r phase of art.
For the limit of architecture lies precisely in this, that it refers to
the spiritual as an internal essence in contrast with the external forms
of its art, and thus whatever spirit and soul are possessed it must
point to as something other than itself.

SCULPTURE

Architecture, however, has purified the inorganic external world, has
given it symmetric order, has impressed upon it the seal of mind, and
the temple of the God, the house of his community, stands ready. Into
this temple now enters the God himself. The lightning-flash of
individuality strikes the inert mass, permeates it, and a form no longer
merely symmetrical, but infinite and spiritual, concentrates and molds
its adequate bodily shape. This is the task of sculpture. Inasmuch as in
it the inner spiritual element, which architecture can no more than hint
at, completely abides with the sensuous form and its external matter,
and as both sides are so merged into each other that neither
predominates, sculpture has the _classical_ form of art as its
fundamental type. In fact, the sensuous realm itself can command no
expression which could not be that of the spiritual sphere, just as,
conversely, no spiritual content can attain perfect plasticity in
sculpture which is incapable of being adequately presented to perception
in bodily form. It is sculpture which arrests for our vision the spirit
in its bodily frame, in immediate unity with it, and in an attitude of
peace and repose; and the form in turn is animated by the content of
spiritual individuality. Therefore the external sensuous matter is here
not wrought, either according to its mechanical quality alone, as heavy
mass, nor in forms peculiar to inorganic nature, nor as indifferent to
color, etc., but in ideal forms of the human shape, and in the whole of
the spatial dimensions. In this last respect sculpture should be
credited with having first revealed the inner and spiritual essence in
its eternal repose and essential self-possession. To such repose and
unity with itself corresponds only that external element which itself
persists in unity and repose. Such an element is the form taken in its
abstract spatiality. The spirit which sculpture represents is that which
is solid in itself, not variously broken up in the play of contingencies
and passions; nor does its external form admit of the portrayal of such
a manifold play, but it holds to this one side only, to the abstraction
of space