Chapter 40 Part Three Revisiting the World as Appearance §40

Because opposites mirror each other, it is a good place here to speak of that which, at first glance, is not appreciated, but which is in fact the true opposite of sublime-beautiful.The beauty I understand is something that directly recommends oneself to the will, which can satisfy and stimulate the will. —If the sense of grandeur arises from the fact that an object directly inimical to the will becomes an object of pure contemplation, and this contemplation can be attained only by constantly escaping from the will, detached from the interests with which the will is concerned, then ] constitutes the mood of sublime beauty, on the other hand, beauty draws the connoisseur from the pure contemplation which is necessary at any time to appreciate beauty, because the beautiful thing necessarily wants to be Arouse the will of the appreciator, so that the appreciator is no longer the pure subject of "knowledge", but becomes the subject of desire and non-independent desire. ——As for people's habit of calling any kind of light-hearted beauty "beauty", this is an overly broad concept due to the lack of correct distinction. I can only ignore or criticize this concept completely.But I think there are only two types of beauties in the realm of art, in a sense that has been established and clarified, and neither is worthy of the name art.One is quite vulgar, for example, if one takes the wrong path in the still life sketches of the Dutch, the objects depicted are some food, and because the food in the painting resembles the real thing, it will inevitably arouse the appetite.This is, of course, the stirring of the will which kills [our] aesthetic appreciation of things.It is permissible to draw fruit, because fruit is the result of the subsequent development of flowers, and it can also be expressed as a beautiful natural product by shape and color. It does not directly force people to think of it as something edible. It is also often seen that the real thing is painted on the table, and the food that is ready to cook, such as oysters, whitefish, sea crab, butter bread, beer, wine, etc., etc. All unwanted things. —In the paintings and sculptures of history, beauty in the nudes.The gestures, half-coverage, and even the whole treatment of these nudes are intended to arouse the connoisseur's sensuality, so that purely aesthetic appreciation immediately disappears, and the author's creation of these things also violates the purpose of art.This error is exactly the same as that which we have just reproached the Dutch.Ancient art, in spite of its extreme beauty and complete nudity, was almost always immune to this error, because the [classical] artists themselves created these figures in a purely objective, imbued with ideal beauty, and not in a subjective, Created by shameful sensual spirits. ——So Meimei should be avoided everywhere in the [field] of art.

There is also a negative kind of fascination, which is worse than the positive fascination just explained, and that is the disgusting.This is the same as the real beauty, which also arouses the will of the connoisseurs and thus destroys the pure aesthetic appreciation.But what is aroused here is a violent dislike, a revulsion; the will is agitated by the presentation before the connoisseur of the object which the will hates.Therefore, people have always realized that such things must not be tolerated in art; ugly things, as long as they are not disgusting, are allowed in appropriate places.We shall see this below.