But by far the greater number of the productions of art are only repetitions or copies of some previous realization. And I use this term, not in its usual depreciatory sense, but rather in one that is applicable to what are truly artistic productions but still only successful formations at second-hand. Extremely rare, indeed, are the original expressions or impressions of an indwelling, unborrowed idea And even among these very many are nothing more than the first faint outline and commencement, which only at a subsequent epoch of art, and after long and repeated essays, attains to complete perfection and a really successful and veritable outward exhibition of the indwelling idea. For we must ever consider as an idea that inward object which art in its external manifestations strives to realize, and which in its creations ought to stand out, as it were, bodily before us.
Even in music (as the expression of the emotions of the soul in their flow and change, and in the struggle with inharmonious discords, till at last they finally dissolve in harmony) it is not so much the immediate feeling--for this would be no more artistic than the mere cry of passion--as rather the idea of it that the artist has in his mind, and that forms the subject of his representations. The musician strives to represent the whole idea--the beautiful and the marvelous in the whole progress of its development. Following the inmost life-pulse in its alternate rising and falling, he labors to give its unexpected transitions up to their sudden harmony or its repetitions of still increasing pitch up to a full and soothing close, or (if this is designedly to be left unattained) up to the abrupt and painful breaking off or gradual dying away and cessation of the plaintive note or the tone of ardent longing.
And the same is the case with sculpture. But here we would premise the remark, that the principle with which we set out, of the triple nature and division of man's being, is confirmed by the existence of a corresponding order and diversity in the fine arts. Among the arts, accordingly, whose object is the manifestation of the beautiful, music is pre-eminently the art for the soul, while sculpture is for the most part corporeal.