Chapter X: 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 preeminently 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].