and grace, character. By character we mean generally, the representation
of will at the highest grade of its objectification, when the individual,
as giving prominence to a particular side of the Idea of humanity, has
special significance, and shows this not merely by his form, but makes it
visible in his bearing and occupation, by action of every kind, and the
modifications of knowing and willing that occasion and accompany it. The
Idea of man must be exhibited in these circumstances, and therefore the
unfolding of its many-sidedness must be brought before our eyes by means
of representative individuals, and these individuals can only be made
visible in their significance through various scenes, events, and actions.
This is the endless problem of the historical painter, and he solves it by
placing before us scenes of life of every kind, of greater or less
significance. No individual and no action can be without significance; in
all and through all the Idea of man unfolds itself more and more.
Therefore no event of human life is excluded from the sphere of painting.
It is thus a great injustice to the excellent painters of the Dutch
school, to prize merely their technical skill, and to look down upon them
in other respects, because, for the most part, they represent objects of
common life, whereas it is assumed that only the events of the history of
the world, or the incidents of biblical story, have significance. We ought
first to bethink ourselves that the inward significance of an action is
quite different from its outward significance, and that these are often
separated from each other. The outward significance is the importance of
an action in relation to its result for and in the actual world; thus
according to the principle of sufficient reason. The inward significance
is the depth of the insight into the Idea of man which it reveals, in that
it brings to light sides of that Idea which rarely appear, by making
individuals who assert themselves distinctly and decidedly, disclose their
peculiar characteristics by means of appropriately arranged circumstances.
Only the inward significance concerns art; the outward belongs to history.
They are both completely independent of each other; they may appear
together, but may each appear alone. An action which is of the highest
significance for history may in inward significance be a very ordinary and
common one; and conversely, a scene of ordinary daily life may be of great
inward significance, if human individuals, and the inmost recesses of
human action and will, appear in it in a clear and distinct light.
Further, the outward and the inward significance of a scene may be equal
and yet very different. Thus, for example, it is all the same, as far as
inward significance is concerned, whether ministers discuss the fate of
countries and nations over a map, or boors wrangle in a beer-house over
cards and dice, just as it is all the same whether we play chess with
golden or wooden pieces. But apart from this, the scenes and events that
make up the life of so many millions of men, their actions, their sorrows,
their joys, are on that account important enough to be the object of art,
and by their rich variety they must afford material enough for unfolding
the many-sided Idea of man. Indeed the very transitoriness of the moment
which art has fixed in such a picture (now called _genre_-painting)
excites a slight and peculiar sensation; for to fix the fleeting,
ever-changing world in the enduring picture of a single event, which yet
represents the whole, is an achievement of the art of painting by which it
seems to bring time itself to a standstill, for it raises the individual
to the Idea of its species. Finally, the historical and outwardly
significant subjects of painting have often the disadvantage that just
what is significant in them cannot be presented to perception, but must be
arrived at by thought. In this respect the nominal significance of the
picture must be distinguished from its real significance. The former is
the outward significance, which, however, can only be reached as a
conception; the latter is that side of the Idea of man which is made
visible to the onlooker in the picture. For example, Moses found by the
Egyptian princess is the nominal significance of a painting; it represents
a moment of the greatest importance in history; the real significance, on
the other hand, that which is really given to the onlooker, is a foundling
child rescued from its floating cradle by a great lady, an incident which
may have happened more than once. The costume alone can here indicate the
particular historical case to the learned; but the costume is only of
importance to the nominal significance, and is a matter of indifference to
the real significance; for the latter knows only the human being as such,
not the arbitrary forms. Subjects taken from history have no advantage
over those which are taken from mere possibility, and which are therefore
to be called, not individual, but merely general. For what is peculiarly
significant in the former is not the individual, not the particular event
as such, but the universal in it, the side of the Idea of humanity which
expresses itself through it. But, on the other hand, definite historical
subjects are not on this account to be rejected, only the really artistic
view of such subjects, both in the painter and in the beholder, is never
directed to the individual particulars in them, which properly constitute
the historical, but to the universal which expresses itself in them, to
the Idea. And only those historical subjects are to be chosen the chief
point of which can actually be represented, and not merely arrived at by
thought, otherwise the nominal significance is too remote from the real;
what is merely thought in connection with the picture becomes of most
importance, and interferes with what is perceived. If even on the stage it
is not right that the chief incident of the plot should take place behind
the scenes (as in French tragedies), it is clearly a far greater fault in
a picture. Historical subjects are distinctly disadvantageous only when
they confine the painter to a field which has not been chosen for artistic
but for other reasons, and especially when this field is poor in
picturesque and significant objects—if, for example, it is the history of
a small, isolated, capricious, hierarchical (_i.e._, ruled by error),
obscure people, like the Jews, despised by the great contemporary nations
of the East and the West. Since the wandering of the tribes lies between
us and all ancient nations, as the change of the bed of the ocean lies
between the earth’s surface as it is to-day and as it was when those
organisations existed which we only know from fossil remains, it is to be
regarded generally as a great misfortune that the people whose culture was
to be the principal basis of our own were not the Indians or the Greeks,
or even the Romans, but these very Jews. But it was especially a great
misfortune for the Italian painters of genius in the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries that, in the narrow sphere to which they were
arbitrarily driven for the choice of subjects, they were obliged to have
recourse to miserable beings of every kind. For the New Testament, as
regards its historical part, is almost more unsuitable for painting than
the Old, and the subsequent history of martyrs and doctors of the church
is a very unfortunate subject. Yet of the pictures, whose subject is the
history or mythology of Judaism and Christianity, we must carefully
distinguish those in which the peculiar, _i.e._, the ethical spirit of
Christianity is revealed for perception, by the representation of men who
are full of this spirit. These representations are in fact the highest and
most admirable achievements of the art of painting; and only the greatest
masters of this art succeeded in this, particularly Raphael and Correggio,
and especially in their earlier pictures. Pictures of this kind are not
properly to be classed as historical: for, as a rule, they represent no
event, no action; but are merely groups of saints, with the Saviour
himself, often still a child, with His mother, angels, &c. In their
countenances, and especially in the eyes, we see the expression, the
reflection, of the completest knowledge, that which is not directed to
particular things, but has fully grasped the Ideas, and thus the whole
nature of the world and life. And this knowledge in them, reacting upon
the will, does not, like other knowledge, convey _motives_ to it, but on
the contrary has become a _quieter_ of all will, from which proceeded the
complete resignation, which is the innermost spirit of Christianity, as of
the Indian philosophy; the surrender of all volition, conversion, the
suppression of will, and with it of the whole inner being of this world,
that is to say, salvation. Thus these masters of art, worthy of eternal
praise, expressed perceptibly in their works the highest wisdom. And this
is the summit of all art. It has followed the will in its adequate
objectivity, the Ideas, through all its grades, in which it is affected
and its nature unfolded in so many ways, first by causes, then by stimuli,
and finally by motives. And now art ends with the representation of the
free self-suppression of will, by means of the great peace which it gains
from the perfect knowledge of its own nature.(56)
§ 49. The truth which lies at the foundation of all that we have hitherto
said about art, is that the object of art, the representation of which is
the aim of the artist, and the knowledge of which must therefore precede
his work as its germ and source, is an Idea in Plato’s sense, and never
anything else; not the particular thing, the object of common
apprehension, and not the concept, the object of rational thought and of
science. Although the Idea and the concept have something in common,
because both represent as unity a multiplicity of real things; yet the
great difference between them has no doubt been made clear and evident
enough by what we have said about concepts in the first book, and about
Ideas in this book. I by no means wish to assert, however, that Plato
really distinctly comprehended this difference; indeed many of his
examples of Ideas, and his discussions of them, are applicable only to
concepts. Meanwhile we leave this question alone and go on our own way,
glad when we come upon traces of any great and noble mind, yet not
following his footsteps but our own aim. The _concept_ is abstract,
discursive, undetermined within its own sphere, only determined by its
limits, attainable and comprehensible by him who has only reason,
communicable by words without any other assistance, entirely exhausted by
its definition. The _Idea_ on the contrary, although defined as the
adequate representative of the concept, is always object of perception,
and although representing an infinite number of particular things, is yet
thoroughly determined. It is never known by the individual as such, but
only by him who has raised himself above all willing and all individuality
to the pure subject of knowing. Thus it is only attainable by the man of
genius, and by him who, for the most part through the assistance of the
works of genius, has reached an exalted frame of mind, by increasing his
power of pure knowing. It is therefore not absolutely but only
conditionally communicable, because the Idea, comprehended and repeated in
the work of art, appeals to every one only according to the measure of his
own intellectual worth. So that just the most excellent works of every
art, the noblest productions of genius, must always remain sealed books to
the dull majority of men, inaccessible to them, separated from them by a
wide gulf, just as the society of princes is inaccessible to the common
people. It is true that even the dullest of them accept on authority
recognisedly great works, lest otherwise they should argue their own
incompetence; but they wait in silence, always ready to express their
condemnation, as soon as they are allowed to hope that they may do so
without being left to stand alone; and then their long-restrained hatred
against all that is great and beautiful, and against the authors of it,
gladly relieves itself; for such things never appealed to them, and for
that very reason were humiliating to them. For as a rule a man must have
worth in himself in order to recognise it and believe in it willingly and
freely in others. On this rests the necessity of modesty in all merit, and
the disproportionately loud praise of this virtue, which alone of all its
sisters is always included in the eulogy of every one who ventures to
praise any distinguished man, in order to appease and quiet the wrath of
the unworthy. What then is modesty but hypocritical humility, by means of
which, in a world swelling with base envy, a man seeks to obtain pardon
for excellences and merits from those who have none? For whoever
attributes to himself no merits, because he actually has none, is not
modest but merely honest.
The _Idea_ is the unity that falls into multiplicity on account of the
temporal and spatial form of our intuitive apprehension; the _concept_, on
the contrary, is the unity reconstructed out of multiplicity by the
abstraction of our reason; the latter may be defined as _unitas post rem_,
the former as _unitas ante rem_. Finally, we may express the distinction
between the Idea and the concept, by a comparison, thus: the _concept_ is
like a dead receptacle, in which, whatever has been put, actually lies
side by side, but out of which no more can be taken (by analytical
judgment) than was put in (by synthetical reflection); the (Platonic)
_Idea_, on the other hand, develops, in him who has comprehended it, ideas
which are new as regards the concept of the same name; it resembles a
living organism, developing itself and possessed of the power of
reproduction, which brings forth what was not put into it.
It follows from all that has been said, that the concept, useful as it is
in life, and serviceable, necessary and productive as it is in science, is
yet always barren and unfruitful in art. The comprehended Idea, on the
contrary, is the true and only source of every work of art. In its
powerful originality it is only derived from life itself, from nature,
from the world, and that only by the true genius, or by him whose
momentary inspiration reaches the point of genius. Genuine and immortal
works of art spring only from such direct apprehension. Just because the
Idea is and remains object of perception, the artist is not conscious in
the abstract of the intention and aim of his work; not a concept, but an
Idea floats before his mind; therefore he can give no justification of
what he does. He works, as people say, from pure feeling, and
unconsciously, indeed instinctively. On the contrary, imitators,
mannerists, _imitatores, servum pecus_, start, in art, from the concept;
they observe what pleases and affects us in true works of art; understand
it clearly, fix it in a concept, and thus abstractly, and then imitate it,
openly or disguisedly, with dexterity and intentionally. They suck their
nourishment, like parasite plants, from the works of others, and like
polypi, they become the colour of their food. We might carry comparison
further, and say that they are like machines which mince fine and mingle
together whatever is put into them, but can never digest it, so that the
different constituent parts may always be found again if they are sought
out and separated from the mixture; the man of genius alone resembles the
organised, assimilating, transforming and reproducing body. For he is
indeed educated and cultured by his predecessors and their works; but he
is really fructified only by life and the world directly, through the
impression of what he perceives; therefore the highest culture never
interferes with his originality. All imitators, all mannerists, apprehend
in concepts the nature of representative works of art; but concepts can
never impart inner life to a work. The age, _i.e._, the dull multitude of
every time, knows only concepts, and sticks to them, and therefore
receives mannered works of art with ready and loud applause: but after a
few years these works become insipid, because the spirit of the age,
_i.e._, the prevailing concepts, in which alone they could take root, have
changed. Only true works of art, which are drawn directly from nature and
life, have eternal youth and enduring power, like nature and life
themselves. For they belong to no age, but to humanity, and as on that
account they are coldly received by their own age, to which they disdain
to link themselves closely, and because indirectly and negatively they
expose the existing errors, they are slowly and unwillingly recognised; on
the other hand, they cannot grow old, but appear to us ever fresh and new
down to the latest ages. Then they are no longer exposed to neglect and
ignorance, for they are crowned and sanctioned by the praise of the few
men capable of judging, who appear singly and rarely in the course of
ages,(57) and give in their votes, whose slowly growing number constitutes
the authority, which alone is the judgment-seat we mean when we appeal to
posterity. It is these successively appearing individuals, for the mass of
posterity will always be and remain just as perverse and dull as the mass
of contemporaries always was and always is. We read the complaints of
great men in every century about the customs of their age. They always
sound as if they referred to our own age, for the race is always the same.
At every time and in every art, mannerisms have taken the place of the
spirit, which was always the possession of a few individuals, but
mannerisms are just the old cast-off garments of the last manifestation of
the spirit that existed and was recognised. From all this it appears that,
as a rule, the praise of posterity can only be gained at the cost of the
praise of one’s contemporaries, and _vice versa_.(58)
§ 50. If the aim of all art is the communication of the comprehended Idea,
which through the mind of the artist appears in such a form that it is
purged and isolated from all that is foreign to it, and may now be grasped
by the man of weaker comprehension and no productive faculty; if further,
it is forbidden in art to start from the concept, we shall not be able to
consent to the intentional and avowed employment of a work of art for the
expression of a concept; this is the case in the _Allegory_. An allegory
is a work of art which means something different from what it represents.
But the object of perception, and consequently also the Idea, expresses
itself directly and completely, and does not require the medium of
something else which implies or indicates it. Thus, that which in this way
is indicated and represented by something entirely different, because it
cannot itself be made object of perception, is always a concept. Therefore
through the allegory a conception has always to be signified, and
consequently the mind of the beholder has to be drawn away from the
expressed perceptible idea to one which is entirely different, abstract
and not perceptible, and which lies quite outside the work of art. The
picture or statue is intended to accomplish here what is accomplished far
more fully by a book. Now, what we hold is the end of art, representation
of a perceivable, comprehensible Idea, is not here the end. No great
completeness in the work of art is demanded for what is aimed at here. It
is only necessary that we should see what the thing is meant to be, for,
as soon as this has been discovered, the end is reached, and the mind is
now led away to quite a different kind of idea to an abstract conception,
which is the end that was in view. Allegories in plastic and pictorial art
are, therefore, nothing but hieroglyphics; the artistic value which they
may have as perceptible representations, belongs to them not as
allegories, but otherwise. That the “Night” of Correggio, the “Genius of
Fame” of Hannibal Caracci, and the “Hours” of Poussin, are very beautiful
pictures, is to be separated altogether from the fact that they are
allegories. As allegories they do not accomplish more than a legend,
indeed rather less. We are here again reminded of the distinction drawn
above between the real and the nominal significance of a picture. The
nominal is here the allegorical as such, for example, the “Genius of
Fame.” The real is what is actually represented, in this case a beautiful
winged youth, surrounded by beautiful boys; this expresses an Idea. But
this real significance affects us only so long as we forget the nominal,
allegorical significance; if we think of the latter, we forsake the
perception, and the mind is occupied with an abstract conception; but the
transition from the Idea to the conception is always a fall. Indeed, that
nominal significance, that allegorical intention, often injures the real
significance, the perceptible truth. For example, the unnatural light in
the “Night” of Correggio, which, though beautifully executed, has yet a
merely allegorical motive, and is really impossible. If then an
allegorical picture has artistic value, it is quite separate from and
independent of what it accomplishes as allegory. Such a work of art serves
two ends at once, the expression of a conception and the expression of an
Idea. Only the latter can be an end of art; the other is a foreign end,
the trifling amusement of making a picture also do service as a legend, as
a hieroglyphic, invented for the pleasure of those to whom the true nature
of art can never appeal. It is the same thing as when a work of art is
also a useful implement of some kind, in which case it also serves two
ends; for example, a statue which is at the same time a candelabrum or a
caryatide; or a bas-relief, which is also the shield of Achilles. True
lovers of art will allow neither the one nor the other. It is true that an
allegorical picture may, because of this quality, produce a vivid
impression upon the feelings; but when this is the case, a legend would
under the same circumstances produce the same effect. For example, if the
desire of fame were firmly and lastingly rooted in the heart of a man,
because he regarded it as his rightful possession, which is only withheld
from him so long as he has not produced the charter of his ownership; and
if the Genius of Fame, with his laurel crown, were to appear to such a
man, his whole mind would be excited, and his powers called into activity;
but the same effect would be produced if he were suddenly to see the word
“fame,” in large distinct letters on the wall. Or if a man has made known
a truth, which is of importance either as a maxim for practical life, or
as insight for science, but it has not been believed; an allegorical
picture representing time as it lifts the veil, and discloses the naked
figure of Truth, will affect him powerfully; but the same effect would be
produced by the legend: “_Le temps découvre la vérité._” For what really
produces the effect here is the abstract thought, not the object of
perception.
If then, in accordance with what has been said, allegory in plastic and
pictorial art is a mistaken effort, serving an end which is entirely
foreign to art, it becomes quite unbearable when it leads so far astray
that the representation of forced and violently introduced subtilties
degenerates into absurdity. Such, for example, is a tortoise, to represent
feminine seclusion; the downward glance of Nemesis into the drapery of her
bosom, signifying that she can see into what is hidden; the explanation of
Bellori that Hannibal Carracci represents voluptuousness clothed in a
yellow robe, because he wishes to indicate that her lovers soon fade and
become yellow as straw. If there is absolutely no connection between the
representation and the conception signified by it, founded on subsumption
under the concept, or association of Ideas; but the signs and the things
signified are combined in a purely conventional manner, by positive,
accidentally introduced laws; then I call this degenerate kind of allegory
_Symbolism_. Thus the rose is the symbol of secrecy, the laurel is the
symbol of fame, the palm is the symbol of peace, the scallop-shell is the
symbol of pilgrimage, the cross is the symbol of the Christian religion.
To this class also belongs all significance of mere colour, as yellow is
the colour of falseness, and blue is the colour of fidelity. Such symbols
may often be of use in life, but their value is foreign to art. They are
simply to be regarded as hieroglyphics, or like Chinese word-writing, and
really belong to the same class as armorial bearings, the bush that
indicates a public-house, the key of the chamberlain, or the leather of
the mountaineer. If, finally, certain historical or mythical persons, or
personified conceptions, are represented by certain fixed symbols, these
are properly called _emblems_. Such are the beasts of the Evangelist, the
owl of Minerva, the apple of Paris, the Anchor of Hope, &c. For the most
part, however, we understand by emblems those simple allegorical
representations explained by a motto, which are meant to express a moral
truth, and of which large collections have been made by J. Camerarius,
Alciatus, and others. They form the transition to poetical allegory, of
which we shall have more to say later. Greek sculpture devotes itself to
the perception, and therefore it is _æsthetical_; Indian sculpture devotes
itself to the conception, and therefore it is merely _symbolical_.
This conclusion in regard to allegory, which is founded on our
consideration of the nature of art and quite consistent with it, is
directly opposed to the opinion of Winckelmann, who, far from explaining
allegory, as we do, as something quite foreign to the end of art, and
often interfering with it, always speaks in favour of it, and indeed
(Works, vol. i. p. 55) places the highest aim of art in the
“representation of universal conceptions, and non-sensuous things.” We
leave it to every one to adhere to whichever view he pleases. Only the
truth became very clear to me from these and similar views of Winckelmann
connected with his peculiar metaphysic of the beautiful, that one may have
the greatest susceptibility for artistic beauty, and the soundest judgment
in regard to it, without being able to give an abstract and strictly
philosophical justification of the nature of the beautiful; just as one
may be very noble and virtuous, and may have a tender conscience, which
decides with perfect accuracy in particular cases, without on that account
being in a position to investigate and explain in the abstract the ethical
significance of action.