41

p M. Ovsyannikov

p Under the conditions of the scientific and technological revolution questions on the methodology of theoretical research assume paramount importance. Organisation of scientific research, systematisation of the ever-increasing amount of information, application of new technology, the general complexity of social processes—all this inevitably raises in a new way the problems of the methodology and methods of scientific research.

p Here the fact of the rapprochement of aesthetics with other sciences has important significance. It is well known that important discoveries are often made now by combining sciences. Today the aesthetician not only must know about the achievements of other sciences but also must use them fearlessly in his own research. Aesthetics studies problems that are also broached by physiology, psychology, the theory of information, ethics, and pedagogics. Hence the convergence of their research methods. However it should not be forgotten that aesthetics as a science has its own subject of research, its own specific system of categories, and its own specific tasks as well. Of course it is possible to use mathematical methods for analysing versification, however only within certain limits. At the present time linguistic, cybernetic, psychological and other methods are being applied to the research of the whole range of aesthetic problems, but even here a certain discretion is observed.

p Aesthetics is a philosophical science and it cannot be reduced either to psychology, linguistics, sociology, or any other special branch of knowledge. It is equally incorrect to replace the scientific methodology of aesthetics by systematic methods.

42

p In my view there are two opposing tendencies, both equally dangerous for the development of the science of aesthetics: one of them orientates itself around creating abstract speculative conceptions, the other, around a denial of philosophical generalisations. To a certain extent interest in analysing the fundamental concepts of aesthetics (the beautiful, the tragic, the comic, the aesthetic ideal and others) has been waning now. These categories could be elaborated more extensively nowadays in the light of the maturity of philosophic and aesthetic knowledge, the practice of art, the latest events in social life, etc.

p I am in complete agreement with Academician Yegorov, who wrote in his latest book: “We still have aestheticians who, in setting off cognition against the process of creating artistic values, try to brush aside the basic question of philosophy, i.e.,dialectical and historical materialism. They believe that dialectic and materialist philosophy and scientific methodology can be replaced by systematic methods. This is a grave misconception which leads to positivism and subjectivism and to a negation of objective criteria in aesthetics, that is, in the final analysis, to the nullifying of aesthetics as a science."  [42•1 

p Elaboration of a scientific methodology for aesthetic research is directly linked to the problem of further developing the method of materialist dialectics, for dialectics is the general philosophical basis of both the natural and the social sciences.

p Historical experience shows that the method of materialist dialectics, which is constantly being perfected in connection with the development of concrete sciences and social practice, is, in the true sense of the word, a scientific method safeguarding scholars against one-sidedness, subjectivism, and dogmatism.

p Any further development of the dialectical method is inconceivable without a study of the history of dialectics. This history has its origins in ancient philosophy. However the great German thinker Hegel was of particular service in developing the dialectical mode of thinking. Hegel set forth in a general form the principles of the dialectical mode of thinking in his works on logic (in Die Wissenschaft der Logik, the first section of Encyklopadie der Philosophischen Wissenschaft en im Grundrisse, in Die Phanomenologie des Geistes, and in others). But we find a specific application of the dialectical method in those of Hegel’s works in which he expounds his views on history, law, morality, the history of philosophy, and art.

p Hegel’s Vorlesungen über die Ästhetik are of special interest 43 in the methodological aspect. They present his aesthetic conceptions extremely thoroughly. True, the philosopher also touched on the questions of aesthetics in other works (in Die Phanomenologie des Geistes, Vorlesungen tiber die Philosophic der Geschichte, Vorlesungen tiber die Philosophie der Religion, Die Philosophie des Geistes, Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts, and also in his critical essays on literature).

p I will briefly try to show how Hegel applied the basic categories and laws of dialectics in his aesthetics.

p Hegel’s aesthetics is a high point in the development of classical German philosophy of art. The significance and progressive character of Hegel’s conception of aesthetics consists not only in a profound theoretical analysis of world art but also in a new approach to the study of mankind’s art. The philosopher presented art and all aesthetic practice in the form of a dialectical process. In considering the philosophy of history, law, the history of philosophy, religion, morality, etc., Hegel, in Engels’ words, “laboured to discover and demonstrate the pervading thread of development"  [43•1  in each of these different historical spheres.

p On the whole, the principal achievement of Hegel’s philosophy was the dialectical method. However Hegel’s works bear the seal of unavoidable limitedness. He was bound not only by the level of scientific development in his time. Here his limitedness as an idealist philosopher is also evident. All those real processes which Hegel presented in the form of processes of dialectical development have, according to him, a dialectical development of the Idea as their basis. Human history itself, as well as its various aspects, including art, are treated as stages of the self-developing Idea. The starting point for all aspects of aesthetic analysis is the concept of the beautiful, from which subsequently various forms of the beautiful and also the artistic ideal in its development are drawn by deduction. In this way Hegel turned the real process of development of the practice of art upside down. Thus sketchiness and artificiality of speculative constructions become a characteristic feature of his analysis. He confined the artistic evolution of mankind to an abstract scheme: the symbolic, classical, and romantic forms of art.

44

p Hegel considered the ascent from the abstract to the concrete the most important methodological principle of scientific analysis. But by combining the ontological and gnosiological aspects, the philosopher portrayed the evolution of the process of cognition as the beginnings of the concrete itself, which is an obvious mystification and gives Hegel’s dialectical method the traits of historic limitation.

p Art, according to Hegel, is the self-revelation of the absolute mind in the form of contemplation. In a certain sense art is the age contemporary to it and perceived in a concrete sensuous form. A definite form of art is linked with a certain way of life of peoples, with their state system, form of government, morals, social life, science and religion. Thus art, in this manner, penetrates into all spheres of the life of the people.

p While indicating art’s ties with political history, state system and form of government, Hegel did not consider them to be an agent in the development of art, or, conversely, that art is an agent in the development of the above-mentioned features of the life of the people. He made a vague conjecture that art, morals, science, religion, state system, form of government, etc., all taken “together have the same common roots”. How did he picture these “common roots"?  [44•1  Hegel tried to answer this question by saying that these “common roots" are the “spirit of the times”. However his reference to the spirit of the times doesn’t explain anything to us. And to explain it would have meant going beyond the limits of an idealistic understanding of history.

p Thus the philosopher essentially did not understand the nature of the link between various forms of art and the era contemporary to them. However the very fact that he indicated the presence of this link is highly important.

p If art is contingent upon historical conditions, then, consequently, it must undergo change with alterations in those conditions. It proves to be historically conditioned. Consequently, it is necessary to take a historical approach to art. This is now Hegel’s concept of the historical evolution of art and the ideal of the beautiful was formed. By this Hegel laid the foundations of a concrete historical approach to the aesthetic practice of mankind. Individual elements of the historical analysis of art can already be found in Lessing, Herder, and Schiller. The concept of the historical method was consciously formulated by Hegel as the supreme methodological principle.

p In view of this he criticised the empirical method of research, 45 that method which he perceived in Home, Batte, Hirt and others. At the same time he criticised Plato’s abstract logical deductive method. Hegel posed the problem of uniting the empirical approach to art and theoretical generalisation. In Hegel this takes the specific form of a demand for the unity of the historical and logical approaches to analysing artistic practice.

p He examined all world art as being in the process of historical development, during the course of which takes place a changing of the various forms of art. The basis for the division of the various forms of art is the unequal correlation of the idea (content) in art and its form (sensuous image embodiment). The artistic ideal develops accordingly into special forms of the beautiful in art.

p Hegel examined three stages of the relationship between idea and its formation. In the initial stage idea appeared in an abstract and one-sided form. Hegel called it the symbolic form of art. By this he historically meant the art of various peoples of the ancient East. According to him this art is distinguished by mysteriousness, loftiness, and an allegorical and symbolic character. The undeveloped content here did not find an adequate form as yet. Hence the fancifulness, grotesqueness, and fortuitousness of the link between idea and image, their disproportion. Hegel’s negative evaluation of Oriental art is of a polemic nature. It is known that the Romantics, particularly the Schlegel brothers, tried to counterpose unconditionally Oriental art, with all its weaknesses, to ancient classical art. In debate with the Romantics Hegel defended the classical ideal born of ancient democracy. He considered Oriental symbolism and pantheism to be a product of despotic social order.

p The second form of art is the classical form. Idea, or content, attained its appropriate substantiality here. This substantiality is adequately represented by image proportionate to free individual spirituality; i.e., by the human image immanent in the idea of spirituality. Hegel emphasised the humanistic and democratic character of classical art, which seemed to him as an unsurpassed and inimitable stage in mankind’s artistic development. The idealisation of ancient democracy and ancient culture is the result of the fact that Hegel always held a feeling of admiration for the French revolution, which spread under the banner of democratic antiquity. In general, Hegel believed that the democratic nature of (he whole tenor of the ancient Greeks presented the most suitable material for artistic embodiment.

p The third form of art is the romantic form. Here again the effected unity of idea and its outward appearance is destroyed and a return, though on a higher level, to the discrimination of these two aspects typical of symbolic art takes place. The content of romantic art (free specific spirituality) attains such a spiritual development 46 when the inner world seems as if to be celebrating the victory over the outer world and cannot, owing to its spiritual richness, find a proportionate sensuous embodiment any more. At this stage, according to Hegel, a liberating of the spirit from its sensuous encasement and a transition to new forms of selfcognition—religion, and subsequently philosophy—take place.

p Romantic art begins with the Middle Ages, however Hegel also related Shakespeare. Cervantes, the artists of the 17th and 18th centuries, and the German Romantics to this. Romantic art is that stage in the evolution of art in which it exceeds its limits. From Hegel’s point of view, this is the end of art in general, in the sense that “neither a Homer, Sophocles, etc., neither a Dante, Ariosto, nor a Shakespeare could reappear in our time. That which was so significantly sung, which was so freely spoken, has been spoken once and for all; all this is the materials, means for their contemplation, comprehension, which have been sung once and for all "  [46•1 . However it does not follow that art, according to Hegel, totally disappears. Its significance, of course, lessens. Humanity finds other forms of cognising the world and expressing its aspirations and ideals. However art’s exceeding its limits does not mean its complete disappearance, but only a change in its subject and its content. It frees itself of conventional historical material and traditions. The inner life of man, his joys and sufferings, his aspirations, deeds and destinies become the sphere of art. Thus socalled free art emerges out of the decay of romantic art. Hegel, on the one hand, saw its prototype in the creativity of his countrymen (F. Schiller, Goethe, and others), and on the other, he only vaguely anticipated it, although it already existed, for example, on English soil. In all probability Hegel did not know English art sufficiently well, and particularly the English novel of the 18th century as the most typical genre of the new art, otherwise his theory of the novel would have assumed a more specific and well-grounded character. On speaking of the typical conflicts depicted in the “epic of bourgeois society”, as Hegel called the novel, he in essence relied basically on Goethe’s Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre.

p Thus Hegel, in his conception of the three stages in the evolution of art and the emergence of free art, effected a new approach to examining the art of mankind and analysed art as a dialectic process. Hegel began his analysis of each of art’s forms with a delineation of the general state of the world. This especially applies; to classical and romantic art. He pointed out that the so-called age of heroes, i.e., antiquity, is the most favourable for artistic 47 portrayal. The modern state is defined as prosaic and little suitable for art. Later Hegel examined situations, clashes, and characters in (he process of their historical development, insofar as they reflect the historically changing stages in mankind’s evolution. Thus he singled out the basic categories of art from the point of view of historical progress, as they arc not at all given and set for all time.

p Hegel regarded each new stage in the development of art as a new qualitative formation. The transition from one form of art to another is not a process of purely quantitative growth but rather a gap, a leap. This is how ancient Greek art replaces Oriental art, and modern, romantic art—ancient Greek.

p This process is of a progressive nature, however at the same time it includes contradictory elements—there are some losses along with the positive results and achievements. We already observe a definite disproportion within the bounds of the general progress of culture. For example, the growth of scientific knowledge is accompanied by a loss of the live integral perception of the world peculiar to artistic cognition. There is a similar disproportion in the development of art itself. It was already noted above that the classical form of art appears in Hegel as the height of mankind’s artistic culture inasmuch as here a complete harmony between idea and the form of its expression is present. (The portrayal of gods in ancient sculpture is a vivid example of this harmony.) However this equilibrium of matter and spirit doesn’t last long. A further growth of the spirituality of the individual as an object of artistic portrayal occurs. The progress of romantic art in comparison with classical consists precisely in the fact that the new art reflects another, richer stage in mankind’s development. However simultaneously a break of the classical equilibrium between content and its outer design takes place. In the final analysis the stated disharmony leads to a decay of the artistic form of cognition as such.

p The observed disproportion has the most diverse forms of manifestation. And so, Hegel spoke of the uneven development of the forms and genres of art. The definite forms of art predominate in certain historical periods (sculpture—in the age of antiquity; painting, music and poetry—in the era contemporary to him). Within the bounds of one and the same art form can be observed, in its turn, an unevenness expressed in the prevalence of one genre or other, for example epic poem—in the era of epic antiquity, or the novel^-in modern art. Hegel linked some genres only with definite stages in the development of the history of mankind. For example the Homeric epic, according to Hegel, was possible only in the “age of heroes”. Incidentally Lessing had already understood this and considered all attempts at creating a new epic in modern 48 conditions futile (Voltaire’s La Henriade, Klopstock’s Messias).

p Hegel was a long way off from romantic relativity and subjectivism when speaking of and evaluating the development of the artistic ideal and the replacement of various forms, types and genres of art. It is known that the romantics proclaimed the complete equality of all trends and styles in art. Primitive art, religious art of the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and the Baroque all had equal value for them. But Hegel used objective criteria in his approach to evaluating various forms, styles, and trends in art. He proceeded first and foremost from the content and evaluated different stages in and forms of the development of art from the standpoint of how profoundly a certain stage in mankind’s development was revealed in them. As Hegel repeatedly noted, it is namely in this that the intransient value of famous works of art consists, beginning with the Homeric epic and ending with Shakespeare, Cervantes, Schiller, Goethe, etc.

p All art forms—architecture, sculpture, painting, music and poetry—are analysed by Hegel not only from the general theoretical standpoint but also in the historical aspect. Each corresponding section ends with a historical excursus. Let us take painting as an example. At first Hegel described the general characteristics of painting, defined its content, the specifics of its modes of graphic expression, the principles of artistic portrayal, and its genres and forms, and then examined it in the light of historical development. He gave a comparatively detailed analysis of painting in Byzantium, the Netherlands, Italy and Germany. Moreover he showed how painting was gradually freed from religious subjects, how secular content began to occupy a more and more significant position in the creativity of masters, and how human nature, man, his inner world and his emotions became more and more the centre of artistic < portrayal. All this is well evident in the painting of the Netherlands.

p The philosopher carried out an analogical analysis in relation to the art of language. Hegel first of all established the distinction between the art of poetry and the art of prose and examined the peculiarities of the content of the belles-lettres, their language, genres and forms. Beginning with the characteristics of the epic, he determined that general state of the world which demands the epic form for its portrayal. Hegel showed that the epic appeared only under definite historical conditions. In this connection he traced the historical development of the epics of the Jews, Arabs, Persians, ancient Greeks, Romans, and Scandinavian nations, as well as the epic works of the Middle Ages. With changes in historical 49 conditions the epic either disappeared completely or became radically modified, acquiring new qualitative features which we have already noted in connection with the analysis of the novel as an epic of .bourgeois society. Hegel did similar research in relation to lyric poetry and drama.

p Guided by the principle of the unity of the historical and the logical, Hegel characterised the cardinal categories of aesthetics—the beautiful, the sublime, the tragic and the comic. These key conceptions, as Hegel strove to point out, are formed on the basis of historical cognition of the evolution of art. Unlike Kant, Hegel did not give us an abstract system of aesthetic categories. It is as if Hegel crystallised the above categories out of a realisation of the process of development of artistic practice itself and characterised them in the course of examining definite stages in the evolution of art. For example, the category of the sublime is elucidated in connection with an analysis of Oriental art; the category of the beautiful—in connection with an interpretation of the art of antiquity. As to the tragic and the comic, they are interpreted partly by a characteristics of corresponding genres; on the whole, the tragic and the comic appear in Hegel as concepts reflecting definite types of conflicts specific to the various stages in the development of the history of mankind. Tragic and comic collisions are characteristic of moments of historical crisis and reflect the real process of history.

p Thus Hegel’s basic categories of aesthetics appear not in the form of set “tables” but as key elements in the cognition of the process of development of aesthetic practice.

p The problem of contradiction occupies one of the central if not the central position in Hegel’s philosophy, and particularly in his studies on logic. He saw contradiction as the source of selfpropulsion and self-development. “Only when they attain an extreme degree of contradiction, do varied [elements] become active and vital in relation to each other and acquire in it that negativeness which is the immanent pulsation of self-propulsion and vitality."  [49•1  The philosopher also applied the universal principle of contradiction to artistic phenomena.

p The changing of art forms from symbolic through .classical to romantic is stipulated by the contradiction between constantly changing content and relatively stable form. Content, or, according to Hegel’s terminology, the Idea develops more and more along the line of specific definition. In symbolic art, i.e., the art of the 50 ancicnt East, it appears in an abstract and undeveloped form. Then it reaches that stage of concreteness in which it can find a proportionate sensuous expression for itself. Further development along the path of concrete definition leads to the fact that the idea already cannot on the whole be portrayed in concrete sensuous forms. Now concept rather than sensuous image is required for its expression. Inasmuch as here, in accordance with Hegel, the spirit feels itself on home ground, i.e., in the element of pure thought, then at this stage content and form coincide completely. Hegel clearly mystified contradiction, as becomes evident later, and presented it in the form of a conflict between matter and spirit, between thought and emotion, between reason and the completeness of the integral spiritual life of the individual.

p All this mystification of the real problem is conditioned by the initial objective-idealistic principles of Hegel’s philosophy on the whole. The point is that Hegel deduced contradiction from other logical concepts-identity, difference, contrast—and besides this, he resolved, or in simpler words, reconciled it in its essence. Instead of interpreting movement from contradiction, Hegel deduced contradiction itself from logical movement. The question takes on a new form in relation to art: what stipulates movement from one content to another? Hegel took this movement as fact. Meanwhile it should have been explained as the presence of contradiction in content itself. But we don’t find this in the philosopher. Moreover Hegel, as evident from what was said earlier, developed the conception of the reconciliation of opposites, their neutralisation. On this point the basic contrast between Hegel’s idealistic dialectics and the Marxist dialectical method is particularly clearly revealed. But nevertheless Hegel’s application of the principle of contradiction in the analysis of art is a notable scientific contribution in the sense of an elaboration of a methodology of social cognition.

p In this connection let us examine that principle of which I spoke earlier. Hegel explained the replacing of one set of art forms by another, i. e.,the appearance of new forms, genres, and styles to replace others, by the objective movement of art’s content. This means that different art forms are not created through arbitrariness of creative subjectivity but are determined by the indicated process. The true artist differs from mediocrity in the fact that he is aware of the emerging contradictions between the nascent ideological content of art and its form already subject to ossification. This emerged contradiction is the basis of that ideological struggle which breaks out in definite periods of history—the struggle for the regeneration of art, for new art forms 51 and genres, for new stylistic forms corresponding to the new vital content.

p I already spoke earlier of the fact that the pithy components of art, i.e., situations, clashes, actions and characters, alter with changes in the general state of the world. Their transformation is conditioned by the presence of internal contradictions in them. In the early stages of the development of art these contradictions are still hidden. Therefore representations of the period of the dawning of art are of an immobile, set nature. As an example or illustration Hegel named early temple images. Then the transition from rest to movement and expression begins to show itself. Thus if Egyptian gods are depicted with feet drawn together, heads motionless and arms closely adjacent to the body, then in early Greek art, even though gods were depicted in a state of immobility, their bodies take positions characteristic of movement. These images of the gods were still of a reserved disposition and internal clashes were not yet expressed here. Later on, situations reproduced in art take on a character fraught with conflicts, which contain the rudiments of action. Clashes and conflicts of real forces appear first in a primitive form. For example their basis lies in vital blood relationships. The simple, natural fact of blood relationship can serve as the basis for a struggle for succession to the throne. Such types of conflicts become more complicated and cross over into the sphere of social and moral relations. They can assume an antagonistic character as we observe in, for example, the tragedy Antigone. All the internal movement of the content of art, as Hegel showed, is based on a clash of the hostile forces present in certain situations. Not only individuals, but also entire nations can become involved in these conflicts, as Homer’s epic bears witness. A general conflict of this type serves as the prerequisite for the development of those more particular multiform conflicts depicted in the Iliad.

p Thus the contradiction internally inherent to the given situation must be acknowledged as the source for the development of action, one of the most important elements of artistic content. It is given concrete expression in artistic ideas, in definite characters, in definite individuals, in the clash of various moral principles. All artistic embodiment is, in the final analysis, nothing more than the exposure in a concrete sensuous form of those great conflicts and contradictions peculiar to the given era. Not only is action revealed through contradiction, but the characters portrayed in art also, according to Hegel, are the result of contradictory development. It is as though the tendency of the contradictory development of the times were also crystallised in them. For not some form of abstract principles but rather people with definite traits of character 52 personifying real historical forces clash in the history of humanity.

p In analysing the phenomena of art Hegel also applied the dialectical philosophical categories worked out by him—phenomenon and essence, content and form, chance and necessity, and necessity and freedom. Hegel didn’t absolutise a single one of the laws of dialectics, a single one of its categories; he saw scientific truth as a sort of many-sided whole. To him art was a complex phenomenon, and as such it must be cognised with the help of the sum total of the basic dialectical principles of analysis.

p In this lies Hegel’s superiority over all the modern philosophical and aesthetic theories of idealistic trend. As a rule they absolutise one or another of the methodological principles or devices as, for example, structural analysis, the quantitative approach, the psychological approach, and others. Hegel’s dialectical method is directed against one-sidedness, against the absolutising of separate elements. The great philosopher treated art as a very complex social phenomenon demanding a comprehensive analysis. He saw art first and foremost as cognitive activity,’but at the same time analysed it from the standpoint of structure and social function as well. Nor did he lose sight of creative subjectivity as well as the public which perceives aesthetic values.

p As already noted at the very outset, Hegel’s dialectics is an idealistic dialectics. It bears the mark of a historical limitedness engendered by its age. K. Marx, F. Engels, and V. I. Lenin radically revised Hegel’s dialectics and, in the words of Marx, set it right side up. They produced materialist dialectics, a great tool for the cognition and transformation of the world.

The dialectical method is being developed together with the development of science and society on the whole. But in our further advancement a mental return to primary sources is necessary in order to perceive, take into account and creatively assimilate the experience of the past again and again. Creative understanding and mastering of the positive aspects of Hegel’s work are prerequisites for our progress in perfecting the methodology of modern scientific research and in forecasting the development of world aesthetics. Hegel’s legacy is relevant to this day.