Chapter 52 (a) Abstract artwork

The original works of art, because they are immediacy, are abstract and individual works of art.As far as the work of art is concerned, it must move from the direct mode and the objective mode towards self-consciousness.At the same time, on the part of self-consciousness, self-consciousness itself attempts to eliminate in the ritual of worship that difference which it itself originally proposed as opposed to its own spirit, and thereby produces its own art full of life. Taste. Ⅰ.idol The first mode is that of immediacy, in which the spirit of art puts its objective shape and its active consciousness at the furthest distance from each other, and one might even say that its shape is what is generally there. ——

This direct form of artwork is split into the difference between individuality and universality. On the one hand, the individuality has the form of the self, and on the other hand, the universality appears as the inorganic existence connected with the form of the self, serving as the environment and dwelling of the self.This universal form acquires its pure form of spirit by raising the whole to a pure concept.It is neither the crystal which symbolizes the intellect, which shelters dead things, or is illuminated by external souls; a parody.Rather it is a conception which strips away the roots and foliage which still cling to forms, and purifies those forms into figures in which the straight lines and planes of the crystal are exalted into asymmetrical relationship so that the vitality of the organism is absorbed into the abstract form of the intellect, while at the same time its essence, its asymmetrical relation to the intellect, remains.

But the god who dwelt there was a black stone drawn from the animal enclosure and saturated with the light of consciousness. ①The human form strips away the animal character that once mingled with it.The animal is only an accidental cloak of the god, the animal only appears in the true form of the god, and has no value in itself, but has been reduced to [merely] meaningful for other things, reduced to a mere symbol. status. Because of this, the form of gods also removes the defects of the natural conditions of animals, implying that the internal structure of organic life is fused with the appearance of gods and directly belongs to this appearance. — But the essence of God is the unity of the universality of nature and the self-conscious Spirit, [though] this spirit appears in its actuality to be opposed to the universality of nature.At the same time, since God is above all an individual form, his existence is an element of nature, just as his self-conscious reality is an individual national spirit. ③ But the former [natural factor] in this unity is the factor that returns to the spirit, it is nature illuminated by thought and combined with self-conscious life.The divine form therefore takes its natural element as something superseded in it, a dim memory.The chaotic existence and chaotic struggle with each other of these free-standing elements, the unethical realm of the genies, is overcome and banished to the fringes of its own transparent reality, to the point where the spirit can find to the dim borders of the quiet world of itself.These ancient gods, the earliest creations of the union of light and darkness:

Heaven, earth, sea, sun, the blind hurricane fires of the earth, etc., were replaced by forms which had but a faint recollection of those genies, and which ceased to be natural beings, Rather, they are spirits or gods of the clear ethics of a self-conscious nation. ①See page 194 and note ② above. - translator ②For example, Greek mythology regards the eagle as the "bird of Zeus" and is therefore considered sacred. - translator ③ For example, the Greek goddess Athena. - translator This simple form thus eliminates in itself the infinite, restless individuation, (individuation in the natural element, which is necessary only as a universal essence, but which in its contingent in being and movement; eliminating individuation in national life, which is dispersed into specific spheres of activity and individual points of self-consciousness, specific beings with multiplicity of meanings and actions) and Achieving a quiet individuality.A restless moment, self-consciousness, is thus opposed to this static individuality or essence.And self-consciousness, the source of this static individuality, leaves nothing for itself but pure activity.Whatever belongs to substance, the artist brings it fully into his work, but he himself, as a certain individuality [or personality], is realized in his work.It can give perfection to his work only by throwing away his own particularity, and stripping himself of its substance, raising it to the abstraction of pure action. ——

In this first, direct [artistic] creation, the separation between his work and his self-conscious activity has not yet been reunited.Therefore, the work of art is not a real living thing in itself, but it is a whole only when it is combined with the process of its generation.The common elements in works of art, such as being created in consciousness and made by human hands, are conceptual links that exist as concepts, and are in the opposite position to works of art.And if the moment of conception, as artist or spectator, is disinterested enough to declare that the work of art itself is absolutely alive and forgets its own status as agent and spectator, then, on the contrary, the concept of spirit must Persisted, [because] the spirit cannot lack the moment of self-consciousness.But the moment of self-consciousness is opposed to the work of art, because in this first division [Entzweiung] of its mind the spirit gives both sides their abstract determination: the determination of action and the determination of things. , and their return to the unity from which they started has not yet become a fact.

The artist thus realizes that in his work he has not produced an equivalent to himself.It is true that in the reactions to his works he felt the sense that an admiring crowd revered his works as a spirit which embodies their essence.However, since the vitalization (or spiritualization) of the masses to the artwork is reflected on the artist's own self-consciousness, since it is only a kind of appreciation, then this vitalization of the artwork is rather a confession to the artist. The artwork and the artist themselves are not the same thing, because the response brought back by the artwork to the artist is only general joy, so the artist cannot feel the hardship of his shaping and creation, nor the tension of his labor. , whatever else the crowd may say about the work, or worship it or in any way put their consciousness into it,—

If people arrogantly underestimate the work with their knowledge, the artist knows that his action [artistic practice] has much richer content than their understanding and discourse; Realizing their own dominant essence, he knows that he is the artisan (creator) of this essence. Ⅱ.hymn Therefore a work of art requires a different element to express its being, and God requires another way of expressing its essence than the one in which God emerges from the dark night of its creativity. Deep down into its opposite, exteriority, into the determination of things without self-consciousness.This higher factor is language—language is a definite being, an actual being with immediate self-consciousness.Just as individual self-consciousness exists only in language, so it is directly a universal infection. The complete specialization of being-for-itself [in language] is at the same time the circulation and universally communicated unity of many selves; language is soul existing as soul.Therefore, using language as a medium to express the form of God is a work of art with its own life. This work of art directly has pure activity in the existence of God. This activity is opposed to the God who exists as a "thing" .In other words, self-consciousness is directly identical with itself in the process of its essence becoming an objective object.When self-consciousness is in its essence identical with itself, it is pure thought or meditation, and its immanence is at the same time embodied in the hymn.

The individuality of self-consciousness is preserved in the hymn, and at the same time this individuality is perceived there as the universal, and the zeal of silent worship burning in the crowd is a spiritual torrent, which flows through the many different selves. Consciousness is realized as the common action and single being of all beings.Spirit, as the universal self-consciousness of all people, retains both its pure immanence and individual consciousness' being-for-other and for-itself in a unity. This language is distinguished from another language of God, namely, the language that is not universal self-awareness.The religion of art, and the oracles of all previous religions, are the necessary first language of the gods.Because the concept of God contains the essence that God is both natural and spiritual at the same time, so God has not only natural existence but also spiritual existence.

As long as the spiritual moment is contained only in the concept of God; it is not realized in religion, and this language is [only] the language of an alien self-consciousness for religious self-consciousness.The alien self-consciousness which is still alien to its [religious] community does not yet exist there, as its conception requires.The ego is simply a being-for-itself, and thus a purely universal being-for-itself.But the self which is separated from the corporate self-consciousness is nothing but an individual self. —The specific, individual content of language springs from the general determination which the Absolute Spirit is generally supposed to have in its religion. —Thus the general spirit of the Eastern religions, which has not yet specialized its existence, utters in words certain simple and universal propositions at the same time about the essence [referring to God], the substance of which lies in their simple truth It is sublime to the human being, but because of its universality, it also appears small to the self-consciousness that is going on.

The oriental religion, which has advanced and elevated itself to being-for-itself, overcomes the pure sentiment of substance, the objectivity of the God of light, and knows the simplicity of the universal truth as what exists in itself. , not in the form of contingent existence from an alien, non-self-conscious language, but in the definite, unwritten law of the gods, which lives eternally and whose origin no one knows. Time.Just as the universal truth revealed by the God of Light penetrates here into or below and thereby cancels the form of accidental phenomena, so, on the contrary, in the religion of art, because the image of God has assumed the form of consciousness, so that is Taking the form of individuality in general, the language proper to the god of the ethical national spirit is the oracle, which knows the particular events of the people and pronounces the words useful to them.But reflective thinking claims to be able to explain those general (abstract) truths, because they are already known truths existing in themselves (in the life of a nation), and the language of expressing these truths is important to it [reflective thinking]. ] is no longer unfamiliar and external, but unique to oneself.Just as a philosopher in ancient Greece ① seeks knowledge of what is good and beautiful in his own independent thinking, on the contrary, for the trivial and accidental content of knowledge (in life), it seems that it is not right for him to associate with this person or that person. Well, or whether it is good for a friend to take this trip, such things of no great significance, he let the "spiritual spirit" (DaBmon) in his mind recognize and decide; , or from the trees, or from the fermented earth (the moisture of which is said to rob the clear mind of self-consciousness) for knowledge of accidental things.As the contingent is unthoughtful and foreign, so the ethical consciousness decides the contingent in a thoughtless and foreign way, like dice.

If the individual decides by his reason, chooses by deliberation what is useful to him, then this self-determination is based on a determinateness of his particular character; And the knowledge of what is useful to man according to which the intellect gives, is therefore just as contingent as the knowledge of oracles and of lottery.The only difference is that the person who asks for the oracle or the lottery expresses an ethical neutral sentiment towards the accidental things, whereas the person who thinks rationally regards the accidental things themselves as the main interest of thinking and cognition. to treat.But a higher mode than these two is to consider the oracle of accidental action, but also to realize that this considered action is itself accidental, because it is related to something special, and its Usefulness is also accidental. ① In connection with the "spirituality in the heart" mentioned below, it obviously refers to Socrates. - translator The real self-conscious definite existence which the spirit acquires in language (which is not foreign and therefore not accidental, not a language without universal self-consciousness) is the art we have seen before. Taste.This work of art is opposed to the statue in the form of a thing.The statue is a static existence, while the former artwork is a vanishing existence.Objectivity is expressed in statues without revealing its immediate self, whereas in works of art of language objectivity is too much associated with the ego or subject, too little visualized, and like time. , when it was there, it is no longer there. Ⅲ.worship Worship involves the movement of two aspects: the aspect of the image of God moving in the purely sensory element of self-consciousness, and the aspect of the image of God at rest in the element of thingness, both of which relinquish their identity to each other in the movement. different determinations, and give their unity, that is, their concept, a specific existence.In worship the ego makes itself conscious of the divine essence descending from its otherness into itself, so that the divine essence, previously unrealistic and merely objective, acquires the reality proper to self-consciousness. The concept of adoration has been latently contained and present in the stream of praise songs.The hymn of this prayer is the immediate pure satisfaction of the ego through and within itself.This adoration is the purified soul which, by virtue of its abstraction, is not yet that self-consciousness which distinguishes its own object from itself, and is therefore only a dark night of existence for the appearance of the divine image. Prepare the venue.Thus abstract worship elevates the self to this purely divine factor.The soul consciously accomplishes this purification; but the soul is not yet such an ego that descends into itself and knows itself to be evil, but is a being, a soul that washes its exterior with water. , and clothes it with a white coat, while its inner essence passes through the ideal road of labor, punishment, and reward by which the soul arrives at a happy home and a happy common life. This adoration is at first only a secret act, that is to say, only in an ideal, unrealistic act.Worship must be a realistic action, and an unrealistic action is contradictory to worship itself.True consciousness raises itself to its pure self-awareness through action. Essence1 in this consciousness has the meaning of a free object; through the adoration of actuality, the object returns to the self—for in pure consciousness this object has the meaning of a pure essence dwelling beyond actuality.This essence descends from its universality to its individuality through the intermediary process [of worship], and thus unites itself with reality. ①From here, the word "essence" (DasWesen) appears many times.Essence here refers to the external objective god or divine essence as the object of worship, and the English translation translates it as "absolute essence" in many places. - translator As to how these two aspects appear in action, it can be determined that, on the part of self-consciousness, essence presents itself as actual nature in so far as it is actual consciousness.On the one hand, actual nature belongs to self-consciousness as its property and property, and is regarded as something that has no existence in itself; On the other hand, nature is the immediate reality and individuality peculiar to self-consciousness itself, and this actuality and individuality are also regarded as non-essential and sublated.But at the same time, for its pure consciousness, that external nature has the opposite meaning, that of an essence existing in itself, for which the self sacrifices its non-essential side.Such an action is a spiritual movement precisely because it is a process of double sublation: on the one hand, it sublates the abstraction of essence (like the object defined in worship) and makes it actual (concrete). ], on the other hand, supersedes the actual (as the acting subject determines its object and itself) and raises it to universality. So the act of religious worship itself begins with the sheer relinquishment of a property whose owner, it seems, gives it as if it were of absolutely no use to him, or spills it on the ground, or burns it to ashes and leaves it to the public. It raises smoke.In such an action, before the essence or God in his pure consciousness, he renounces all rights to possess and enjoy his property, and also renounces his own personality, and does not attribute his actions to himself, but instead Attribution to the universal or reflection to the essence, not to itself. —But on the contrary, in this process of self-renunciation, the essence of being is likewise destroyed.The animals sacrificed in ceremonies were the symbols of the gods, and the fruits offered to the gods were the living Ceres and Bacchus himself.In the sacrifice of the animal the power of the upper law [Gods of Olympus] with flesh and real life dies, while in the offering of fruit the bloodless and secret and treacherous lower world [the underworld] The power of law [God of Nemesis] is dead. —The sacrifice of the divine entity, insofar as it is an act, is an act of self-consciousness, and this actual act must be possible because the essence has sacrificed itself potentially from the very beginning.It makes this sacrifice because it has given itself a definite existence and made itself an individual animal and fruit.Thus the ego, which sacrifices itself in action, expresses itself in a given being, the already potentially consummated renunciation of the essence, brings it before his consciousness, and replaces it with a higher, that is to say, with his own actuality. The immediate reality of the essence.For the unity which results from the sublation of the individuality and separation of the two sides is not merely a negative [destroyed] fate, but a positive one.Only the sacrifices made to the abstract Hades' essences are completely destroyed, so that attributing or reflecting personal possessions and individual independent existences to the universal essences shows that those things have something to do with the ego itself. difference.But at the same time, this is only a very small part, and other sacrificial activities are just destroying some useless things. In fact, it is tantamount to using the sacrificial objects② as preparations for a banquet, and the [positive meaning] of feasting and joy has already shown the so-called sacrificial behavior. The negative meaning is deceptive too.He who offers the sacrifice keeps the largest portion of that first sacrifice, and selects from it the most useful for his own enjoyment.This enjoyment is the negative force that sublates essence and individuality, but at the same time it is positive actuality in which the objective being of essence is transformed into a self-conscious being, and the ego becomes aware of it and essence. Unite. ①The God of Grain (Ceres), referred to as "Ceres", is one of the Greek gods, the goddess who protects the crops, fruits and vegetables on the land, so it is also called the God of the Land or the Mother of the Earth. This is also mentioned in the next section god. - translator ②The sacrificial objects mentioned here are generally also called "sacrifices". - translator Furthermore, this religious worship is indeed a practical act, but its meaning is mostly contained in silent prayer.That which belongs to contemplation has not yet been objectively produced, just as the result enjoyed [at the feast] itself is deprived of its external existence.So the cult goes a step further and makes up for this deficiency, first of all by giving contemplative prayer an objective persistence [to build temples].Since the worship ceremony is a common activity or thing, it can also be said to be an individual thing or labor that everyone has to participate in. The purpose of this labor is to build temples for God and decorate them brilliantly for the glory of God.In this way, on the one hand, the objectivity of the statue is abolished, since by dedicating to the god his gifts and the fruits of his labor, the laborer makes the god like him and sees himself attached to the god. On the one hand, this act of worshiping gods is not the individual labor of the artist, on the contrary, the particularity has been dissolved into the universality.But what appears here is not only the glory of God, but also God’s favor or grace is not only given to laborers or believers from concept or imagination. Religious forms of worshiping alien (fremde) gods are diametrically opposed by comparison.The temples and halls of the gods are for the enjoyment of men, and the treasures preserved in the temples belong to men in time of need.The glory enjoyed by God in artistic decoration is the glory of a nation rich in artistic genius and grandeur.Also at festivals, the people adorn their own dwellings and garments with beautiful ornaments, as they adorn their temples and gods with ornate utensils.In this way the people of the nation receive from their offerings to the gods a thankful god's reward and proof of his favor (or grace) towards them, and in the process a nation passes Its labor and union with the gods consist not in empty hopes and realities deferred to the remote future, but in the direct enjoyment of the nation's own property and adornments in the practical trials of honor and tribute to the gods. ① "Externalization" here should be understood as "alienation" or "abandonment". - translator