" Fancy "originates from the original antithesis in the idea,
and so operates that the opposing elements which are separated from the
idea become perfectly united in reality. By means of fancy, we are able
to understand things more lofty than those of common knowledge, and in
them we recognize the idea itself as real. In art, fancy is the faculty
of transforming the idea into reality."
For Solger as for Schelling, beauty belongs to the region of Ideas,
which are inaccessible to common knowledge. Art is nearly allied to
religion, for as religion is the abyss of the idea, into which our
consciousness plunges, that it may become essential, so Art and the
Beautiful resolve, in their way, the world of distinctions, the
universal and the particular. Artistic activity is more than
theoretical: it is practical, realized and perfect, and therefore
belongs to practical, not to theoretic philosophy, as Kant wrongly
believed. Since art must touch infinity on one side, it cannot have
ordinary nature for its object. Art therefore _ceases_ in the portrait,
and this explains why the ancients generally chose Gods or Heroes as
models for sculpture. Every deity, even in a limited and particular
form, expresses a definite modification of the Idea.
G.G.F. Hegel gives the same definition of art as Solger and Schelling,
All three were mystical aestheticians, and the various shades of
mystical Aesthetic, presented by these three writers, are not of great
interest.
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