O
Now that the characteristics of the work of art have been derived, its difference
from all other products has simultaneously been brought to light.
For the art-product differs from the organic product of nature primarily in these
respects: [a) that the organic being still exhibits unseparated what the aesthetic
production displays after separation, though united; b) that the organic production
does not proceed from consciousness, or therefore from the infinite contradiction,
which is the condition of aesthetic production. Hence [if beauty is essentially the
resolution of an infinite conflict] the organic product of nature will likewise not
necessarily be beautiful, and if it is so, its beauty will appear as altogether
contingent, since the condition therefore cannot be thought of as existing in
nature.
F.W.J.Schelling
