In an Iliad there is room even for a Thersites; and what
does not find a place in the great epic of Nature and History!
Here the Particular scarcely counts anything by itself; the Universe
takes its place, and that, which by itself would not be beautiful,
becomes so in the harmony of the whole. If in an extensive painting,
uniting forms by the allotted space, by light, by shade, by
reflection, the highest measure of Beauty were everywhere employed,
the result would be the most unnatural monotony; for, as Winckelmann
says, the highest idea of Beauty is everywhere one and the same, and
scarcely admits of variation. The detail would be preferred to
the whole, where, as in every case in which the whole is formed by
multiplicity, the detail must be subordinate to it.
[Illustration: THE JUNGFRAU _From the Painting by Moritz von Schwind_]
In such a work, therefore, a gradation of Beauty must be observed, by
which alone the full Beauty concentrated in the focus becomes visible;
and from an exaggeration of particulars proceeds an equipoise of the
whole. Here, then, the limited and characteristic finds its place; and
theory at least should direct the painter, not so much to the narrow
space in which the entire Beauty is concentrically collected, as to
the characteristic complexity of Nature, through which alone he can
impart to an extensive work the full measure of living significance.
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