Persevering exercise in the study of that by virtue of which the
characteristic in things is a positive principle, must preserve him
from emptiness, weakness, inward inanity, before he can venture to
aim, by ever higher combination and final melting together of manifold
forms, to reach the extremest beauty in works uniting the highest
simplicity with infinite meaning.
Only through the perfection of form can Form be made to disappear; and
this is certainly the final aim of Art in the Characteristic. But as
the apparent harmony that is even more easily reached by the empty and
frivolous than by others, is yet inwardly vain; so in Art the quickly
attained harmony of the exterior, without inward fulness. And if it is
the part of theory and instruction to oppose the spiritless copying
of beautiful forms, especially must they oppose the tendency toward
an effeminate characterless Art, which gives itself, indeed, higher
names, but therewith only seeks to hide its incapacity to fulfil the
fundamental conditions.
That lofty Beauty in which the fulness of form causes Form itself to
disappear, was adopted by the modern theory of Art, after Winckelmann,
not only as the highest, but as the only standard. But as the deep
foundation upon which it rests was overlooked, it resulted that a
negative conception was formed even of that which is the sum of all
affirmation.
Winckelmann compares Beauty with water drawn from the bosom of the
spring, which, the less taste it has, the wholesomer it is esteemed.
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