« science and religion | Main | the art of the upper class »
September 19, 2007
form and content
Defectiveness of form arises from defectiveness of content.
The more that works of art excel in true beauty of presentation, the more profound is the inner truth of their content and thought.
Only in the highest art are the Idea and representation genuinely adequate to one another, in the sense that the outward shape given to the Idea is in itself essentially and actually the true shape, because the content of the Idea, which that shape expresses, is itself the true and real content.
..........
The content of this world is the beautiful, and the true beautiful is spiritual being in concrete shape, the Ideal; or, more closely looked at, the absolute mind, and the truth itself. This region, that of divine truth artistically represented to perception and to feeling, forms the center of the whole world of art. It is the independent, free, and divine plasticity, which has thoroughly mastered the external elements of form and medium, and wears them simply as a means to manifestation of itself.
Hegel - Lectures on Aesthetics
Posted by amin at September 19, 2007 12:53 AM