Chapter II: The Ideal of Sculpture (1)

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 presupposed 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 eyebrows 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 eyebrows 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.