Chapter XIII: Part II (2)

But a contradiction presents itself between the spirit and the material form. This harmonious whole conceals a principle of destruction which will make itself felt more and more. We may perceive in these figures an air of sadness in the midst of greatness. Though absorbed in themselves, calm and serene, they lack freedom from care and inward satisfaction; something cold and impassive is found in their features, especially if we compare them with the vivacity of modern sentiment. This divine peace, this indifference to all that is mortal and transient, forms a contrast with the moral greatness and the corporeal form. These placid divinities complain both of their felicity and of their physical existence. We read upon their features the destiny which weighs them down.

Now, what is the particular art most appropriate to represent this ideal? Evidently it is _sculpture_. It alone is capable of showing us those ideal figures in their eternal repose, of expressing the perfect harmony of the spiritual principle and the sensuous form. To it has been confided the mission of realizing this ideal in its purity, its greatness, and its perfection.

Poetry, above all, dramatic poetry, which makes the gods act, and draws them into strife and combat contrary to their greatness and their dignity, is much less capable of answering this purpose.

If we consider these divinities in their particular, and no longer in their general character, we see that they form a plurality, a whole, a totality, which is _polytheism_. Each particular god, while having his proper and original character, is himself a complete whole; he also possesses the distinctive qualities of the other divinities. Hence the richness of these characters. It is for this reason that the Greek polytheism does not present a systematic whole. Olympus is composed of a multitude of distinct gods, who do not form an established hierarchy. Rank is not rigorously fixed, whence the liberty, the serenity, the independence of the personages. Without this apparent contradiction, the divinities would be embarrassed by one another, shackled in their development and power. In place of being true persons, they would be only allegorical beings, or personified abstractions.

As to their sensuous representation, sculpture is, moreover, the art best adapted to express this particular characteristic of the nature of the gods. By combining with immovable grandeur the individuality of features peculiar to each of them, it fixes in their statues the most perfect expression of their character, and determines its definite form. Sculpture, here again, is more ideal than poetry. It offers a more determined and fixed form, while poetry mingles with it a crowd of actions, of histories and accidental particulars. Sculpture creates absolute and eternal models; it has fixed the type of true, classic beauty, which is the basis of all other productions of Greek genius, and is here the central point of art.

But in order to represent the gods in their true _individuality_, it does not suffice to distinguish them by certain particular attributes. Moreover, classic art does not confine itself to representing these personages as immovable and self-absorbed; it shows them also in movement and in action. The character of the gods then particularizes itself, and exhibits the special features of which the physiognomy of each god is composed. This is the accidental, positive, historic side, which figures in mythology and also in art, as an accessory but necessary element.

These materials are furnished by history or fable. They are the antecedents, the local particulars, which give to the gods their living individuality and originality. Some are borrowed from the symbolic religions, which preserve a vestige thereof in the new creation; the symbolic element is absorbed in the new myth. Others have a national origin, which, again, is connected with heroic times and foreign traditions. Others, finally, spring from local circumstances, relating to the propagation of the myths, to their formation, to the usages and ceremonies of worship, etc. All these materials fashioned by art, give to the Greek gods the appearance, the interest, and the charm, of living humanity. But this traditional side, which in its origin had a symbolic sense, loses it little by little; it is designed only to complete the individuality of the gods, to give to them a more human and more sensuous form, to add, through details frequently unworthy of divine majesty, the side of the arbitrary and accidental. Sculpture, which represents the pure ideal, ought, without wholly excluding it in fact, to allow it to appear as little as possible; it represents it as accessory in the head-dress, the arms, the ornaments, the external attributes. Another source for the more precise determination of the character of the gods is their intervention in the actions and circumstances of human life. Here the imagination of the poet expands itself as an inexhaustible source in a crowd of particular histories, of traits of character and actions, attributed to the gods. The problem of art consists in combining, in a natural and living manner, the actions of divine personages and human actions, in such a manner that the gods appear as the general cause of what man himself accomplishes. The gods, thus, are the internal principles which reside in the depths of the human soul; its own passions, in so far as they are elevated, and its personal thought; or it is the necessity of the situation, the force of circumstances, from whose fatal action man suffers. It is this which pierces through all the situations where Homer causes the gods to intervene, and through the manner in which they influence events.

But through this side, the gods of classic art abandon, more and more, the silent serenity of the ideal, to descend into the multiplicity of individual situations, of actions, and into the conflict of human passions. Classic art thus finds itself drawn to the last degree of individualization; it falls into the agreeable and the graceful. The divine is absorbed in the finite which is addressed exclusively to the sensibility and no longer satisfies thought. Imagination and art, seizing this side and exaggerating it more and more, corrupt religion itself. The severe ideal gives place to merely sensuous beauty and harmony; it removes itself more and more from the eternal ideas which form the ground of religion and art, and these are dragged down to ruin.

3. In fact, independently of the external causes which have occasioned the _decadence_ of Greek art and precipitated its downfall, many internal causes, in the very nature of the Greek ideal, rendered that downfall inevitable. In the first place, the Greek gods, as we have seen, bear in themselves the germ of their destruction, and the defect which they conceal is unveiled by the representations of classic art itself. The plurality of the gods and their diversity makes them already accidental existences; this multiplicity cannot satisfy reason. Thought dissolves them and makes them return to a single divinity. Moreover, the gods do not remain in their eternal repose; they enter into action, take part in the interests, in the passions, and mingle in the collisions of human life. The multitude of relations in which they are engaged, as actors in this drama, destroys their divine majesty; contradicts their grandeur, their dignity, their beauty. In the true ideal itself, that of sculpture, we observe something, the inanimate, impassive, cold, a serious air of silent mournfulness, which indicates that something higher weighs them down—destiny, supreme unity, blind divinity, the immutable fate to which gods and men are alike subject.

But the principal cause is, that absolute necessity making no integral part of their personality, and being foreign to them, the particular individual side is no longer restrained in its downward course; it is developed more and more without hindrance and without limit. They suffer themselves to be drawn into the external accidents of human life, and fall into all the imperfections of anthropomorphism. Hence the ruin of these beautiful divinities of art is inevitable. The moral consciousness turns away from them and rejects them. The gods, it is true, are ethical persons, but under the human and corporeal form. Now, true morality appears only in the conscience, and under a purely spiritual form. The point of view of the beautiful is neither that of religion nor that of morality. The infinite, invisible spirituality is the divine for the religious consciousness. For the moral consciousness, the good is an idea, a conception, an obligation, which commands the sacrifice of sense. It is in vain, then, to be enthusiastic over Greek art and beauty, to admire those beautiful divinities. The soul does not recognize herself wholly in the object of her contemplation or her worship. What she conceives as the true ideal is a God, spiritual, infinite, absolute, personal, endowed with moral qualities, with justice, goodness, etc.

It is this whose image the gods of Greek polytheism, in spite of their beauty, do not present us.

As to the _transition_ from the Greek mythology to a new religion and a new art, it could no longer be effected in the domain of the imagination. In the origin of Greek art, the transition appears under the form of a conflict between the old and the new gods, in the very domain of art and imagination. Here it is upon the more serious territory of history that this revolution is accomplished. The new idea appears, not as a revelation of art, nor under the form of myth and of fable, but in history itself, by the course of events, by the appearance of God himself upon earth, where he was born, lived, and arose from the dead. Here is a field of ideas which Art did not invent, and which it finds too high for it. The gods of classic art have existence only in the imagination; they were visible only in stone and wood; they were not both flesh and spirit. This real existence of God in flesh and spirit, Christianity, for the first time, showed in the life and actions of a God present among men. This transition cannot, then, be accomplished in the domain of art, because the God of revealed religion is the real and living God. Compared with him, his adversaries are only imaginary beings, who cannot be taken seriously and meet him on the field of history. The opposition and conflict cannot, then, present the character of a serious strife, and be represented as such by Art or Poetry. Therefore, always, whenever any one has attempted to make of this subject, among moderns, a poetic theme, he has done it in an impious and frivolous manner, as in “The War of the Gods,” by Parny.

On the other hand, it would be useless to regret, as has been frequently done in prose and in verse, the loss of the Greek ideal and pagan mythology, as being more favorable to art and poetry than the Christian faith, to which is granted a higher moral verity, while it is regarded as inferior in respect to art and the Beautiful.

Christianity has a poetry and an art of its own; an ideal essentially different from the Greek ideal and art. Here all parallel is superficial. Polytheism is anthropomorphism. The gods of Greece are beautiful divinities under the human form. As soon as reason has comprehended God as Spirit and as Infinite Being, there appear other ideas, other sentiments, other demands, which ancient art is incapable of satisfying, to which it cannot attain, which call, consequently, for a new art, a new poetry. Thus, regrets are superfluous; comparison has no more any significance, it is only a text for declamation. What one could object to seriously in Christianity, its tendencies to mysticism, to asceticism, which, in fact, are hostile to art, are only exaggerations of its principle. But the thought which constitutes the ground of Christianity, and true Christian sentiment, far from being opposed to art, are very favorable to it. Hence springs up a new art, inferior, it is true, in certain respects, to antique art—in sculpture, for example—but which is superior in other respects, as is its idea when compared with the pagan idea.

In all this, we are making but a _resumé_ of the ideas of the author. We must do him the justice to say, that wherever he speaks of Christian art, he does it worthily, and exhibits a spirit free from all sectarian prejudice.

If we cast, meanwhile, a glance at the external causes which have brought about this decadence, it is easy to discover them in the situations of ancient society, which prophesy the downfall of both art and religion. We discover the vices of that social order where the state was everything, the individual nothing by himself. This is the radical vice of the Greek state. In such an identification of man and the state, the rights of the individual are ignored. The latter, then, seeks to open for himself a distinct and independent way, separates himself from the public interest, pursues his own ends, and finally labors for the ruin of the state. Hence the egoism which undermines this society little by little, and the ever-increasing excesses of demagoguism.

On the other hand, there arises in the souls of the best a longing for a higher freedom in a state organized upon the basis of justice and right. In the meantime man falls back upon himself, and deserting the written law, religious and civil, takes his conscience for the rule of his acts. Socrates marks the advent of this idea. In Rome, in the last years of the republic, there appears, among energetic spirits, this antagonism and this detachment from society. Noble characters present to us the spectacle of private virtues by the side of feebleness and corruption in public morals.

This protest of moral consciousness against the increasing corruption finds expression in art itself; it creates a form of poetry which corresponds to it, _satire_.

According to Hegel, _satire_, in fact, belongs peculiarly to the Romans; it is at least the distinctive and original characteristic, the salient feature, of their poetry and literature. “The spirit of the Roman world is the dominance of the dead letter, the destruction of beauty, the absence of serenity in manners, the ebbing of the domestic and natural affections—in general, the sacrifice of individuality, which devotes itself to the state, the tranquil greatness in obedience to law. The principle of this political virtue, in its frigid and austere rudeness, subdued national individualities abroad, while at home the law was developed with the same rigor and the same exactitude of forms, even to the point of attaining perfection. But this principle was contrary to true art. So one finds at Rome no art which presents a character of beauty, of liberty, of grandeur. The Romans received and learned from the Greeks sculpture, painting, music, epic lyric and dramatic poetry. What is regarded as indigenous among them is the comic farces, the _fescennines_ and _atellanes_. The Romans can claim as belonging to them in particular only the forms of art which, in their principle, are prosaic, such as the didactic poem. But before all we must place satire.”

III. Of Romantic Art.

This expression, employed here to designate modern art, in its opposition to Greek or classic art, bears nothing of the unfavorable sense which it has in our language and literature, where it has become the synonym of a liberty pushed even to license, and of a contempt for all law. Romantic art, which, in its highest development, is also Christian art, has laws and principles as necessary as classic art. But the idea which it expresses being different, its conditions are also; it obeys other rules, while observing those that are the basis of all art and the very essence of the beautiful.

Hegel, in a general manner, thus characterizes this form of art, contrasting it with antique art, the study of which we have just left.

In classic art, the spirit constitutes the content of the representation; but it is combined with the sensuous or material form in such a manner that it is harmonized perfectly with it, and does not surpass it. Art reached its perfection when it accomplished this happy accord, when the spirit idealized nature and made of it a faithful image of itself. It is thus that classic art was the perfect representation of the ideal, the reign of beauty.

But there is something higher than the beautiful manifestation of spirit under the sensuous form. The spirit ought to abandon this accord with nature, to retire into itself, to find the true harmony in its own world, the spiritual world of the soul and the conscience. Now, that development of the spirit, which not being able to satisfy itself in the world of sense, seeks a higher harmony in itself, is the fundamental principle of romantic art.

Here beauty of form is no longer the supreme thing; beauty, in this sense, remains something inferior, subordinate; it gives place to the spiritual beauty which dwells in the recesses of the soul, in the depths of its infinite nature.

Now in order thus to take possession of itself, it is essential that spirit have a consciousness of its relation to God, and of its union with Him; that not only the divine principle reveal itself under a form true and worthy of it, but that the human soul, on its part, lift itself toward God, that it feel itself filled with His essence, that the Divinity descend into the bosom of humanity. The anthropomorphism of Greek thought ought to disappear, in order to give place to anthropomorphism of a higher order.

Hence all the divinities of polytheism will be absorbed in a single Deity. God has no longer anything in common with those individual personages who had their attributes and their distinct rôles, and formed a whole, free, although subject to destiny.

At the same time God does not remain shut up in the depths of his being; he appears in the real world also; he opens his treasures and unfolds them in creation. He is, notwithstanding, revealed less in nature than in the moral world, or that of liberty. In fine, God is not an ideal, created by the imagination; he manifests himself under the features of living humanity.

If we compare, in this respect, romantic art with classic art, we see that Sculpture no longer suffices to express this idea. We should vainly seek in the image of the gods fashioned by sculpture that which announces the true personality, the clear consciousness of self and reflected will. In the external this defect is betrayed by the absence of the eye, that mirror of the soul. Sculpture is deprived of the glance, the ray of the soul emanating from within. On the other hand, the spirit entering into relation with external objects, this immobility of sculpture no longer responds to the longing for activity, which calls for exercise in a more extended career. The representation ought to embrace a vaster field of objects, and of physical and moral situations.

As to the manner in which this principle is developed and realized, romantic art presents certain striking differences from antique art.

In the first place, as has been said, instead of the ideal divinities, which exist only for the imagination, and are only human nature idealized, it is God himself who makes himself man, and passes through all the phases of human life, birth, suffering, death, and resurrection. Such is the fundamental idea which art represents, even in the circle of religion.

The result of this religious conception is to give also to art, as the principal ground of its representations, strife, conflict, sorrow and death, the profound grief which the nothingness of life, physical and moral suffering, inspire. Is not all this, in fact, an essential part of the history of the God-Man, who must be presented as a model to humanity? Is it not the means of being drawn near to God, of resembling him, and of being united to him? Man ought then to strip off his finite nature, to renounce that which is a mere nothing, and, through this negation of the real life, propose to himself the attainment of what God realized in his mortal life.

The infinite sorrow of this sacrifice, this idea of suffering and of death, which were almost banished from classic art, find, for the first time, their necessary place in Christian art. Among the Greeks death has no seriousness, because man attaches no great importance to his personality and his spiritual nature. On the other hand, now that the soul has an infinite value, death becomes terrible. Terror in the presence of death and the annihilation of our being, is imprinted strongly on our souls. So also among the Greeks, especially before the time of Socrates, the idea of immortality was not profound; they scarcely conceived of life as separable from physical existence. In the Christian faith, on the contrary, death is only the resurrection of the spirit, the harmony of the soul with itself, the true life. It is only by freeing itself from the bonds of its earthly existence that it can enter upon the possession of its true nature.

Such are the principal ideas which form the religious ground of romantic or Christian Art. In spite of some explanations which recall the special system of the author, one cannot deny that they are expressed with power and truthfulness.

Meanwhile, beyond the religious sphere, there are developing certain interests which belong to the mundane life, and which form also the object of the representations of art; they are the passions, the collisions, the joys and the sufferings which bear a terrestrial or purely human character, but in which appear notwithstanding the very principle which distinguishes modern thought, to-wit: a more vivid, more energetic, and more profound sentiment of human _personality_, or, as the author calls it, _subjectivity_.

Romantic art differs no less from classic art in the form or the mode of representation, than in the ideas which constitute the content of its works. And, in the first place, one necessary consequence of the preceding principle is, the new point of view under which nature or the physical world is viewed. The objects of nature lose their importance; or, at least, they cease to be divine. They have neither the symbolic signification which oriental art gave them, nor the particular aspect in virtue of which they were animated and personified in Greek art and mythology. Nature is effaced; she retires to a lower plane; the universe is condensed to a single point, in the focus of the human soul. That, absorbed in a single thought, the thought of uniting itself to God, beholds the world vanish, or regards it with an indifferent eye. We see also appearing a heroism wholly different from antique heroism, a heroism of submission and resignation.

But, on the other hand, precisely through the very fact, that all is concentrated in the focus of the human soul, the circle of ideas is found to be infinitely enlarged. The interior history of the soul is developed under a thousand diverse forms, borrowed from human life. It beams forth, and art seizes anew upon nature, which serves as adornment and as a theatre for the activity of the spirit. Hence the history of the human heart becomes infinitely richer than it was in ancient art and poetry. The increasing multitude of situations, of interests, and of passions, forms a domain as much more vast as spirit has descended farther into itself. All degrees, all phases of life, all humanity and its developments, become inexhaustible material for the representations of art.

Nevertheless, art occupies here only a secondary place; as it is incapable of revealing the content of the dogma, religion constitutes still more its essential basis. There is therefore preserved the priority and superiority which faith claims over the conceptions of the imagination.

From this there results an important consequence and a characteristic difference for modern art. It is that in the representation of sensuous forms, art no longer fears to admit into itself the real with its imperfections and its faults. The beautiful is no longer the essential thing; the ugly occupies a much larger place in its creations. Here, then, vanishes that ideal beauty which elevates the forms of the real world above the mortal condition, and replaces it with blooming youth. This free vitality in its infinite calmness—this divine breath which animates matter—romantic art has no longer, for essential aim, to represent these. On the contrary, it turns its back on this culminating point of classic beauty; it accords, indeed, to the ugly a limitless rôle in its creations. It permits all objects to pass into representation in spite of their accidental character. Nevertheless, those objects which are indifferent or commonplace, have value only so far as the sentiments of the soul are reflected in them. But at the highest point of its development art expresses only spirit—pure, invisible spirituality. We feel that it seeks to strip itself of all external forms, to mount into a region superior to sense, where nothing strikes the eye, where no sound longer vibrates upon the ear.

Furthermore, we can say, on comparing in this respect ancient with modern art, that the fundamental trait of romantic or Christian art is the musical element, the lyric accent in poetry. The lyric accent resounds everywhere, even in epic and dramatic poetry. In the figurative arts this characteristic makes itself felt, as a breath of the soul and an atmosphere of feeling.

After having thus determined the general character of romantic art, Hegel studies it more in detail; he considers it, successively, under a two-fold point of view, the religious and the profane; he follows it in its development, and points out the causes which have brought about its decadence. He concludes by some considerations upon the present state of art and its future.

Let us analyze rapidly the principal ideas contained in these chapters.

1st. As to what concerns the religious side, which we have thus far been considering, Hegel, developing its principle, establishes a parallel between the religious idea in classic and romantic art; for romantic art has also its ideal, which, as we have seen already, differs essentially from the antique idea.

Greek beauty shows the soul wholly identified with the corporeal form. In romantic art beauty no more resides in the idealization of the sensuous form, but in the soul itself. Undoubtedly one ought still to demand a certain agreement between the reality and the idea; but the determinate form is indifferent, it is not purified from all the accidents of real existence. The immortal gods in presenting themselves to our eyes under the human form, do not partake of its wants and miseries. On the contrary, the God of Christian art is not a solitary God, a stranger to the conditions of mortal life; he makes himself man, and shares the miseries and the sufferings of humanity. The representation of religious love is the most favorable subject for the beautiful creations of Christian art.

Thus, in the first place, love in God is represented by the history of Christ’s _redemption_, by the various phases of his life, of his passion, of his death, and of his resurrection. In the second place, love in man, the union of the human soul with God, appears in the holy family, in the maternal love of the Virgin, and in the love of the disciples. Finally, love in humanity is manifested by the spirit of the Church, that is to say, by the Spirit of God present in the society of the faithful, by the return of humanity to God, death to terrestrial life, martyrdom, repentance and conversion, the miracles and the legends.

Such are the principal subjects which form the ground of religious art. It is the Christian ideal in whatever in it is most elevated. Art seizes it and seeks to express it—but does this only imperfectly. Art is here necessarily surpassed by the religious thought, and ought to recognize its own insufficiency.

If we pass from the religious to the _profane ideal_, it presents itself to us under two different forms. The one, although representing human personality, yet develops noble and elevated sentiments, which combine with moral or religious ideas. The other shows us only persons who display, in the pursuit of purely human and positive interests, independence and energy of character. The first is represented by chivalry. When we come to examine the nature and the principle of the chivalric ideal, we see that what constitutes its content is, in fact, _personality_. Here, man abandons the state of inner sanctification, the contemplative for the active life. He casts his eyes about him and seeks a theatre for his activity. The fundamental principle is always the same, the soul, the human person, pursuing the infinite. But it turns toward another sphere, that of action and real life. The Ego is replete with self only, with its individuality, which, in its eyes, is of infinite value. It attaches little importance to general ideas, to interests, to enterprises which have for object general order. Three sentiments, in the main, present this personal and individual character, _honor_, _love_, and _fidelity_. Moreover, separate or united, they form, aside from the religious relationships which can be reflected in them, the true content of chivalry.

The author analyzes these three sentiments; he shows in what they differ from the analogous sentiments or qualities in antique art. He endeavors, above all, to prove that they represent, in fact, the side of human personality, with its infinite and ideal character. Thus honor does not resemble bravery, which exposes itself for a common cause. Honor fights only to make itself known or respected, to guarantee the inviolability of the individual person. In like manner _love_, also, which constitutes the centre of the circle, is only the accidental passion of one person for another person. Even when this passion is idealized by the imagination and ennobled by depth of sentiment, it is not yet the ethical bond of the family and of marriage. Fidelity presents the moral character in a higher degree, since it is disinterested; but it is not addressed to the general good of society in itself; it attaches itself exclusively to the person of a master. Chivalric fidelity understands perfectly well, besides, how to preserve its advantages and its rights, the independence and the honor of the person, who is always only conditionally bound. The basis of these three sentiments is, then, free personality. This is the most beautiful part of the circle which is found beyond religion, properly so-called. All here has for immediate end, man, with whom we can sympathize through the side of personal independence. These sentiments are, moreover, susceptible of being placed in connection with religion in a multitude of ways, as they are able to preserve their independent character.

“This form of romantic art was developed in the East and in the West, but especially in the West, that land of reflection, of the concentration of the spirit upon itself. In the East was accomplished the first expansion of liberty, the first attempt toward enfranchisement from the finite. It was Mahometanism which first swept from the ancient soil all idolatry, and religions born of the imagination. But it absorbed this internal liberty to such a degree that the entire world for it was effaced; plunged in an intoxication of ecstacy, the oriental tastes in contemplation the delights of love, calmness, and felicity.” (Page 456.)

3. We have seen human personality developing itself upon the theatre of real life, and there displaying noble, generous sentiments, such as honor, love and fidelity. Meanwhile it is in the sphere of real life and of purely human interests that liberty and independence of character appear to us. The ideal here consists only in energy and perseverance of will, and passion as well as _independence of character_. Religion and chivalry disappear with their high conceptions, their noble sentiments, and their thoroughly ideal objects. On the contrary, what characterizes the new wants, is the thirst for the joys of the present life, the ardent pursuit of human interests in what in them is actual, determined, or positive. In like manner, in the figurative arts, man wishes objects to be represented in their palpable and visible reality.

The destruction of classic art commenced with the predominance of the agreeable, and it ended with satire. Romantic art ends in the exaggeration of the principle of personality, deprived of a substantial and moral content, and thenceforth abandoned to caprice, to the arbitrary, to fancy and excess of passion. There is left further to the imagination of the poet only to paint forcibly and with depth these characters; to the artist, only to imitate the real; to the spirit, to exhibit its rigor in piquant combinations and contrasts.

This tendency is revealed under three principal forms: 1st, _Independence of individual character_, pursuing its proper ends, its particular designs, without moral or religious aim; 2d, the exaggeration of the chivalric principle, and the spirit of _adventure_; 3d, the separation of the elements, the union of which constitutes the very idea of art, through the destruction of art itself,—that is to say, the predilection for common reality, _the imitation of the real_, mechanical ability, caprice, fancy, and _humor_.

The first of these three points furnishes to Hegel the occasion for a remarkable estimate of the characters of Shakspeare, which represent, in an eminent degree, this phase of the Romantic ideal. The distinctive trait of character of the _dramatis personæ_ of Shakspeare is, in fact, the energy and obstinate perseverance of a will which is exclusively devoted to a specific end, and concentrates all its efforts for the purpose of realizing it. There is here no question either of religion or of moral ideas. They are characters placed singly face to face with each other, and their designs, which they have spontaneously conceived, and the execution of which they pursue with the unyielding obstinacy of passion. Macbeth, Othello, Richard III., are such characters. Others, as Romeo, Juliet, and Miranda, are distinguished by an absorption of soul in a unique, profound, but purely personal sentiment, which furnishes them an occasion for displaying an admirable wealth of qualities. The most restricted and most common, still interest us by a certain consistency in their acts, a certain brilliancy, an enthusiasm, a freedom of imagination, a spirit superior to circumstances, which causes us to overlook whatever there is common in their action and discourse.

But this class, where Shakspeare excels, is extremely difficult to treat. To writers of mediocrity, the quicksand is inevitable. They risk, in fact, falling into the insipid, the insignificant, the trivial, or the repulsive, as a crowd of imitators have proven.

It has been vouchsafed only to a few great masters to possess enough genius and taste to seize here the true and the beautiful, to redeem the insignificance or vulgarity of the content by enthusiasm and talent, by the force and energy of their pencil and by a profound knowledge of human passions.

One of the characteristics of romantic art is, that, in the religious sphere, the soul, finding for itself satisfaction in itself, has no need to develop itself in the external world. On the other hand, when the religious idea no longer makes itself felt, and when the free will is no longer dependent, except on itself, the _dramatis personæ_ pursue aims wholly individual in a world where all appears arbitrary and accidental, and which seems abandoned to itself and delivered up to chance. In its irregular pace, it presents a complication of events, which intermingle without order and without cohesion.

Moreover, this is the form which events affect in romantic, in opposition to classic art, where the actions and events are bound to a common end, to a true and necessary principle which determines the form, the character, and the mode of development of external circumstances. In romantic art, also, we find general interests, moral ideas; but they do not ostensibly determine events; they are not the ordering and regulating principle. These events, on the contrary, preserve their free course, and affect an accidental form.

Such is the character of the greater part of the grand events in the middle ages, the crusades, for example, which the author names for this reason, and which were the grand adventures of the Christian world.

Whatever may be the judgment which one forms upon the crusades and the different motives which caused them to be undertaken, it cannot be denied, that with an elevated religious aim—the deliverance of the holy sepulchre—there were mingled other interested and material motives, and that the religious and the profane aim did not contradict nor corrupt the other. As to their general form, the crusades present utter absence of unity. They are undertaken by masses, by multitudes, who enter upon a particular expedition according to their good pleasure, and their individual caprice. The lack of unity, the absence of plan and direction, causes the enterprises to fail, and the efforts and endeavors are wasted in individual exploits.

In another domain, that of profane life, the road is open also to a crowd of adventurers, whose object is more or less imaginary, and whose principle is love, honor, or fidelity. To battle for the glory of a name, to fly to the succor of innocence, to accomplish the most marvellous things for the honor of one’s lady, such is the motive of the greater part of the beautiful exploits which the romances of chivalry or the poems of this epoch and subsequent epochs celebrate.

These vices of chivalry cause its ruin. We find the most faithful picture of it in the poems of Ariosto and Cervantes.

But what best marks the destruction of romantic art and of chivalry is the _modern romance_, that form of literature which takes their place. The romance is chivalry applied to real life; it is a protest against the real, it is the ideal in a society where all is fixed, regulated in advance by laws, by usages contrary to the free development of the natural longings and sentiments of the soul; it is the chivalry of common life. The same principle which caused a search for adventures throws the personages into the most diverse and the most extraordinary situations. The imagination, disgusted with that which is, cuts out for itself a world according to its fancy, and creates for itself an ideal wherein it can forget social customs, laws, positive interests. The young men and young women, above all, feel the want of such aliment for the heart, or of such distraction against _ennui_. Ripe age succeeds youth; the young man marries and enters upon positive interests. Such is also the _dénoûement_ of the greater part of romances, where prose succeeds poetry, the real, the ideal.

The destruction of romantic art is announced by symptoms still more striking, by the _imitation of the real_, and the appearance of the _humorous_ style, which occupies more and more space in art and literature. The artist and the poet can there display much talent, enthusiasm and spirit; but these two styles are no less striking indexes of an epoch of decadence.

It is, above all, the humorous style which marks this decadence, by the absence of all fixed principle and all rule. It is a pure play of the imagination which combines, according to its liking, the most different objects, alters and overturns relations, tortures itself to discover novel and extraordinary conceptions. The author places himself above the subject, regards himself as freed from all conditions imposed by the nature of the content as well as the form, and imagines that all depends on his wit and the power of his genius. It is to be observed, that what Hegel calls the downfall of art in general, and of romantic art in particular, is precisely what we call the romantic school in the art and literature of our time.

Such are the fundamental forms which art presents in its historic development. If the art of the _renaissance_, or modern art properly so called, finds no place in this sketch, it is because it does not constitute an original and fundamental form. The _renaissance_ is a return to Greek art; and as to modern art, it is allied to both Greek and Christian.

But it remains for us to present some conclusions upon the future destiny of art—a point of highest interest, to which this review of the forms and monuments of the past must lead. The conclusions of the author, which we shall consider elsewhere, are far from answering to what we might have expected from so remarkable a historic picture.

What are, indeed, these conclusions? The first is, that the rôle of art, to speak properly, is finished—at least, its original and distinct rôle. The circle of the ideas and beliefs of humanity is completed. Art has invested them with the forms which it was capable of giving them. In the future, it ought, then, to occupy a secondary place. After having finished its independent career, it becomes an obscure satellite of science and philosophy, in which are absorbed both religion and art. This thought is not thus definitely formulated, but it is clearly enough indicated. Art, in revealing thought, has itself contributed to the destruction of other forms, and to its own downfall. The new art ought to be elevated above all the particular forms which it has already expressed. “Art ceases to be attached to a determinate circle of ideas and forms; it consecrates itself to a new worship, that of humanity. All that the heart of man includes within its own immensity—its joys and its sufferings, its interests, its actions, its destinies—become the domain of art.” Thus the content is human nature; the form a free combination of all the forms of the past. We shall hereafter consider this new eclecticism in art.

Hegel points out, in concluding, a final form of literature and poetry, which is the unequivocal index of the absence of peculiar, elevated and profound ideas, and of original forms—that sentimental poetry, light or descriptive, which to-day floods the literary world and the drawing-rooms with its verses; compositions without life and without content, without originality or true inspiration; a common-place and vague expression of all sentiment, full of aspirations and empty of ideas, where, through all, there makes itself recognized an imitation of some illustrious geniuses—themselves misled in false and perilous ways; a sort of current money, analogous to the epistolary style. Everybody is poet; and there is scarcely one true poet. “Wherever the faculties of the soul and the forms of language have received a certain degree of culture, there is no person who cannot, if he take the fancy, express in verse some situation of the soul, as any one is in condition to write a letter.”

Such a style, thus universally diffused, and reproduced under a thousand forms, although with different shadings, easily becomes fastidious.