Where it aims at the highest it will indeed ennoble the passions by
Character, or moderate them by Grace, or manifest in them the power of
the Soul: but on the other hand it is precisely those higher passions,
depending on the relationship of the Soul with a Supreme Being, that
are entirely suited to the nature of Painting. Indeed, while Sculpture
maintains an exact balance between the force whereby a thing exists
outwardly and acts in Nature and that by virtue of which it lives
inwardly and as Soul, and excludes mere suffering even from Matter,
Painting may soften in favor of the Soul the characteristicness of the
force and activity in Matter, and transform it into resignation
and endurance, making it apparent that Man becomes more generally
susceptible to the inspirations of the Soul, and to higher influences
in general.
This diametrical difference explains of itself not only the necessary
predominance of Sculpture in the ancient, and of Painting in the
modern world (since in the former the tone of mind was thoroughly
plastic, whereas the latter makes even the Soul the passive instrument
of higher revelations); but this also is evident--that it is
not enough to strive after the Plastic in form and manner of
representation, but that it is requisite, before all, to think and to
feel plastically, that is, antiquely.
And as the deviation of Sculpture into the picturesque is destructive
to Art, so the narrowing down of Painting to the conditions and forms
belonging to Sculpture is an arbitrarily imposed limitation.
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