Philosophy of Art

Besides the inner opposition of art, which formed the ideal and real poles—which opposition one could call the real one—there is also a formal opposition of art in time, namely the ancient and the new art, which is actually the subject of the history of art. The art of the ancient world represents the real side, just as the newer [art] represents the ideal side of art, just as in general the old world is more an expression of the real, the new an expression of the ideal. This opposition is merely formal; since the essence of both is the essential, only with the difference that the art of the ancient world fashioned itself in the finite, the new [art] in the infinite. The history of the fine arts and the arts of speech must above all keep this difference in view. One could generally call into question whether a history of the arts

$α$) for to history belongs a continuation, a gradual development, which however cannot be possible in art

is possible, since every part here would have to be perfect in itself, and the incomplete and deficient in art does not interest the historian at all. $β$) To a history always belongs a kind, the action, where unity and whole, necessity in the whole prevailed; here