Chapter 15 Four

The analogy of dreams may enlighten us about this naive artist.Let us imagine a dreamer who is indulging in the hallucinations of the dream, and in order not to disturb the hallucinations, cries to himself: "This is a dream, and I will dream it!" There is a deep inner joy in Jing-Guan.On the other hand, in order to be able to dream with the joy of contemplation, one must completely forget about the day and its annoying entanglements.For all these phenomena, we may be able to explain them in the following way under the guidance of Apollo, the god of dream interpretation.Of the two halves of life, the waking and the dreaming, the former is often held to be the far more desirable, important, dignified, worth living, or even the only life lived; How absurd that dreams deserve precisely the attention which is denied them, on the basis of the mystical nature of the very nature of which we are phenomena.For the more I perceive in nature the strongest artistic impulse, and in it a passionate longing for appearance and for liberation through appearance, the more I feel compelled to admit this Metaphysical Assumption: The True Being and the One (das Wahrhaft-Seiende und Ur-Eine), as Eternal Sufferer and Conflicting Body (das ewig Leidende und Widerspruchs-volle), needs both exhilarating illusions and joyful appearance, in order to constantly get relief.To this appearance we are wholly bound by it, composed of it, and must therefore feel it to be truly non-being (das Wahrhaft-Nichtseiende), a continuous change in time, space and causal series, in other words , is the reality of experience.Let us disregard for a moment our own "reality" and understand our empirical Dasein, like the world's Dasein in general, as the representation of the One evoked at every moment, then we are The dream must be seen as the appearance of appearances, and thus as a higher satisfaction of the primordial desire for appearances.For the same reason, the heart of nature has an indescribable delight in the naive artist and the naive work of art (which is also only "the appearance of appearance").Raphael himself is one of the immortal naive artists. In a symbolic painting, he described to us the transformation from appearance to appearance, that is, the original process of naive artists and Apollonian culture.In the second half of "The Transfiguration of Christ", he uses the intoxicated boy, those desperate porters, and those panicked believers to reflect the eternal primitive pain, the only foundation of the world. Here, "appearance" is the eternal conflict. The reflection of the Father of All.But from this appearance rose a hallucinatory new world of appearance, like a waft of sacramental fragrance.Those who were confined to the first appearance turned a blind eye to this new world of appearances--floating glisteningly in the purest bliss, in the painless contemplation that is bright from afar.Here, in the highest artistic symbolism, we see the world of Apollonian beauty and its deep foundation—the terrible wisdom of Silenus, and intuitively grasp the interdependence of the two.However, Apollo appears before us once again as the apotheosis of the individuating principle, in which alone the One always achieves its purpose and is saved through appearance.It sublimely shows us how necessary the whole world of distress is, through which the individual has the illusion of deliverance, and to contemplate it in order to ride across the sea of ​​misery in a pitching boat.

The apotheosis of individuation, seen as the enactment of commands or norms, recognizes only one law—the individual, that is, the observance of personal boundaries, what the Greeks called moderation.As the god of virtue, Apollo demands moderation and—for moderation—self-knowledge from his followers.Therefore, in parallel with the aesthetic necessity of beauty, the requirements of "know yourself" and "don't overdo it" are put forward; characteristics, and characteristics of the Apollonian barbarian world.Prometheus must be torn and pecked by vultures because of his Titanic love for human beings; Oedipus must fall into the sinful incest vortex because he is too clever to solve the riddle of the Sphinx—— This is the interpretation of the ancient history of Greece by the god Delphi.

To the Apollonian Greek, too, the Dionysian impulse was "Titanic" and "barbaric"; at the same time he could not but admit that he had a connection with the overthrown Titans and heroes. inner kinship.He even felt that his whole existence, with all its beauty and moderation, rested on some hidden foundation of pain and knowledge, which the Dionysian impulse revealed to him.look!Apollo cannot live without Dionysus!After all, the "Titan" and "barbarian" factors are as necessary as the Apollinian factor!Now imagine how the carnival sound of Dionysus floats with ever more seductive magic into this artificially limited world built on appearance and moderation, in which nature enjoys, suffers, and knows How clearly the whole transition of time bursts forth with a roar of power; let us imagine what the Apollonian artist who plucks the ghostly harp and sings the hymn is, compared with this obsessed singing of the people! The muses of the art of "appearance" are eclipsed by this art of truth-telling in drunkenness, and the wisdom of Silenus cries to the quiet Olympians: "Woeful! Sad!" Here the individual With all his bounds and moderation, he enters the bacchanal ecstasy of Dionysus, forgetting the rules of Apollo.Excess appears as truth, contradiction, joy born of pain speaks from the mind of nature.Wherever Dionysus prevailed, Apollo was sublated and destroyed.But it is also true that where the first attack was withstood, the appearance and majesty of the god Delphi were all the more domineering.I can therefore declare that, in my opinion, the Doric state and Doric art are nothing but the strongholds of Apollinia at every step; there is only the constant resistance to the primordial wildness of Dionysus, an art so obstinate, restrained, and fortified , a discipline so martial and severe, a state system so cruel and ruthless, can be maintained for a long time.

The observations I made at the beginning of this essay have now been elucidated: how Apollo and Dionysus, in successive new births, enhanced each other and dominated the essence of the Greeks; How, in the wars of the gods and austere folk philosophy, the Homeric world developed, dominated by the Apollonian impulse of beauty; How, in contrast, the Apollinian impulse led to the rigid majesty of Doric art and the Doric worldview.If, in this way, the history of ancient Greece is divided into four great periods of art, according to the struggle of two antagonistic principles, we are now obliged to ask the final intention of this development, since the last period reached, the Doric The artistic period should never be seen as the culmination and goal of these artistic impulses.Thus we have before our eyes the sublime and precious works of art of Attic tragedy and dramatic Dithyramb, the common object of two impulses which, after a long struggle, have at last found themselves in a single place both Antigone and Dionysus. It is Cassandra's child who celebrates her mystical betrothal alliance.