Lot n° 94
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FLAUBERT Gustave (1821-1880).
2 autograph MANUSCRIPTS, Hegel Cours d'esthétique, [1844 and 1872]; 51 pages on 48 ff. of fine vellum paper, then 13 pages on 7 ff. of blue paper (miscoded 1-52, then 53-59), about 22.5 x 18.5 cm, all mounted on tabs and bound in a small in-4 volume, old green embossed paper boards.
Important set of early notes on Hegel, used for Bouvard et Pécuchet, and completed during the writing of the novel.
Flaubert took extensive notes on HEGEL's Esthétique (originally published in German in 1832) on the French translation given by Charles Bénard from 1840 to 1852 (5 volumes). He worked in 1844 on the first two volumes. It was in the context of his preparatory work for Bouvard et Pécuchet that he completed the reading of the last three volumes, in 1872, adding new notes on blue paper, while writing new reflections in the margins of his first notes. The reading of Hegel nourished with profit Flaubert's reflexion on the Beautiful, the True and the Good, and on the work of art in its relationship with reality. These notes are part of the documentary file on Philosophy for Bouvard and Pécuchet, and were used in chapter VIII of the novel. Let us quote a few lines from the notes on the Introduction to Hegel's work: "Art is reproached for producing its effects through the illusion of appearance; the same reproach could be addressed to nature, to the acts of human life. Because the reality, the principle is not in all these appearances, it is manifested only by it. Now it is precisely the action and the development of this force which is the object of the representations of art. - Art frees the truth from the illusory forms of the world to clothe it with a higher and purer form, fixed by the spirit itself. The world of art is truer than that of nature and history"... In the margin, Flaubert added in 1872: "essence & truth of art: no difference between art and nature", then "art superior to Nature"... Let us quote some of the following chapters: "Of the idea of the beautiful in the art, or of the ideal", "Of the determination of the ideal", "Of the action", "Of the external determination of the ideal", "Of the agreement of the ideal with its external reality (of the man with the nature)", "Of the artist", "Development of the ideal in the particular forms that the beautiful in the art assumes", "Of the symbolic form of the art", "Immediate unity of the idea and the sensible form", " Of the symbolic of the imaginary ", " the symbolic of the sublime ", " of the Pantheism of the art ", " Of the reflected symbolism or the form of the art whose base is the comparison ", " The metaphor, the image and the comparison ", "Disappearance of the Symbolic Form of Art", "On the Classical Form of Art", "Destruction of Classical Art", "On the Romantic Form of Art", "On Personal Independence in the Circle of Real Life", etc. On several occasions, Flaubert added comments during his 1872 rereading.
For his 1872 notes, Flaubert folded his blue sheets in such a way as to create a margin where headings and key words are written. We will quote some of these notes, at the beginning of the file: "What is agreed to call good taste does not dare to attack the great effects of art. It keeps silent when the external & accessory characters give way to the thing itself. It is not necessary that the object of art be alive. It does not even have to be, since it is destined to satisfy the interests of the mind & excludes all desire. The Principle of irony has as a starting point the philosophy of Fichte, which puts the self, before all things. Therefore, as an artist, I am the only serious one, I must consider all human things as insignificant. Art has its goal in itself since it has the mission to represent the true in a sensitive image. The Beautiful is the sensitive manifestation of the idea "... Etc. Bibliography : Gisèle Séginger, Dix ans de critique : notes inédites de Flaubert sur l'Esthétique de Hegel (Lettres Modernes-Minard, 2005). Provenance : Caroline Franklin-Grout-Flaubert (Flaubert's niece), sale Antibes 28-30 April 1931, n° 66.
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