spiritual aspect as that inward principle, which
asserts its presence over and beyond its suffusion with the objective or
external material, becomes the essentially illuminating focus of all. And it
results from this that, to promote the enhancement of this relatively
increased self-subsistency of the objective and material aspect,—we have in
our mind mainly, no doubt, the extreme case of the representation of
external Nature and its objects, even in their isolated and most exclusive
particularity,—yet even in such a case and despite all realism in the
presentment it is necessary that such counterfeits should permit a reflection
of the artist's soul to be visible on their face. They should in other words
suffer us to see the sympathy of Spirit in the manner of their artistic
realization, and therewith discover to us the life of soul, the ideal life which
is the vital breath of their co-ordination, the penetration of man's emotional
life itself into this extreme type of external environment.
Speaking, then, generally, we may affirm that the principle of subjectivity
carries with it as its inevitable result, on the one hand, that the wholly
unconstrained union of Spirit with its corporeal frame should be given up,
and the bodily aspect be asserted in a more or less negative relation over
against the former, in order that the ideality of Spirit may be emphasized on
the front of that external reality, and, on the other hand, in order to procure
free scope for every separate feature of the variety, division, and movement
of what is spiritual no less than what directly appeals to man's senses.
3. And, thirdly, this new principle has to establish itself in the sensuous
material, of which art avails itself in its new manifestations.

(a) The material hitherto was matter simply, that is, the material of gravity
in the content of its spatial extension, and no less was it form under its
simplest and most abstract definition of configuration. Now that the
subjective and at the same time the essentially particularized content of the
soul is imported into this material, the spatial totality of such material will
without question in some measure suffer loss in order that the former
content may appear upon its face with its ideal mintage[218], and
contrariwise will be converted from its immediately material guise to an
appearance which is the product of mind or spirit; and, on the other hand,
both in respect to form and its externally sensuous visibility, all the detail of
what appears will be necessarily emphasized in the way that the new
content requires. Art is, however, even now compelled in the first instance
to move in the realm of the visible and sensuous, because, following the
above course of our inquiry, though no doubt the inward or ideal is
conceived as self-introspection[219], yet it has further to appear as a return of
its own quality to itself from this very realm of externality and material
shape, in short, as a return of itself to itself, which can only from the
earliest point of view be portrayed in the objective existence of Nature and
the corporeal existence of Spirit's life.
The first among the romantic arts will consequently have as its proper
function to assert its content in the visible forms of the external human
figure and the natural shape wherever disclosed, without, however,
remaining bound to the sensuous ideality and abstract range of sculpture.
This is the task and province of painting.
(b) In so far, however, as we find in painting for its fundamental type, not as
in sculpture the entirely perfected resolution of the spiritual idea and the
bodily form in one content, but rather the predominant exposition of the
self-absorbed ideality of soul, to that extent the spatial figure in extension is
not a truly adequate medium of expression for the inward life of Spirit. Art
therefore abandons the previous medium of configuration, and in the place
of spatial forms employs the medium of tone in the limited duration of its
sounds; tone in fact by its assertion of the material of Space under a purely
negative relation secures for itself a finite existence nearer to ideality, and
corresponds to that soul-life, which in accordance with its own inward
experience conceives and grasps that life as emotion, and then expresses
that content, as it enforces its claim in the unseen movement of heart and

soul, in the procession of tones. The second art, therefore, which follows
this principle of exposition is that of music.
(c) Thereby, however, music merely is placed at the opposite extreme, and,
in contrast to the plastic arts, both in respect to its content and relatively to
its sensuous material, and the mode of its expression, cleaves fast to the
formless content of its pure ideality. It is, however, the function of art, in
virtue of its essential notion, to disclose to the senses not merely the soul-
life, but the manifestation and actuality of the same in its external reality.
When, however, art has abandoned the process of veritably informing the
real and consequently visible form of objective existence, and has applied
its activity to the element itself of soul-life, the objective reality, to which it
once more recurs, can no longer be the reality as such in itself, but one
which is merely imagined and prefigured to the mind or sensitive soul. The
presentment, moreover, as being the communication to Spirit of creative
mind working in its own domain is compelled to use the sensuous material
united to its disclosure simply as a mere means for such communication. It
must consequently lower its denomination to that of a sign which of itself is
without significance. It is at this point that poetry or the art of speech,
confronts us, which now incorporates its art-productions in the medium of a
speech elaborated to an instrument of artistic service, precisely as
intelligence already in ordinary speech makes intelligible to spiritual life all
that it carries in itself. And, moreover, for the reason that it is able thus to
unfold the entire content of Spirit in its own medium, it is the universal art,
which belongs indifferently to all the types of art, and is only excluded in
that case where the spiritual life which is still unrevealed to itself in its
highest form of content is merely able to make itself aware of its own dim
presentiments in the form and configuration of that which is external and
alien to itself.

CHAPTER I

THE ART OF PAINTING

The most adequate object of sculpture is the tranquil self-absorption of
personality in its essential substance, the character whose spiritual
individuality is in the fullest degree displayed on the face of its corporeal
presentment, making the sensuous frame, which reveals this incorporation
of spirit, adequate to such an embodiment of mind wholly in its aspects of
external form. The sightless look has as yet failed to concentrate at one
point the supreme focus of ideal life, the vital breath of soul, the heart of
most intimate feeling, and is as yet without spiritual movement, without the
deliberate distinction between a world without it and a life within. It is on
account of this that the sculpture of the ancients leaves us in some degree
unmoved. We either do not remain long before it, or our delay is rather due
to a scientific investigation of the fine modifications of form and detail
which it displays. We cannot blame mankind if they are unable to take the
profound interest in fine works of sculpture which such works deserve. To
know how to value them is a study in itself. At first glance we either
experience no attraction, or are immediately conscious of the general
character of the whole. To come to closer quarters we have first to discover
what it is that continues to supply such an interest. An enjoyment, however,
which is only the possible result of study, thought, learning, and a wide
experience is not the immediate object of art. And, moreover, the essential
demand we make that a character should develop, should pass into the field
of action and affairs, and that the soul should thereby meet with divisions
and-grow deeper, this, after all our journey in search of the delight which
this study of the works of antique sculpture may bring to us, remains
unsatisfied. For this reason we inevitably feel more at home in painting. In
other words we are at once and for the first time conscious in it of the
principle of our finite and yet essentially infinite spiritual substance, the life
and breath of our own existence; we contemplate in its pictures the very
spark which works and is active in ourselves. The god of sculpture remains
for sense-perception an object simply; in painting, on the contrary, the
Divine appears as itself essentially the living subject of spiritual life, which
comes into direct relations with the community, and makes it possible for
each individual thereof to place himself in spiritual communion and
reconcilement with Him. The substantive character of such a Divinity is
not, as in sculpture, an individual that persists in the inflexible bond of its
own limitations[220], but is one which expands into and is differentiated
within the community itself.

The same principle generally differentiates the individual from his own
bodily frame and external environment to quite as considerable an extent as
it brings the soul into mediated relation with the same. Within the compass
of this subjective differentiation—regarded as the independent assertion of
human individuality as opposed to God, Nature, and the inward and
external life of other persons, regarded also conversely as the most intimate
relation, the most secure communion of God with the community, and of
individual men with God, the environment of Nature and the infinite variety
of the wants, purposes, passions, and activities of human existence—falls
the entire movement and vitality, which sculpture, both in respect to its
content and its means of contributing expression, suffers to escape; and it
adds an immeasurable wealth of new material and a novel breadth and
variety of artistic treatment which hitherto was absent. Briefly, then, this
principle of subjectivity is on the one hand the basis of division, on the
other a principle of mediation and synthesis, so that painting unites in one
and the same art what hitherto formed the subject-matter of two different
arts, namely, the external environment, which architecture treated
artistically, and the essentially spiritual form, which was elaborated by
sculpture. Painting places its figures on the background of a Nature or an
architectural environment, both of which are the products of its own
invention in precisely the same sense, and is able to make this external
material in both of these aspects by virtue of its emotional powers and soul
a counterfeit within its ideal realm, in the degree that it understands how
best to place it in relation and harmony with the spirit of the figures that live
and move therein.
Such is the principle of the new advance that painting contributes to the
representative powers of art.
If we inquire now the course which the more detailed examination of our
subject necessitates the following division will serve us.
In the first place we shall have yet further to consider the general character
which the art of painting must necessarily receive in accordance with its
notion and relatively both to its specific content, the material that is made
consonant with this content and finally the artistic treatment which is
thereby involved.