Finally, the great problem of historical painting and of sculpture is to present, immediately and for perception, the Idea in which the will reaches the highest degree of its objectification. The objective side of pleasure in the beautiful is here wholly predominant, and the subjective is now in the background. Further, it is to be observed that at the next grade below this, in other words, in animal painting, the characteristic is wholly one with the beautiful; the most characteristic lion, wolf, horse, sheep, or ox is always the most beautiful. The reason for this is that animals have only the character of the species, not an individual character. But in the manifestation of man the character of the species is separated from the character of the individual. The former is now called beauty (wholly in the objective sense), but the latter retains the name of character or expression, and the new difficulty arises of completely presenting both at the same time in the same individual.
Human beauty is an objective expression that denotes the will’s most complete objectification at the highest grade at which this is knowable, namely the Idea of man in general, completely and fully expressed in the perceived form. But however much the objective side of the beautiful appears here, the subjective still always remains its constant companion. No object transports us so rapidly into purely aesthetic contemplation as the most beautiful human countenance and form, at the sight of which we are instantly seized by an inexpressible satisfaction and lifted above ourselves and all that torments us. This is possible only because of the fact that this most distinct and purest perceptibility of the will raises us most easily and rapidly into the state of pure knowing in which our personality, our willing with its constant pain, disappears, as long as the purely aesthetic pleasure lasts. Therefore, Goethe says that “Whoever beholds human beauty cannot be infected with evil; he feels in harmony with himself and the world.” Now, that nature succeeds in producing a beautiful human form must be explained by saying that the will at this highest grade objectifies itself in an individual, and thus, through fortunate circumstances and by its own power, completely overcomes all the obstacles and opposition presented to it by phenomena of the lower grades. Such are the forces of nature from which the will must always wrest and win back the matter that belongs to them all. Further, the phenomenon of the will at the higher grades always has multiplicity in its form. The tree is only a systematic aggregate of innumerably repeated sprouting fibres. This combination increases more and more the higher we go, and the human body is a highly complex system of quite different parts, each of which has its vita propria, a life subordinate to the whole, yet characteristic. That all these parts are precisely and appropriately subordinated to the whole and coordinated with one another; that they conspire harmoniously to the presentation of the whole, and there is nothing excessive or stunted; all these are the rare conditions, the result of which is beauty, the completely impressed character of the species. Thus nature: but how is it with art? It is imagined that this is done by imitating nature. But how is the artist to recognize the perfect work to be imitated, and how is he to discover it from among the failures, unless he anticipates the beautiful prior to experience? Moreover, has nature ever produced a human being perfectly beautiful in all his parts? It has been supposed that the artist must gather the beautiful parts separately distributed among many human beings, and construct a beautiful whole from them; an absurd and meaningless opinion. Once again, it is asked, how is he to know that just these forms and not others are beautiful? We also see how far the old German painters arrived at beauty by imitating nature. Let us consider their nude figures. No knowledge of the beautiful is at all possible purely a posteriori and from mere experience. It is always, at least partly, a priori, though of quite a different kind from the forms of the principle of sufficient reason, of which we are a priori conscious. These concern the universal form of the phenomenon as such, as it establishes the possibility of knowledge in general, the universal how of appearance without exception, and from this knowledge proceed mathematics and pure natural science. On the other hand, that other kind of knowledge a priori, which makes it possible to present the beautiful, concerns the content of phenomena instead of the form, the what of the appearance instead of the how. We all recognize human beauty when we see it, but in the genuine artist this takes place with such clearness that he shows it as he has never seen it, and in his presentation he surpasses nature. Now this is possible only because we ourselves are the will, whose adequate objectification at its highest grade is here to be judged and discovered. In fact, only in this way have we an anticipation of what nature (which is in fact just the will constituting our own inner being) endeavours to present. In the true genius this anticipation is accompanied by a high degree of thoughtful intelligence, so that, by recognizing in the individual thing its Idea, he, so to speak, understands nature’s half-spoken words. He expresses clearly what she merely stammers. He impresses on the hard marble the beauty of the form which nature failed to achieve in a thousand attempts, and he places it before her, exclaiming as it were, “This is what you desired to say!” And from the man who knows comes the echoing reply, “Yes, that is it!” Only in this way was the Greek genius able to discover the prototype of the human form, and to set it up as the canon for the school of sculpture. Only by virtue of such an anticipation also is it possible for all of us to recognize the beautiful where nature has actually succeeded in the particular case. This anticipation is the Ideal; it is the Idea in so far as it is known a priori, or at any rate half-known; and it becomes practical for art by accommodating and supplementing as such what is given a posteriori through nature. The possibility of such anticipation of the beautiful a priori in the artist, as well as of its recognition a posteriori by the connoisseur, is to be found in the fact that artist and connoisseur are themselves the “in-itself” of nature, the will objectifying itself. For, as Empedocles said, like can be recognized only by like; only nature can understand herself; only nature will fathom herself; but also only by the mind is the mind comprehended.109
The opinion is absurd, although expressed by Xenophon’s Socrates (Stobaeus, Florilegium, ii, p. 384), that the Greeks discovered the established ideal of human beauty wholly empirically by collecting separate beautiful parts, uncovering and noting here a knee, and there an arm. It has its exact parallel in regard to the art of poetry, namely the assumption that Shakespeare, for example, noted, and then reproduced from his own experience of life, the innumerable and varied characters in his dramas, so true, so sustained, so thoroughly and profoundly worked out. The impossibility and absurdity of such an assumption need not be discussed. It is obvious that the man of genius produces the works of poetic art only by an anticipation of what is characteristic, just as he produces the works of plastic and pictorial art only by a prophetic anticipation of the beautiful, though both require experience as a schema or model. In this alone is that something of which they are dimly aware a priori, called into distinctness, and the possibility of thoughtful and intelligent presentation appears.
Human beauty was declared above to be the most complete objectification of the will at the highest grade of its knowability. It expresses itself through the form, and this resides in space alone, and has no necessary connexion with time, as movement for example has. To this extent we can say that the adequate objectification of the will through a merely spatial phenomenon is beauty, in the objective sense. The plant is nothing but such a merely spatial phenomenon of the will; for no movement, and consequently no relation to time (apart from its development), belong to the expression of its nature. Its mere form expresses and openly displays its whole inner being. Animal and man, however, still need for the complete revelation of the will appearing in them a series of actions, and thus that phenomenon in them obtains a direct relation to time. All this has already been discussed in the previous book; it is connected with our present remarks in the following way. As the merely spatial phenomenon of the will can objectify that will perfectly or imperfectly at each definite grade—and it is just this that constitutes beauty or ugliness —so also can the temporal objectification of the will, i.e., the action, and indeed the direct action, and hence the movement, correspond purely and perfectly to the will which objectifies itself in it, without foreign admixture, without superfluity, without deficiency, expressing only the exact act of will determined in each case; or the converse of all this may occur. In the first case, the movement occurs with grace; in the second, without it. Thus as beauty is the adequate and suitable manifestation of the will in general, through its merely spatial phenomenon, so grace is the adequate manifestation of the will through its temporal phenomenon, in other words, the perfectly correct and appropriate expression of each act of will through the movement and position that objectifies it. As movement and position presuppose the body, Winckelmann’s expression is very true and to the point when he says: “Grace is the peculiar relation of the acting person to the action.” (Werke, Vol. I, p. 258.) It follows automatically that beauty can be attributed to plants, but not grace, unless in a figurative sense; to animals and human beings, both beauty and grace. In accordance with what has been said, grace consists in every movement being performed and every position taken up in the easiest, most appropriate, and most convenient way, and consequently in being the purely adequate expression of its intention or of the act of will, without any superfluity that shows itself as unsuitable meaningless bustle or absurd posture; without any deficiency that shows itself as wooden stiffness. Grace presupposes a correct proportion in all the limbs, a symmetrical, harmonious structure of the body, as only by means of these are perfect ease and evident appropriateness in all postures and movements possible. Therefore grace is never without a certain degree of beauty of the body. The two, complete and united, are the most distinct phenomenon of the will at the highest grade of its objectification.
As mentioned above, it is one of the distinguishing features of mankind that therein the character of the species and that of the individual are separated so that, as was said in the previous book, each person exhibits to a certain extent an Idea that is wholly characteristic of him. Therefore the arts, aiming at a presentation of the Idea of mankind, have as their problem both beauty as the character of the species, and the character of the individual, which is called character par excellence. Again, they have this only in so far as this character is to be regarded not as something accidental and quite peculiar to the man as a single individual, but as a side of the Idea of mankind, specially appearing in this particular individual; and thus the presentation of this individual serves to reveal this Idea. Therefore the character, although individual as such, must be comprehended and expressed ideally, in other words, with emphasis on its significance in regard to the Idea of mankind in general (to the objectifying of which it contributes in its own way). Moreover, the presentation is a portrait, a repetition of the individual as such, with all his accidental qualities. And as Winckelmann says, even the portrait should be the ideal of the individual.
That character, to be comprehended ideally, which is the emphasis of a particular and peculiar side of the Idea of mankind, now manifests itself visibly, partly through permanent physiognomy and bodily form, partly through fleeting emotion and passion, the reciprocal modification of knowing and willing through each other; and all this is expressed in mien and movement. The individual always belongs to humanity; on the other hand, humanity always reveals itself in the individual, and that with the peculiar ideal significance of this individual ; therefore beauty cannot be abolished by character, or character by beauty. For the abolition of the character of the species by that of the individual would give us caricature, and the abolition of the character of the individual by that of the species would result in meaninglessness. Therefore, the presentation that aims at beauty, as is done mainly by sculpture, will always modify this (i.e., the character of the species) in some respect by the individual character, and will always express the Idea of mankind in a definite individual way, emphasizing a particular side of it. For the human individual as such has, to a certain extent, the dignity of an Idea of his own; and it is essential to the Idea of mankind that it manifest itself in individuals of characteristic significance. Therefore we find in the works of the ancients that the beauty distinctly apprehended by them is expressed not by a single form, but by many forms bearing various characters. It is always grasped, so to speak, from a different side, and is accordingly presented in one manner in Apollo, in another in Bacchus, in another in Hercules, and in yet another in Antinous. In fact, the characteristic can limit the beautiful, and finally can appear even as ugliness, in the drunken Silenus, in the Faun, and so on. But if the characteristic goes so far as actually to abolish the character of the species, that is, if it extends to the unnatural, it becomes caricature. But far less than beauty can grace be interfered with by what is characteristic, for the expression of the character also demands graceful position and movement; yet it must be achieved in a way that is most fitting, appropriate, and easy for the person. This will be observed not only by the sculptor and painter, but also by every good actor, otherwise caricature appears here also as grimace or distortion.
In sculpture beauty and grace remain the principal matter. The real character of the mind, appearing in emotion, passion, alternations of knowing and willing, which can be depicted only by the expression of the face and countenance, is preeminently the province of painting. For although eyes and colour, lying outside the sphere of sculpture, contribute a great deal to beauty, they are far more essential for the character. Further, beauty unfolds itself more completely to contemplation from several points of view; on the other hand, the expression, the character, can be completely apprehended from a single viewpoint.
Since beauty is obviously the chief aim of sculpture, Lessing tried to explain the fact that the Laocoön does not cry out by saying that crying out is incompatible with beauty. This subject became for Lessing the theme, or at any rate the starting-point, of a book of his own, and a great deal has been written on the subject both before and after him. I may therefore be permitted incidentally to express my opinion about it here, although such a special discussion does not really belong to the sequence of our argument, which throughout is directed to what is general.