Chapter I: The Art of Painting (1)

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

The same principle generally differentiates the individual from his own bodily frame and external environment to quite as considerable an extent as it brings the soul into mediated relation with the same. Within the compass of this subjective differentiation--regarded as the independent assertion of human individuality as opposed to God, Nature, and the inward and external life of other persons, regarded also conversely as the most intimate relation, the most secure communion of God with the community, and of individual men with God, the environment of Nature and the infinite variety of the wants, purposes, passions, and activities of human existence--falls the entire movement and vitality, which sculpture, both in respect to its content and its means of contributing expression, suffers to escape; and it adds an immeasurable wealth of new material and a novel breadth and variety of artistic treatment which hitherto was absent. Briefly, then, this principle of subjectivity is on the one hand the basis of division, on the other a principle of mediation and synthesis, so that painting unites in one and the same art what hitherto formed the subject-matter of two different arts, namely, the external environment, which architecture treated artistically, and the essentially spiritual form, which was elaborated by sculpture. Painting places its figures on the background of a Nature or an architectural environment, both of which are the products of its own invention in precisely the same sense, and is able to make this external material in both of these aspects by virtue of its emotional powers and soul a counterfeit within its ideal realm, in the degree that it understands how best to place it in relation and harmony with the spirit of the figures that live and move therein.

Such is the principle of the new advance that painting contributes to the representative powers of art.

If we inquire now the course which the more detailed examination of our subject necessitates the following division will serve us.

In the _first_ place we shall have yet further to consider the _general character_ which the art of painting must necessarily receive in accordance with its notion and relatively both to its specific content, the material that is made consonant with this content and finally the artistic treatment which is thereby involved.

_Secondly_, we have to develop the _separate_ modes of definition, which are contained in the principle of such a content and manner of presentation, and more succinctly fix the boundaries of the subject-matter which is adapted to painting no less than the modes of its conception, composition, and technical qualities as painting.

_Thirdly_, painting is itself _broken up_ into _distinct schools_ of painting by reason of the above divisions of matter, technique, and so forth, which, as in the other arts, have their own phases of historical development.

1. GENERAL CHARACTER OF THE ART OF PAINTING

After having thus emphasized as the essential principle of painting that world of the soul in its vitality of feeling, conception, and action cast in embrace round heaven and earth, in the variety of its manifestations and external disclosures within the bodily frame, and affirmed on this account that the focus, and centre of this art is to be sought for in romantic and Christian art, it may immediately occur to the reader that not only do we find excellent artists among the ancients, who are as distinguished in this art as others of their age in sculpture--and we cannot praise them more highly--but also that other peoples, notably the Chinese, Hindoos, and Egyptians, have secured distinction in the direction of painting. Without question the art of painting is, by virtue of the variety of the objects treated and the particular type of its manner of execution, less[221] restricted in the range of nations that exemplify its pursuit. This, however, is not the point at issue. If our question is simply that of the historian doubtless we find single examples of one type[222] of painting or another have been produced at the most varied epochs by the nations already mentioned and others. It is, however, a profounder question altogether when we ask ourselves what is the _principle_ of painting, examine the means of its exposition and in doing so seek to establish that content, which by virtue of its _own nature_ is emphatically consonant with the _painter's art_ as such and its mode of presentment, so that we can affirm the form thus selected to be wholly adequate to the content in question. We have but little left us of the painting of the ancient world, examples, in fact, which we see can neither have formed part of the most consummate work of antiquity in this respect, nor have been the product of its most famous masters. At least all that has been discovered through excavation in private houses is of this character. It is impossible, however, not to admire the delicacy of taste, the suitability of the objects, selected, the clearness of the grouping, and, we may add, the lightness of the handling and freshness of the colouring, excellences which without doubt were present in the originals of such pictures in a far higher degree, in imitation of which, for example, the wall paintings in the so-called house of the tragedian at Pompeii have been executed. We have, unfortunately, no examples of the works of famous masters. Whatever degree of excellence, however, these more original productions attained, we may none the less affirm that the ancients could not, alongside of the unmatchable beauty of their sculptures, have lifted the art of painting to the level of artistic elaboration as painting which we find secured in the Christian era of the Middle Ages, and pre-eminently in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. And we may assume this to be so on the philosophical ground that the most genuine heart of the Greek outlook is, in a degree which is inapplicable to the other arts, concordant with the root and fragrance of that which sculpture and sculpture alone can supply. And in art we are not entitled to separate spiritual content from its mode of presentation. If, having this clear to our minds, we inquire how it is that painting only reached its most characteristic consummation through the content of the romantic type of art, we can but reply that it is precisely the intimacy of feeling, the blessedness[223] and pain that give to us the soul of this profounder content, whose demand is for such a vital infusion, which has paved the way to and in fact been the cause of this higher perfection of painting.

As an example of what I mean I will but recall to recollection one particular instance already cited, namely, that we borrow from Raoul-Rochette of the treatment of Isis carrying Horns on her knees. In general the subject is identical with the Madonna pictures, a Divine mother and her child. The difference of handling and conception in the two cases, however, is immeasurable. The Egyptian Isis, as we find her thus situated on bas-reliefs, has nothing maternal about her, no tenderness, no trait of soul or emotion, such as is not even wholly absent in the stiffer Byzantine pictures of the Madonna. And if we think of Raphael, or any other great Italian master, what results have they not achieved from this subject of the Mother and Christ-babe! What depth of emotion, what spiritual life, what intimacy and wealth of heart, what exaltation and endearment, how human and yet how entirely filled with divine spirit is the soul which speaks to us from every line and feature. And under what infinite variety of forms and situations is this one subject presented to us even by particular masters taken singly and still more by different artists. The mother, the pure Virgin, the physical, the spiritual beauty, loftiness and devotion of love, all this and countless other features are emphasized in their turn as the main significance of the expression. But chief of all we find throughout that it is not the sensuous beauty of mere form, but the animate life of Spirit, by virtue of which artistic genius no less than mastery of execution is asserted and secured. Now it is quite true that Greek art has passed a long way beyond Egyptian art, and we may add that it has made the expression of man's soul an object aimed for. But it was not capable of grasping that intimacy and depth of emotion which is discovered to us in the Christian type of expression, and indeed was careful, in accordance with its entire character, not to attach itself to such intensity of feeling. Take, for instance, the case I have more than once already cited of the faun, who carries the youthful Bacchus in his arms; it is, no doubt, expressive of extremely tender and amiable qualities. The nymphs are equally so who tend upon Bacchus, a situation which is depicted by a gem in a very beautiful group of figures. In such cases we have an analogous sentiment of unconstrained love for a child, equally free from passion and yearning; but, even putting on one side the maternal relation[224], the expression possesses in no respect the intimacy, the depth of soul, which confront us in Christian paintings. The ancients may very well have painted excellent portraits, but neither their way of conceiving natural fact, nor the point of view from which they regarded human and divine conditions was of the kind that, in the case of painting, an infusion of soul-life could be expressed with such intimate intensity as was possible in Christian painting.

The demand of painting, however, for this more personal type of inspiration is a result of its very material. In other words, the sensuous medium in which it moves is an extension on pure surface, and the display of form by means of the use of _diversified_ colours, by virtue of which process the objective shape, as we have it presented to the vision, is converted to an artificial illusion adopted by a spiritual agency[225] in the place of the actual form of fact. It is part of the principle of such a treatment of material that which is external should not ultimately retain its validity in its independent native existence, even in the modified form it takes as a vital product of human hands, but should in this form of realization be lowered as reality to a purely phenomenal reflex of the _inward_ soul-life itself, which seeks to contemplate itself independently as such. When we look into the heart of the matter we shall find that the advance from the rounded form of sculpture amounts to nothing less than the above statement. It is the soul-life, the ideality of Spirit which undertakes to express itself in an intimate way through the counterfeit of the objective world. Add to this, in the second place, that the surface on which the art of painting makes its objects visible, opens independently the path to the employment of a surrounding background and other complex relations; and colour too, regarded as the articulation of that which appears, requires a correspondent differentiation of soul-life, which can only be rendered clearly through the definition of expression, situation, and action, and consequently makes necessary variety, movement, and the detailed exposition of both the inward and external life. This principle of inwardness[226] taken alone, which at the same time in its actual manifestation is associated with the variety of external existence and is cognizable on the face of such particular existence as an essentially complete and independent complex of conditions, we have already seen to be the principle of the romantic type of art, in whose configuration and mode of presentation consequently the medium of painting discovers in a unique way its _wholly adequate object._ Conversely we may affirm at the same time that romantic art, when the question is actually one of definite works of art, must seek for material which is consonant with its content, and in the first instance it finds such in painting, which consequently remains more or less of a formal character when dealing with all objects and compositions not of this type[227]. Granting, then, the fact that we find outside the Christian paintings an Oriental, Greek, and Roman school of painting, yet the real centre and focus of all is none the less the elaboration which this art secured within the boundaries of romantic art. We can only speak of Oriental and Greek painting in the same kind of way as we did when, despite our main thesis that sculpture attained its highest crown of perfection in the classical Ideal, we referred to a subordinate Christian type of sculpture. In other words we are forced to admit that the art of painting first apprehends its content in the material of the romantic type of art, which completely corresponds to its instruments and its modes, and consequently that it was only after the treatment of such material that it discovered how best to use and elaborate in every direction all the means at its disposal.

Following now the course of the above remarks in a wholly general way we have to observe as follows in connection with the _content_, _material_, and _artistic mode_ of treatment of painting.

(_a_) The fundamental definition of the _content_ of painting is, as we have seen, subjectivity as an independent process[228].

(_α_) In this process, looking at it from the point of view of a _reflex of soul-life_, individuality must not wholly pass into the universality its substance, but must on the contrary disclose how it retains that content as a distinctive personality[229], and possesses and expresses its inward life, that is the vitality of its own conception and feeling in the same; neither should the external form be wholly dominated by the ideal individuality as is the case in sculpture. For the principle of subjectivity, albeit that it permeates the external material as the mode of objectivity adequate to express it, is notwithstanding likewise an identity which withdraws itself into itself out of that objective domain, and by virtue of this self-seclusion is relatively to that objective aspect neutral, leaving it quite untrammelled. Just as therefore, on the spiritual side of the content, the particularity of the personal life is not set forth in direct union with its substance and universality, but is essentially reflected as the culminating feature of its independent embodiment[230], so, too, in the objective envisagement of form, the particularity and universality of the same are carried from their previous plastic union[231] to a predominance of the individual aspect, and indeed of comparatively accidental and indifferent features, and in a manner much the same as that which, in the reality of sense experience, is the prevailing character of all phenomena.

(_β_) A _further_ important point is that connected with the range of _scope_ that is permitted to the art of painting in virtue of its principle with regard to the objects to be thus presented.

The free principle of subjectivity suffers on the one hand the entire field of natural objects, and every department of human activity to remain in its substantive mode of existence; on the other, it is capable of entering into fusion with all possible detail, and creating therefrom a content of its own ideal life, of rather we should say that only in this interfusion with concrete actuality does it assert itself as concrete and vital in its products. Consequently it is possible for the painter to import a wealth of material into the realm occupied by his artistic works, which remains outside, the reach of the sculptor. The entire world of the religious idea, conceptions of heaven and hell, the history of Christ, his disciples and saints, external Nature, all that concerns humanity down to the most fugitive of situations and characters, all this material and more can find a place here. For as we have seen all that pertains to the detail, caprice, and accidental features of human need and interest is affected by this principle, which at once strives to comprehend and compose it.

(_γ_) And along with this fact we have as its _corollary_ that painting makes the _soul_ of man itself the subject of its creative work. All that is alive within the soul is present in ideal form, if it is, when we consider its content, at once objective and absolute in the abstract sense[232]. For the emotional life of soul can without question carry the universal within its content, a content, however, which, as feeling, does not retain the form of this universality, but appears under the mode as I, this individual person--I know my identity therein and feel the same. In order to educe and set forth this objective content as objective, I must forget myself. In this way the painter no doubt reveals to our sight the ideal substance of soul in the form of external objects, but the truly real content which it expresses is the personal soul that feels. For which reason painting, from the point of view of form, is unable to offer such distinctive envisagements of the Divine as sculpture, but only ideas of less defined character such as belong to the emotions. It may appear as a contradiction to this position that we find again and again selected as subjects of the paintings of masters, who stand without question in the highest rank, the external environment of mankind, mountains, valleys, meadows, brooks, trees, ships, buildings, their interiors, in short earth, sea, and sky. What, however, constitutes the core in the content of such works of art is not the objects themselves, but the _vitality_ and soul imported into them by the artist's conception and execution, his emotional life in fact, which is reflected in his work, and gives us not merely a counterfeit of external objects, but therewith his own personality and temperament[233]. And it is precisely by his doing this that the objects of Nature, as reflected by painting, even from this realistic point of view, are relatively insignificant, because the influence of soul-life begins to assert itself in them as the main significance. In this tendency towards temperament, which, in the case of objects borrowed from external Nature, may frequently only amount to a general response emphasized between the two sides, we find the most important distinction between painting on the one hand and sculpture and architecture on the other. Painting indeed approximates in this respect more closely to music and emphasizes here the point of transition from the plastic arts to that of tone.

(_b_) To proceed to our _second_ main division I have already several times referred, if only in respect to features of fundamental importance, to the difference we discover between the sensuous _material_ of painting and that of sculpture. I will therefore in this place only touch upon the closer connection which obtains between this material and the spiritual content which it most notably has to display to us.

(_α_) The first fact we have to consider in this connection is this that painting compresses the _three_ dimensions, of Space. Absolute concentration would be carried to the point, as elimination of all juxtaposition, and as unrest essentially predicable of such concentration, as we find it in the point of Time. Such a mode of negation carried out in its entire result, however, we only meet with in the art of music. Painting, on the contrary, permits the spatial relation still to subsist, and only effaces _one_ of the three dimensions; superficies is made the element of its representations. This reduction of the three dimensions to level surface is implied in principle of increasing reality, which is only capable thereby of asserting itself in spatial relation as such ideal transmutation, owing to the fact that it does not suffer the complete totality of objective fact to persist as such, but restricts the same. Ordinarily we are accustomed to view this reduction as a caprice of the art which amounts to a defect. What is here sought for, it appears, is that natural objects in all their naked reality, or spiritual ideas and feelings, by means of the human body and its postures should be made visible to our senses for such an aim it is obvious that the surface is insufficient and inferior to Nature, which appears before us with a completeness wholly different.

(_αα_) Painting is unquestionably yet more abstract than sculpture in respect to material conditioned in Space; but this abstraction, remote as it is from being a purely capricious limitation, or an indication of human incapacity, is just that which brings about the necessary advance from sculpture. Even sculpture is not simply an imitation of natural or physical existence, but a creation of intelligence, which removes from form all aspects of natural existence which are not in accord with the definite content it undertakes to present. This elimination was carried out by sculpture in the case of all colour detail, so that what remained to it was only the abstraction of material form. In painting we have the opposite process, its content being the ideality of soul-life, which can only appear on the face of objective reality, by a process of self-absorption from that very material[234]. The art of painting, therefore, no doubt, works for the sense-perception, but in a way, through which the object which it displays remains no longer an actual natural existence wholly in Space, but is changed to a counterfeit creation of intelligence, in which it only so far reveals its spiritual source as it annuls the actual existence of its object, recreating it for itself in a purely phenomenal semblance within its own spiritual realm--for Spirit.

(_ββ_) And to this intent painting must necessarily effect a breach with the totality of the spatial condition, and there is no reason for charging to human incapacity this loss of Nature's completeness. In other words, inasmuch as the object of painting from the point of view of its spatial existence, is merely a semblance, reflective of the soul of man, exhibited by art for his spirit, the self-subsistency of the object as we find it actually in Space is dissolved, and the object is related in a far more restricted way to the spectator than is the case in sculpture. A statue is by itself wholly an isolated object, independent of the spectator, who may place himself where he pleases; his point of view, his movements, his walking round it, not one of them affect the work of art as a whole[235]. If this self-subsistency is to be preserved the sculptured figure must also have some definite impression to offer each and every point of view. And this independence of the work must be retained in sculpture for the reason that its content is the tranquillity, self-seclusion, and objective presence which, in both an external and ideal sense, reposes on their own substance. In painting, on the contrary, whose content is conditioned by an ideal atmosphere, and in fact is composed of ideal relations essentially particularized, it is precisely this aspect of discord in a work of art between object and spectator which has to be emphasized, and yet with a like directness to be resolved in the fact, that the work, as depicting the ideality of intelligence in its entire mode of presentation, can be only defined under the assumption that it stands there related to an individual mind, that is a spectator, and apart from the same has no self-subsistency. The spectator is assumed and reckoned to be there from the first, and the work of art is only intelligible as related to this point of personal contemplation[236]. For such a relation to mere _visibility_ and its reflection upon an individual consciousness, however, the mere show of reality is sufficient; or rather the actual totality of the spatial condition is a defect, because in that case the objects seen retain an independent existence, and do not appear to be created by Spirit for its own contemplation. Nature consequently is not entitled to reduce its images to the plain surface; its objects possess and claim to possess a real and independent existence. The satisfaction, however, we derive from painting is not in actual existence, but in the contemplative interest we receive from the external reproduction of ideal truths, things born of the soul, and its art therefore dispenses wholly with the need and apparatus of spatial reality in its complete organization.

(_γγ_) And together with this reduction to the level surface we may _thirdly_ associate the fact that painting is placed in a still more remote position to architecture than that occupied by sculpture. Works of sculpture even where exhibited independently for themselves in public places or gardens, require some kind of pedestal treated architectonically, and, in the case of apartments, forecourts, and halls, either the art of building merely assists in presenting the statue's fitting environment, or conversely the sculptured figure is used as the decoration of the building, and between these two thus related objects we find a close association. Painting, on the contrary, whether placed in the enclosed apartment, or in public halls, or under the open sky, is limited to the wall. Originally its function is simply to fill up empty wall spaces. Among the ancients this original destination is mainly sufficient, and they decorated in this way the walls of their temples, and in more recent times also their private chambers. Gothic architecture, whose main task is the enclosure under the most grandiose conditions, supplies no doubt still larger surfaces, or rather the largest possible, yet it is only in the most ancient mosaics that we find painting is employed as a decoration of empty spaces, whether in the case of the outside or the interior. The more recent architecture of the fourteenth century, on the contrary, fills up its enormous wall surfaces in an architectural manner, the most imposing example I know of which is the main _façade_ of Strasbourg cathedral. Here we find that the empty surfaces, excluding the entrance doors, the rose and other windows, are filled in by the ornamental work analogous to that of windows traced over the walls, and decorated by figures of considerable delicacy and variety of form, so that we have no need here for painting. In the case of religious architecture, therefore, painting mainly appears in buildings which begin to approximate to the ancient type of architecture. As a rule, however, Christian painting is to be distinguished from the arts of building, and presents its works in independent form, as for example in large pictures, whether placed in chapels or on high altars. It is true that here, too, the picture must retain some relation to the character of the place, which it is destined to fill; for the rest, however, it is not merely intended to fill up wall spaces, but to hang them as a work of art independently just as a work of sculpture may do. In conclusion painting has its use as a decoration of halls and apartments in public buildings, town halls, palaces, and private houses, in which respect its association with architecture is once more closely marked, an association, however, in which its independence as a free art ought not to be lost.

(_β_) A further necessary ground for the contraction of the spatial dimensions in painting to bare surface is due to the fact that the art of painting is concerned to express ideal conditions essentially in their separation[237], and thereby rich in every kind of particular character. A mere restriction to the shapes of _spatial_ form, with which sculpture is able to rest satisfied, vanishes therefore in the more luxuriant art; for the forms of spatial dimension are the most abstract in Nature, and an attempt must now be made to seize particular distinctions, in so far as the demand is now for an essentially more multifold material. The matter specifically defined in the _physical_ sense is attached to the very principle of presentation in Space, the differences of which[238], if they are to appear as essential in the work of art, themselves disclose this fact[239] in the total configuration of spatial form, which no longer remains the final mode of presentation, and they are compelled to make a breach in the complete form of spatial dimensions, in order to cancel the exclusive appearance of the physical medium. For the dimensions in painting are not presented by themselves in their actual reality, but are merely by means of this physical aspect made to appear and be visible as such.

(_αα_) If we further inquire what is the nature of the _physical_ element which the art of painting makes use of we shall find this to be _Light_, regarding it as that medium which renders all objects whatever visible.

Previously the sensuous, concrete material of architecture was the resisting matter of gravity, which more particularly in the art of building asserted this character of heavy material in its features of burden, constraint, power to support and be supported, and even in sculpture still retained such characteristics. Heavy material encumbers because it does not possess its centre of material unity in itself, but in something else; and it seeks for this centre and strives towards it, though it retains its position through the resistance of other bodies, which become by doing so bodies of support. The principle of light is an opposite, or extreme, of that material of weight which is not as yet enclosed within its unity. Whatever else we may predicate of light it is obvious that it is absolutely devoid of weight and offers no resistance; rather it is pure identity with itself, and thereby simple self-relation, the primordial ideality, the original self of Nature. In light Nature make its start on the path of ideality or inwardness[240], and is the universal physical ego, which of course is not carried here to the point of particularity[241], nor has as yet concentrated itself within the unit of individuality and self-seclusion, yet is thereby enabled to cancel the bare objectivity and external show of heavy matter and abstract from the sensuous and spatial totality of the same[242]. From this aspect of the more _ideal_ quality of light it becomes the physical principle of the art of painting.

(_ββ_) Light regarded simply as such, however, only exists as _one_ aspect contained in the principle of subjectivity, that is, as this more ideal identity. In this respect light is manifestation, just that, which, however, in Nature is only asserted _generally_ as the power of making objects visible, holding the particular content of that which it reveals outside itself as an objective world, which is not light, but rather that which confronts it and consequently is dark. These objects light renders cognizable under their distinctions of form by irradiating them, that is, illuminating to a greater or less degree their obscurity and invisibility, and permitting certain parts to be more visible, namely, as they approach the spectator, and others, on the contrary, more obscure as they withdraw from him. For light and darkness, putting for the present on one side the particular colour of an object, is generally speaking due to the relative remoteness of the illuminated objects from us in their specific degree of illumination. In this direct relation to objectivity light is no longer asserted simply as light, but as essentially particularized brightness and obscurity, light and shadow, whose varied manifestations render the shape and distance of objects from one another intelligible to the spectator. This is the principle which painting makes use of, because from the first differentiation is implied in its notion. If we compare this art in this respect with sculpture and architecture we shall see that in these latter arts the actual distinctions of spatial configuration are set forth in their nakedness, and light and shadow are suffered to retain the ordinary effect which light produces in Nature relatively to the position of the spectator, so that the rondure of form is here already independently[243] present and light and shade, whereby they are rendered visible, are merely a result of that which was already actually on the spot independently of this further aspect of their becoming visible. In the art of painting, however, brightness and darkness together with all their gradations and finest transitions are themselves part of the fundamental _artistic material_, and it is a purely _intentional appearance_ they produce of that medium, which sculpture gives form to in its _native_ state. Light and shade, in short, the appearance of objects under this illumination, is effected by art rather than the mere natural light, which consequently only makes that kind of brightness, darkness, and lighting _visible_, which are the products of painting. And this it is which constitutes the positive rationale deduced from the material of the art itself, why painting does not require three dimensions. Form is the creation of light and shadow simply, and that form which exists in spatial reality is superfluous.

(_γγ_) Bright and dark, shadow and light, no less than their interplay are, however, merely an abstraction, which do not exist in Nature as such abstraction, and consequently cannot be utilized as sensuous material. In other words Light, as we have already seen, is related to its opposite Dark. In this relation both principles have no self-subsistency apart from each other, but can only be asserted in their unity, that is, as the interplay of light and dark. The light, which is in this way essentially impaired and obscured, which, however, to a like extent transpierces and illumines darkness[244], supplies us with the principle of _colour_ as the genuine material of painting. Light in its purity is devoid of colour, it is the pure indeterminacy of essential identity. Distinction from bare light, a lowering of its value, is the characteristic of colour, which in contrast to light is already in some degree obscurity, and together with which the principle of light is asserted in union. It is consequently an incorrect and false idea to hold that light is the aggregate result of different colours, or in other words different degrees of obscuration[245].

Form, distance, limitation, rounded shape, in short, all spatial relations and distinctions visible in the phenomena of Space are unfolded in the art of painting entirely by means of colour, the more ideal principle of which is capable of presenting a more ideal content and by virtue of its profounder oppositions, the infinite variety of its transitional gradations and the delicacy of its softest modulations relatively to the fulness and detail of the objects it accepts as subject-matter, is possessed of a field for its activity of the widest range. It is beyond belief what mere colour is able to accomplish in this art. Two human beings are, for example, something totally distinct. Either is in his self-conscious identity no less than his bodily organism an independent and exclusive spiritual and bodily totality, yet the entire result of this difference is in a picture reduced to a distinction of colours. In one place some particular shade of colour ceases, in another a particular one starts up, and by such means we get everything set before us, shape, distance, play of posture, expression, what is nearest to sense and what is most akin to intelligence. And we are not to regard this reduction as a make-shift and defect. Quite the reverse is the fact; the art of painting dispensing with the third dimension in no such way, but deliberately rejecting it in order to set in the place of purely spatial reality the higher and richer principle of colour.

(_γ_) This wealth enables painting to elaborate in its reproductions the entire extent of the phenomenal world. Sculpture is more or less restricted to the stable self-seclusion of individuality. In painting, however, the individual cannot remain in such limitations of stability whether regarded in his ideal aspect or relatively to the external world, but is placed in every kind of varied definition. For on the one hand, as already pointed out, he is placed in a far closer relation to the spectator, and on the other he receives a more varied connection with other individuals and the environment of Nature. A process, therefore, which merely illuminates semblance of objective fact makes possible the widest expansion of distances and spaces and the present of such and all the varied objects that appear in them in one and the same work of art. Yet it must no less, as a work of art, prove itself to be a self-contained and unified whole, and exhibit itself in this synthesis, not simply as an aggregate whose limits and boundaries are defined by no principle, but rather as a totality whose unified consistency is due to its own subject-matter.

(_c_) In the _third_ place we have, after this general consideration of the content and sensuous material of painting, briefly to adduce in general terms the principle of the _artistic mode_ of treatment adopted by it.

The art of painting more so than either sculpture or architecture admits of the two extremes. In the first case prominence is given to the religious and ethical severity of the conception and presentation of the ideal beauty of form, and in the second, where the subject-matter is, taken by itself, insignificant, to the detail of what it contains and the personal aspect of the creative art. We may therefore not unfrequently hear two extreme kinds of criticism. Our critic in the one case apostrophizes the nobility of the object, the depth and astonishing sufficiency of the conception, the greatness of the expression, and the boldness of the delineation[246]. And in the other equal praise is given to the fine and unexampled character of the painter's treatment of his colour. This contrast is implied in the very notion of the art; indeed, we may affirm that it is impossible to unite both aspects on one plane of elaboration. Each must remain inevitably independent of the other. For painting has shape simply as such, that is, the forms of spatial limitation, no less than colour as means contributive to its artistic result, and is placed thereby midway between the Ideal of the plastic arts and the extreme form of the direct detail of Nature's reality; by reason of which we get two distinct types of painting. One, that is the ideal, whose essential basis is universality; and the other, that which presents particular objects in all their closeness of detail.

(_α_) In this respect painting must accept, in the first instance, as sculpture, that which is substantive in the sense that the objects of religious belief are such, no less than the great events of history, and its pre-eminent individual characters, albeit it renders visible this substance in a form wherein the ideal and personal aspect is emphasized. It is the imposing character, the serious significance of the action portrayed, or the depth of the soul expressed which is here of most importance, so that the elaboration and employment of all the rich artistic means which are within the reach of painting, and the dexterity, which the wholly consummate use of these means demands regarded as a _tour de force_ of technique, cannot here be entirely indicated. In cases of this kind it is the force of the content to be presented and the absorption in what is essential and substantive in the same, which tend to drive into the background the overwhelming facility in the art of painting as that aspect which is less essential. In this sense, for instance, the Cartoons of Raphael are of invaluable merit, and fully display the entire excellence of their composition, although Raphael, even in the case of particular pictures, despite all his mastery in drawing, and the purity of his ideal, and at the same time wholly vital personal figures, and the composition he may have arrived at, most certainly in colour, and all that concerns landscape and other aspects, is excelled by the Dutch masters. This is yet more the case with the earlier Italian heroes of art, in contrast to whom Raphael is to a somewhat similar degree inferior in depth, power, and ideality of expression, as he surpasses such in the technique of his craft, in the beauty of vital grouping, in draughtsmanship and the like[247].

(_β_) Conversely, however, the art of painting, as we have seen, ought to advance further than this exclusive absorption in the ideal and infinite content of man's soul-life; its function is equally to assert the subsistency and freedom of detail, which however incidental it may be, contributes to the environment and background of the work. In this advance from the profoundest seriousness to the objective features of independent detail it is bound to force its way to the extreme articulation of the purely phenomenal, where any and every content is a matter of indifference, and artistic illusion in a realistic sense is the main interest. In such a type of art we find depicted for us the most fugitive aspect of the sky, the time of day, the lighting up of the woods, the gleam and reflection of the clouds, waves, lakes, streams, the shimmer and glitter of wine in the glass, the glance of the eye, and every conceivable look and smile of the human countenance. Painting in such cases moves from the idealistic standpoint to that of living reality, whose phenomenal effect it mainly seeks to reproduce by means of accuracy in the execution of every bit of detail[248]. Yet this effort is no mere assiduity of elaboration, but a real exercise of genuine talent, which strives to present every kind of detail in its independent perfection, and yet retain the whole composition in unity and fusion, and this can only be done by the finest art. In such work the vital force of the realistic appearance thus secured tends to be more near to the artist's aim than the Ideal; and it is precisely this kind of art, as I have already found occasion to remark, which raises, as no other, controversial points over the significance of the Ideal and Nature. No doubt it is very possible to blame the use of the most elaborate technique in subjects of little importance by themselves as mere extravagance; yet there is no real reason for rejecting such material, and it is precisely of that kind which ought to be treated in this way by art, and be permitted to keep every conceivable subtlety and refinement of surface appearance that it possesses.

(_γ_) The artistic treatment does not, however, stop at this more general kind of opposition, but, inasmuch as painting reposes on the principle of soul-expression and particularity, proceeds yet further in the direction of differentiation in its results. Both architecture and sculpture, it is true, assert differences of national type, and in particular we are made aware in sculpture of a closer individuality typical of certain schools and masters. In the art of painting this distinction and personal aspect in the modes of representation expands to an incalculable degree in proportion as the objects, which it may accept, are taken from a field without definable limitations. In this art to a pre-eminent extent the genius of particular peoples, provinces, epochs and individuals asserts its claims and affects not merely the choice of subjects and the spirit of their conception, but also the character of drawing, grouping, colouring, handling of the dry point no less than that of particular colours down to characteristics of personal style and wont.

Inasmuch as the function of painting is so without restriction concerned with the ideal aspect and the details of its subject-matter, it follows of course that it gives us quite as little opportunity to make definite statements of universal validity as to adduce specific facts which can always without exception be accepted as true of it. We must, however, not rest satisfied with what I have already discussed in respect of the principle of the content, the material and the artistic treatment, but make a further effort, however much we leave on one side all that confronts us in its multifold variety, still to subject certain aspects, that most emphatically enlist our attention, to further examination.

2. PARTICULAR MODES OF THE DEFINITION OF PAINTING

The different points of view, according to which we have to undertake this closer characterization, may be already anticipated from our previous discussion. They refer once more to the content, the material and the artistic treatment.

_First_, as to _content_, we have no doubt found the content of the romantic type of art offer the most adequate subject-matter; we must, however, inquire further what specific portions we should select from the entire wealth within this type as pre-eminently adapted to the art of painting.

_Secondly_, we have already made ourselves fairly cognisant with the _principle_ of the sensuous material. We have now to define more narrowly the forms, which may be expressed on the level surface by means of colouring, in so far as the human form and other facts of Nature have to be made visible in order that the ideality of Spirit may be thereby disclosed.

_Thirdly_, we have a similar question with regard to the definite character of the artistic conception and presentation, which corresponds to the different character of the content thus itself similarly differentiated, producing thereby different _types_ or schools of painting.

(_a_) I have already at an earlier stage recalled the fact that the ancients have had excellent painters, but added thereto the statement that the function of painting is only completely satisfied by the way of looking at things and the type of art which is referable to the emotional life and which is actively asserted in the romantic type of art. What appears, however, to contradict this from the point of view of content is the fact that at the very culminating point of Christian painting, during the age of Raphael, Rubens, Correggio, and others, we find that mythological subjects are used and portrayed in part on their own merits, and in part for the decoration and allegorization of great exploits, triumphs, royal weddings, and so forth. In this sense Goethe, for example, has once more borrowed from the descriptions of Philostratus of the pictures of Polygnotus, and, assisted by his imaginative powers as a poet, has added a novel freshness to such subjects for the painter's benefit. If, however, such contributions further imply the demand that subjects of Greek mythology and saga, or scenes, too, from the Roman world, for which the French at a certain period of their painting have evinced a great inclination, should be conceived and portrayed in the definitive mood and significance attached to them by the ancient world we can only object generally that it is impossible to recall to life this past history, and what is peculiarly appropriate to the antique is not wholly compatible with the art of painting. The painter must consequently create from such material an entirely different result, must import therein a totally different spirit, other emotions and modes of seeing things than those present to the ancients, in order to bring such a content into accord with the real problems and aims of painting. For this reason also the circle of antique material and situations is not that which painting has elaborated in a consequential process; rather it is an aspect of it which has been passed over as alien to its material, and which has first to be essentially remodelled. I have several times insisted that painting has before all to seize that, the presentment of which it can, in deliberate contrast to sculpture, music, and poetry, master by means of external form. And this is preeminently the self-concentration of Spirit, which is denied to sculpture, while music again is unable to make the passage to the external appearance of ideality, and poetry itself can merely render visible the bodily presence in an incomplete way. Painting, on the contrary, is still in a position to unite both aspects. It can express the entire content of soul-life in an external form, and is consequently bound to accept for its essential content the emotional depth of the soul no less than the particular type of character and its specific traits in its deepest impression--in other words intensity of feeling and ideality in its differentiation, for the expression of which definite events, conditions, and situations not only must appear as the explanatory source of individual character, but the specific individuality must disclose itself as a part of the moulded form of the soul and physiognomy, rooted therein, and entirely taken up into the external embodiment.