Chapter 50 Part III The World as Representation Revisited §50

But if the purpose of any art is to convey an idea understood, [that is to say] this idea emerges in an arrangement through the artist's mind purged of all irrelevance and separated from it. , and thus can be grasped by those who are weaker and less productive; and if one goes a step further and says that one also starts from concepts in art, one is going to mess things up; We certainly cannot approve of the blatant designation of a work of art to represent a concept.This is the case with allegorical painting.An allegorical painting is a work of art that means something other than what is written on the screen.But the intuitively seen, and therefore the idea, expresses itself directly and perfectly, without any other medium or hint.That is why it is always a concept that, because it is not itself an object of intuition, but which, in this way, has to be signified and represented by something quite different, is always a concept.Therefore, allegorical paintings always imply a concept, and thus guide the mind of the appreciator to leave the painted intuitive representation and transfer to a completely different, abstract, non-intuitive representation that is completely outside the artwork.So here is painting or engraving doing what writing does, but writing is better.Then, what we call the purpose of art, that is, to express ideas that can only be experienced intuitively, is not the purpose here.However, to achieve the purpose here, it does not require any highly perfect artwork, as long as people can see what is painted; because once they see what, the purpose will be achieved.Thereafter [people's] minds are drawn to a quite different kind of representation, to abstractions.And that was the original intended goal.So the allegorical plastic arts are nothing but pictographs.On the other hand, these hieroglyphs can still retain their artistic value as an intuitive expression, but this value is not retained from allegory but from other aspects.As for Gnediano's, Hannibal Carracci's "Angel of Honor", and Poussin's "God of Time" are all beautiful paintings, although these works are allegorical paintings, they should be viewed completely separately.As allegorical paintings; what these works accomplish is nothing more than a legendary inscription, or worse.Here again we recall the distinction made earlier between the physical and the nominal meaning of a picture.The meaning of the name is exactly what is meant here, such as "God of Honor"; and the meaning of the object is what is actually painted, here is a beautiful boy with wings, and beautiful children fly around him.This expresses a concept.But this physical meaning only works when people forget the meaning of the name, its meaning.If one thinks that this refers to meaning, one leaves intuition, and [one's] mind is again occupied by an abstract concept.But there is always a fall from the idea to the concept.Yes, the nominal meaning, the allegorical attempt, always detracts from the real meaning, from the truth of perception; for example, the unnatural lighting in [the picture] of Gonecchio, although so beautifully handled, still It starts from the allegorical theme, which is actually impossible.Therefore, if an allegorical painting also has artistic value, then this value has nothing to do with what the painting achieves in terms of allegory, and is independent.Such a work of art serves two purposes at the same time, that is, the expression of concepts and the expression of ideas.Only the latter can be the aim of art; the other is a foreign aim.To make a picture function as a pictogram at the same time as a letter is a contraption invented for the amusement of those who have never been moved by the true nature of art.This is equivalent to saying that if a work of art is at the same time a useful tool, it also serves two purposes. At the same time, it is Ashir's shield.True lovers of art approve neither of the former nor of the latter.An allegorical picture, too, can produce vivid impressions on the mind [of man] by precisely this allegorical quality, but under the same circumstances any writing can produce the same effect.For example: if a person's good name is not only long-standing but also deeply rooted, so that he thinks that honor is due to his sovereignty, it is only because he has not produced the ownership certificate, so he has not been allowed to claim it. ; then, should such a man come before the God of Honor crowned with laurel wreaths, his whole soul would be stirred by it, and his energies would be encouraged to throw into action.But the same would happen if he suddenly saw "Honor" clearly [written] on the wall.Another example is a man who proclaims a truth, which is important in practical life as a maxim or in science as an opinion, but no one believes him; if there is an allegorical painting, If time is raising the curtain to allow [people] to see the naked [image] of truth, then the picture will have a strong effect on him; but so will the slogan "Time reveals the truth." Same effect.It turns out that what works here is often just an abstract thought, not something that can be seen intuitively.

If according to the above, allegory in the plastic arts is a false effort to serve the purpose of art; , that would be totally intolerable.There are many examples of this kind, such as: the tortoise means women's reclusiveness; [Goddess of Revenge] Wet Messes sees the inside of her breastplate means that she can see through all hidden things, and Bellory explains why Hannibal Carazi gave [ The image representing the joy of wine and sex wears yellow clothes because the painter wants to imply that the joy of this image is about to wither and turn into the same yellow color as withered grass. —If there is no connection between what is expressed and the concept implied by it, even on the basis of a generalization or association of ideas under this concept, but only the sign and what the sign suggests, The two are joined together entirely by custom, by an arbitrary and accidental rule, and I call this variety of allegorical painting a symbol.Therefore, the rose is a symbol of silence, and the laurel is a symbol of honor.The palm is a symbol of victory, the shell is a symbol of pilgrims' pilgrimage, and the cross is a symbol of Christianity.Symbols belonging to this category are also directly expressed by simple colors, such as yellow for deceit and blue for loyalty.Such symbols may often have some use in life, but in art their value is irrelevant.They can only be regarded as hieroglyphs, or even Chinese characters, but in fact they are the same as the family coat of arms of the nobles, the bushes that mark the inn, the keys of the chamberlain, and the scabbard of the climber. Class [things]. —Finally, if a historical or mythological figure, or a personified concept, is recognizable from a once-and-for-all definitive symbol, these symbols are to be called signs.In this category are the animals of the four Evangelists, the owl of Minerva, the apple of Paris, the anchor of hope, and others.Signs, however, are generally understood to mean those sketches illustrated with aphorisms, allegorical to visualize moral truths, of which J. Camelarius, Alciados, and others had large collections. .These things form a bridge to the allegory in literature and art, and we will discuss this kind of allegory later. ——Greek sculpture tends to be intuitive, so it is aesthetic, while Indian sculpture tends to be conceptual, so it is only symbolic.

This statement about allegorical painting is based on, and is closely related to, our previous examination of the inner nature of art.This is exactly the opposite of Winkelmann's view.He is not like us, who regard this allegory as completely irrelevant to the purpose of art, and something that always interferes with it; he defends allegory everywhere, even (Complete Works, Vol. et al) determine that the highest purpose of art is to "express general concepts and non-sensual things".It is up to each individual to decide which opinion he agrees with.However, thanks to these and similar comments made by Winckelmann in the metaphysics of beauty, I have come to understand the truth that although people can have the greatest sensibility and the most correct judgments for artistic beauty, they cannot be wrong for beauty and art. Just as man, however noble and virtuous he may be, and despite his sensitive conscience, capable of weighing the scales in individual cases, is not capable of philosophizing The same is true for explaining abstractly the ethical significance of behavior.

The relation of allegory to literature and art is quite different from its relation to plastic arts.As far as the latter is concerned, fables are certainly not suitable; but as far as the former is concerned, they are quite admissible and just right.For in the plastic arts, allegory leads [people] away from the painted, intuitively seen, from the real object of all art, to abstract thought; in literature and art this relationship is reversed.In literature and art, what is directly put forward by words is the concept, and the purpose of the second step is the transition from the concept to the intuition, and the reader's [own] imagination must undertake the [task] of expressing the intuition.If in the plastic arts one turns from what is directly expressed to something else, then this other thing must be a concept, because here only abstract things cannot be directly presented.But a concept can never be the source of a work of art, nor can conveying a concept be the purpose of a work of art.On the contrary, in literature and art concepts are the material, what is directly proposed.It is therefore quite possible, too, to depart from concepts in order to evoke entirely different intuitions, in which the purpose [of literature and art] is achieved.In the structure of a poem, there may be some concepts or abstract thoughts which are indispensable, although they themselves are directly utterly devoid of possibility of intuition.This is to make it intuitive with an example that generalizes under the concept.This is the case in every trope, in every metaphor, simile, simile, and allegory, all of which can only be distinguished by the length of the narrative.Therefore, in the art of language, metaphors and fables have very pertinent effects.In order to show that sleep can free us from all mental and physical pain, Cervantes wrote that sleep is really beautiful: "It is a coat that covers the whole person."And how beautifully Kleist expresses in metaphor the fact that philosophers and scientists inspire mankind in verse:

"These people! their lamps by night, Light up the whole earth. " Homer writes how obvious and figurative is the Ard who brings disaster, saying: "She has slender feet, because she does not tread on hard ground, but just hovers over people's heads" ("Soil Lloyd's Expedition", Chapter XIX, line 91).The fable of the stomach and limbs told by Menenius Agrepa also had a great influence on the common people who emigrated from Rome.At the beginning of the seventh chapter of "The Republic", Plato used the cave metaphor mentioned earlier, which is also very beautiful. He expressed a very abstract philosophical proposition.There is also a story about [Goddess of the Underworld] Persephone saying that she tasted a pomegranate in the underworld and had to stay in the underworld, which should also be regarded as an allegory with profound philosophical meaning.Goethe, in "The Triumph of the Sentimental," included this story as an episode in his play, and because of his treatment, which surpasses all admiration, the meaning of the allegory is all the more clear.I know of three long allegorical works: the one that is evident, and which the author admits to have written as an allegory, is Baldassar Glath's incomparable Critigon.It is made up of interrelated, highly meaningful fables woven into huge, rich chapters, whose usefulness here becomes a light handicap of moral truth.It is in this way that the author gives these truths their greatest intuitive significance, and surprises us with his rich talent for inventing [the story].The other two more implicit ones are "Don Quixote" and "Lilliput".The moral of the previous article is that any person's life, [if] he is different from ordinary people, not just looking after his own welfare but pursuing an objective, ideal end that dominates his thoughts and desires, then he Naturally, it's going to look a little weird in this world.In Lilliputia, one has only to look at everything material and corporeal as spiritual to understand what this "sarcastic rascal"—as Hamlet would have called him—was referring to. what is it. ——As far as fables in literature and art are concerned, what is directly presented is always a concept.If an image is used to make this concept intuitive, sometimes a painted image can be used to express or help [understand], then this painting is not therefore regarded as a work of plastic art, but can only be seen. The hieroglyphs used as a sign cannot have the value of painting, but only have the value of literature and art.To this category of symbolic paintings is a beautiful and allegorical little book-filling picture by Lavaltre.This festoon must have been inspiring to a noble warrior of truth, [showing] a hand stung by a wasp holding a lamp, on which some gnats are burning, and below are a few lines of aphorisms :

"Which gnats burn their wings, No matter how their little heads burst open and the blood gushes out, The light is still the light. Even if the venomous bee venom stings me, How can I abandon the light. " Also of this type is the inscription on someone's tombstone, with a blown out, embers evaporating candle, and a marginal note: "When the embers go out, the truth is revealed, Tallow beeswax is completely different. " Finally there is an old German family tree chart of the same kind.There is a descendant of the last single biography of this long-standing family. In order to express his determination to completely abstinence from sexual desires all his life and cut off his heirs, he drew himself on the root of a luxuriant tree, and cut himself off with a pair of scissors. Cut off the upper trunk.Of this class are the above-mentioned symbolic paintings which are generally called signs, [however] these paintings may also be called pictorial allegories with a clearly instructive meaning. ——This kind of fable is always literary and artistic, and cannot be counted as painting, so this is the reason why fables can exist.And here the picture work is always secondary, and the requirement is only to express things to a recognizable level.If there were no connection other than an arbitrarily prescribed connection between the image presented by intuition and the abstract thing it alludes to, then, in the plastic arts as well as in literature, the allegory becomes a symbol.Since all symbols are in fact based on convention, they have, among other disadvantages, the disadvantage that their meaning will fade over time, and eventually be lost altogether.Who would have guessed why the fish was a symbol of Christianity if one hadn't known it beforehand? [Can guess] Unless it's a Shampoo, because that sort of thing is pretty much a phonetic hieroglyph.Thus the apocalypse of [the apostle] John, as a literary allegory, is still as much a relief as those depicting the great sun-god Mithra, whose correct interpretation is [hitherto] sought.