The Philosophy of Fine Art. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

is, on its own account (als solche.) It may of course in its turn subserve a rational purpose, such as the preservation of health or life. But the contrast here is between the relation of appetite, and that of the theoretic faculty to objects.

67. Sein Objekt. The object in which he finds himself; rather this, I think, than that which he has created.

68. Innerlich, i.e., in the world of mind as contrasted with that of the sensuous vorhandene.

69. Hegel or his editors have "in a converse way." This is obviously a mistake. In both examples the point is that the object is preserved as against desire with its destruction, and the contemplative intelligence with its ideal transformation.

70. Ein ideelles. The meaning is, I think, that the materia is stamped with the hall-mark of deliberate artistic purpose. The ideality, though relatively jejune on such a work as the pyramids, in the higher reaches of art such as poetry and music affects of course the medium itself, the musical chord being pure ideality. Professor Bosanquet's translation omits this and the previous sentence, probably by an oversight. But it is also possible that this thinker conceived the statement as here expressed to be misleading, or at least open to misconception. In architecture and even painting it is obvious, from a certain point of view, the sensuous materia, if directed to an artistic end, remains none the less the material borrowed from natural fact though the fact as natural may be modified in its form. Painting may represent the semblance, but it employs a medium simply sensuous. Hegel has mainly before his attention here obviously the arts of painting, poetry, and music.

71. They are theoretical because as applied to a work of art they imply the presence of the contemplative faculty. In a later section of the work Hegel makes a more complete analysis of what is implied in the sense of hearing as applied to musical composition and in the colour sense. In both cases it is obvious the mind contributes to the facts cognized. Hearing is, however, from Hegel's point of view the most ideal of the two, and he conceives the position of the ears itself points to this distinction.

72. It may at least be questioned whether the ground given here of this distinction, or part of it, is strictly accurate. It may be said that our sense of sight and hearing are both in contact with the waves of the medium, the vibration of which produces the impression we call sound or light. The most obvious distinction then appears to be that the natural object is left as it is by hearing and sight. This at least holds good as against taste. But at least it may be questioned, I think, whether the sense of touch may not be the source of artistic enjoyment, certainly in the case of the blind. And the sense of smell at least leaves objects as they are, and some may contend that it is a source of enjoyment of the beauty of Nature. Hegel would reply, of course, that no works of human art are enjoyed by such means. The main ground is, however, that sight and hearing are the senses closest to intelligence.

73. By Anschauungen Hegel apparently has in mind all the ideas of poetry. We should certainly rather have expected the word Vorstellungen, the word used being rather "visible perceptions." But the three words here seem generally to denote the subject-matter of painting, music, and poetry.

74. Lit., "Operative in the artist viewed (i.e., the artist) as the personal energy (Subjektivität) which creates." Professor Bosanquet's translation "as a productive state of the person" would appear to make "the sensuous side" a subjective state of the artist. But apart from construction, can we speak of this as a "state"? It is modified by his energy—but it can hardly be regarded as a part of it.

75. I find it impossible to fix any one English equivalent to Hegel's use of the words Einbildungskraft, Phantasie, or Vorstellung, in the sense at least that fancy, imagination, or phantasy have been used and defined by famous English writers. Generally speaking, I should say that Phantasie, or as it is called sometimes "artistic" or "creative" Phantasie, stands for the most intellectual faculty, though Vorstellung is also used in much the same sense. But it is impossible to arrive at any clear distinction such as was originally made so profoundly by Ruskin between fancy, the instrument of poetical talent, the surface gift, and imagination or, as he called it, penetrative imagination, which summarizes all the powers of a genius and personality and enters into the heart of the subject-matter by an illuminating flash which reveals reality rather than illustrates by means of image. The present passage appears to me even more unsatisfactory than the more carefully digested analysis at the end of Part I, when Hegel discusses the artist. It not merely ignores the indispensable presence of imagination in the pioneers of science, but appears to myself to confuse talent as the natural gift of a man with the mode in which it is exercised in presenting ideas in sensuous imagery, or at least makes the former depend on the latter. Professor Bosanquet translates Phantasie here by "fancy." But "fancy" is, in our way of looking at it, precisely not the faculty which distinctively belongs to "the great mind and the big heart or soul," though other parts of the description are more applicable. And in short, as I say, to fix definite English equivalents to Hegel's phraseology appears to me impossible.

76. Die Phantasie.

77. This is, I presume, Hegel's way of putting the simple fact, that much of the process of artistic production is unconscious. One man instinctively draws, or picks up his notes on the piano, another cannot. I think Hegel rather refers to this original talent than the much more important one in which genius, right into maturity, rides over difficulties without knowing how it does so. Such happy or even miraculous effects—such as artists sometimes playfully call them—are obviously in part, if only in part, the result of profound artistic experience. He is dealing almost exclusively with the natural bias, which makes one man naturally an artist, whether creative or executant, and is absent from another. He hardly approaches the question what constitutes the artist of genius as contrasted with the man of natural talent.

78. This confirms the conclusion above.

79. Für sich. If merely admired as imitation and nothing more.

80. Zur Ekelhaftigkeit. "Sickeningly like" is Professor Bosanquet's closer translation. The expression "damnably like" is not unknown.

81. I think with Professor Bosanquet that phantastischen is here not "fantastic" but strictly derived from Phantasie in its sense of imagination. "Completely," of course, as involving no direct imitation of Nature.

82. Formal, i.e., implying no creative supplement from the artist, purely mechanical.

83. It would be both instructive and interesting to discuss if, and how far, and by virtue of what, that distinct type of modern art known as "still life," such as a few objects of the library, or even a shell or two and so on up to more important organic life was excluded from this condemnation. It is quite clear that Ruskin