The higher truth of art consists, then, in the spiritual having attained a sensuous form adequate to its essence.  And this also furnishes the principle of division for the philosophy of art.  For the Spirit, before it wins the true meaning of its absolute essence, has to develop through a series of stages which constitute its very life.  To this universal evolution there corresponds a development of the phases of art, under the form of which the Spirit—­as artist—­attains to a comprehension of its own meaning.

This evolution within the spirit of art has two sides.  The development is, in the first place, a spiritual and universal one, in so far as a gradual series of definite conceptions of the universe—­of nature, man, and God—­finds artistic representation.  In the second place, this universal development of art, embodying itself in sensuous form, determines definite modes of artistic expression and a totality of necessary distinctions within the sphere of art.  These constitute the particular arts.

We have now to consider three definite relations of the spiritual idea to its sensuous expression.

SYMBOLIC ART

Art begins when the spiritual idea, being itself still indefinite and obscure and ill-comprehended, is made the content of artistic forms.  As indefinite, it does not yet have that individuality which the artistic ideal demands; its abstractness and one-sidedness thus render its shape defective and whimsical.  The first form of art is therefore rather a mere search after plasticity than a capacity of true representation.  The spiritual idea has not yet found its adequate form, but is still engaged in striving and struggling after it.  This form we may, in general, call the symbolic form of art; in such form the abstract idea assumes a shape in natural sensuous matter which is foreign to it; with this foreign matter the artistic creation begins, from which, however, it seems unable to free itself.  The objects of external nature are reproduced unchanged, but at the same time the meaning of the spiritual idea is attached to them.  They thus receive the vocation of expressing it, and must be interpreted as if the spiritual idea were actually present in them.  It is indeed true that natural objects possess an aspect which makes them capable of representing a universal meaning, but in symbolic art a complete correspondence is not yet possible.  In it the correspondence is confined to an abstract quality, as when, for example, a lion is meant to stand for strength.