hegel and the end of art

7/24/2019 Hegel and the End of Art

1/21

Hegel and the End

of

Art

Stephen Houlgate

University

of

Warwick

e g e l

is

often said to have claimed that art comes to an

end or

dies in

the modern world. This is maintained, for example, by Dieter Henrich,

as

well as by

rthur

Danto.

2

As Annemarie Gethmann-Siefert points out, how-

ever, Hegel never actually makes such a claim.

3

He declares

that

the modern

world witnesses the end or dissolution of the Romantic form of art, and

he notes

that

the epic has died

out

to be replaced by the novel and

the

short

story;4

but

nowhere does he ever

say

that art s such comes to

an end

in the

modern

era.

Nor

does he ever advance the related claim, attributed to him

by Danto, that art is and remains for us a thing of the past.,,5 The claim

Hegel actually makes is similar to this,

but

more nuanced.

t

is that art,

considered

in

its

highest

vocation nach der Seite ihrer

ho hsten

Bestimmung),

is and remains for us a thing of the past

Werke,

3: 25;

A,

: [my italics]). Unlike the claim attributed to Hegel, by Danto, this claim

does not in any

way

imply that art no longer has historical significance in

the

modern

world

or that

we moderns no longer look to art to tell us about

ourselves

and our

world.

t

simply states that for us art can now

no

longer

fulfill the

highest calling

of

which it

is

capable.

The

highest vocation

of

art,

Hegel tells us, is to express and bring to consciousness, not just particular,

contingent truths about ourselves and our world,

but

that which we regard

1


2/21

2

The Owl ofMinerva

29:

1

Fall

1997)

as absolutely fundamental and universal- the Divine, the deepest interests

of

mankind,

and

the most comprehensive truths of the spirit Werke, 13:

21; A

1:

7).

Art

was able to fulfill this vocation magnificently

in

the beau

tiful days

of

Greek art

and

the

golden

age of

the later Middle Ages,

according to Hegel,

but

those days are now long gone Werke, 13: 24; A

1:

10). We now belong to a different world with a different understanding of

the role

of

art.

Art

remains

an

enduring human need in the

modern

world

and will always remain such a need; indeed, Hegel

says that

we may well

hope that art will always rise higher and come to perfection. But in

the

modern world, art

no

longer affords that satisfaction

of

spiritual needs which

earlier ages

and

nations sought

in

it Werke, 13: 142,24; A,

1:

103, 10).

The

aim

of

this article

is

to explain why

in

Hegel's view art's history

brings

it

to

the point at

which it can

no

longer afford the highest satisfac

tion

of

our spiritual needs and so fulfill its own highest calling, and why,

nevertheless, we moderns still need

art and

still need it to create beauty. I

will argue

that

Hegel advocates a

modern art of

beauty,

not out of

any aes

thetic conservatism,

but

because he believes that what has to be given aesthetic

expression in the

modern

world

is

concrete

human

freedom

and

life (rather

than

the abstract, subjective freedom of

Romantic

irony) and

that the

aesthetic expression of such concrete

human

freedom entails beauty. I will

also argue

that

from a Hegelian point of view many

modern

movements

in

the

arts, which today are often regarded as progressive

or

even revolutionary

due

to

their

so-called

emancipation

from beauty, are actually far less

progressive than they seem, because they represent a turn back to abstract,

symbolic forms

of

aesthetic expression which are

no

longer appropriate for

the

modern

spirit

of

freedom.

-II-

The

primary reason why

art

now

no

longer affords us the highest spiri

tual satisfaction

is that in

the Western tradition it has gradually severed its

link with religion.

6

In religion we are directly conscious, through

inner

feel

ing, belief and representation Vorstellung), of the Absolute or Divine itself.

We

feel

and

believe

the

Divine, within our own hearts

and

souls, to be a real

presence in

the

world Werke,

13:

142-43;

A

1: 103-04). In aesthetic experi

ence, by contrast, we encounter

an

individual,

human

creation-the

artwork-in

which the nature of the Divine or

of human

life)

is

given ex

pression.

The

medium of expression may be purely sensuous (such as stone,


3/21

Hegel and the End of Art

3

color or sound), or, as

in

the case of poetry, it may also take the form of

images or

Vorstellungen.

In

either case, however, what is

important

about

the artwork

is

that it

is

an

object produced by

human

artistry-ein

Gemachtes,

vom Menschen Hervorgebrachtes-which

reveals to us the true character of

divine

or human

freedom Werke, 13: 214; A,

1:

162).

In the

case of

the Ancient

Greeks, Hegel argues, art was itself

an

essential

moment

of religion. This is because it

was

the Greek artists

and

poets, such

as

Homer,

who

gave the nation a definite idea of the activity,

life,

and

work

of

the Divine, or, in

other

words, the definite content

of

religion. Indeed, Hegel says, the poets

and

artists became for the Greeks

the creators of their gods

Werke, 13:

141;

A,

1: 102). This does not mean

that artists simply dreamt up the gods out of nothing. t means that they

gave determinate expression and form to inchoate religious ideas about the

gods which fermented within the Greeks themselves. As a result

of

being

rendered determinate in

art

in this

way,

Hegel says, the gods hovered for the

Greeks in a magic light between poetry

and

actuality

Werke,

15: 368;

A,

2:

1074).7

Greek

art

was

not

merely contingently connected to Greek religion,

in

Hegel's

view;

it was necessarily connected with it, because the Greeks could

only

work out what fermented within

them

in the form of art. This

is

a

consequence, Hegel claims, of the conception of the Divine which underlay

Greek religion

and

culture as a whole. The Greeks conceived of the Divine,

not as an

abstract principle, such

as

the Light

or

the Good, but

as

a realm

of

self-conscious, free individuals: the gods.

The

freedom of these individuals

is a spiritual

one the

freedom

of

imagination, insight

and

purpose but it is

not

set in opposition to the body

or

to action in the world.

t

is

not

a funda

mentally inward freedom constituted by spirit's withdrawal into itself

and

out of

the sphere of externality.

On

the contrary, it

is

spiritual freedom

that

expresses itself specifically in bodily posture and action.

The

Greek god

is

thus

not

a disembodied spirit, but a self-conscious individual body, and so

takes

on human

form.

The

bodily form taken by the gods is, however, one

that

expresses nothing but

divine

freedom. It thus lacks the contingent blem

ishes which mark mortal

human

bodies,

and is

consequently idealized bodily

form.

t

is

because

the

Greek gods are conceived

of

as

concrete, free indi

viduals exhibiting idealized physical form that they can only be envisaged in

a determinate manner

in

art. Purely inward spirit can be brought to mind in

pure

thought or

inner feeling, and a spirit

that is

understood to become

incarnate in a real historical figure can be encountered

in that

historical


4/21

The

wl

ofMinerva

29:1 Fall

1997)

incarnation itself. But Greek divinity

is

neither inward enough to be con-

ceived in abstraction from visible

or imaginable bodies,

nor

concrete and

historical enough to be encountered in the world. It can therefore only be

envisaged

in

a visible

or

imaginable physical form that has been idealized by

art, above all by sculpture and poetry. rt enjoys such a high status in Greece,

therefore, because it

is

the activity through which alone the Greeks can

come to a clear and determinate conception of their gods: in the case of

the Greeks, art was the highest form in which the people represented

the

gods to themselves and gave themselves a consciousness of the truth Werke,

13:

141;

A

1:

102).

But note that art

is

not only elevated to a position

of

cultural supremacy

among

the

Greeks; it also perfects itself as art by fulfilling art's highest

vocation. The supreme task of art for Hegel, as we have seen, is to give

sensuous and imaginative expression, through objects created by human

beings, to the highest interests of the spirit Werke, 13: 28; A, 1: 13). It

is

to bring before

human

consciousness all that

human

beings most cherish

and

revere: the family, the state, heroism, eternal justice, freedom and the

gods.

This

task

is

best carried out, Hegel believes, when art gives direct

ex-

pression to

our

deepest religious beliefs and ideas, because religion is where

our most strongly held views about the family, the state and the gods have

their ultimate source. Religion

is, as

Hegel puts it, the place where a people

defines for itself what it holds to be true. S rt necessarily fulfills its highest

vocation

as

art in ancient Greece, therefore, because for the Greeks art is

itself an integral part of the religious life of the people.

t is

also in Greece that art attains to its purest

beauty.

Beauty, for

Hegel,

is

the sensuous shining

of

the Idea

das

sinnliche Scheinen der

Idee}-the manifestation in sensuously intuitable (or imaginable) form of

unity, reason and wholeness Werke,

13:

151;A, 1: 111 . This

is

best achieved

when sensuous or imagined form is thoroughly imbued with spiritual free-

dom

and thereby idealized, that

is,

when there

s

a perfect fusion

of

spirit

and bodily form. This in

turn

requires that the spirit concerned can find

itself in perfect harmony with the body. t is Greek divinity above all

that

is

capable of such harmony, because it expresses its own spiritual freedom

wholly

and only

in

bodily posture and action.

t is

Greek divinity, therefore,

that is capable of the most beautiful aesthetic expression. This does

not

mean

that

all Greek art is necessarily beautiful,

but

that only the Greeks are

capable

of

the most beautiful art, because only the Greek spirit can be per-

fectly fused with its sensuous or imaginative expression. Greek art, Hegel


5/21


5

says is thus the

consummation

of the realm of beauty : nothing can

be

or

become more beautiful Werke,

14:

127; A, 1: 517).

t

should

be noted, by

the

way

that

Hegel's judgement

that

Greek

sculpture

and

poetry is the

most

beautiful art there

can

be is not based

merely

on

personal preference or on any outdated allegiance to Winckelmann.

t

is

based on what he understands to be an objective structural feature of

Greek spirituality: namely that Greek divinity

is

capable

of

idealized sensuous

and

imaginative expression like no other before or since.

The

account I have given here is obviously greatly simplified. Greek

civilization was

not

restricted to the production of art, but prided itself

on

its political, historical, philosophical and even sporting achievements as well.

Furthermore, Greek art was not confined to the presentation of

the

gods,

but also depicted demigods, humans

and

animals. Nevertheless, Hegel be

lieves

that art

achieved a unique prominence

in

Greece

and that

Greek

religion

was what made the Greeks look

to art

as their privileged vehicle of

expression.

-III-

Christianity, for Hegel, is a very different religion from that of the

Greeks. Not only is it monotheistic, rather than polytheistic, it is also more

inward

and

more historical

than

Greek religion.

The

Christian God, Hegel

claims,

is

above all

pure

spirit

and

love-spirit which takes

the

form, not of

idealized bodily shape, but of self-conscious inwardness. Consequently,

such divinity does not demand sensuous presentation from the outset, as

does

Greek

divinity,

but

is

freed from this immediate existence which must

be posited as negative, overcome and reflected into the spiritual unity

Werke,

13:

112-13; A

1:

80).

The Christian God

thus does not have to be

given sensuous, aesthetic expression in

order

to become determinate for us.

Rather, the intrinsic nature of

God

can be fully

comprehended

within reli

gious feeling, belief

and

representation itself.

The

Christian religion

is

thus

independent of art in a way that the

Greek

religion was not, and

can

formu

late its Trinitarian conception of

God

on the basis of purely religious belief

(together

with

a little help from philosophy).

Yet

essential to Christian faith is the belief

that

God becomes incarnate in

the figure ofJesus Christ. Christian faith understands Christ to embody for

us God's pure inwardness and love

and

to show us what such love means in

concrete practical and historical terms. Divine love is thus

understood

by


6/21

6

he wl ofMinerva 29:1 Fall 1997)

faith to make itself visible in the world, to embroil itself in the complexities

of

human finitude, even to the point

of

death, and thereby to make a visible

difference to the world. In Hegel s view, this becoming-visible of divine love

allows such love to be rendered visible and imaginable in art. Thus, even

though Christian divinity

is

spiritual

love

that can be comprehended through

religious belief without recourse to aesthetic presentation, such divinity

is

nevertheless

c p ble of

such presentation due to its having become incar

nate in the life and work

of

Christ (and, indeed, the lives

of

the Virgin

Mary, the Apostles and the Saints). Such aesthetic presentation will

not

be

able to communicate all that faith understands about divine

love;

in particular,

it will

not

be able to communicate the feeling that divine love

is

actually at

work within faith

itself that

we are ourselves

united with

divine

love-

because art can only ever present such love in

an

objective form

as

something

to be contemplated and beheld. Art will also fail to render Christian love

visible

in

all its worldly, historical concreteness. Nevertheless, art is capable

of

rendering divine love visible or imaginable. Indeed, art must do this, if

something of the worldly concreteness

of

the original Incarnation

is

to be

kept alive for us after Christ s death.

Art

is

thus

not

needed in order to gain

a determinate understanding

of

God s love in the first place,

but

it

is

needed

to preserve for

our

intuition a concrete image

of

the form such love took in

the lives

of

Christ, Mary and the Apostles.

[Tlhe religious material contains in itself at the same time a factor whereby

it

is not

only made accessible to

art but

does

in

a certain respect actually

need

art.

In

the religious ideas of Romantic art, as has been indicated

more than once already, this material involves pushing anthropomorphism

to

an

extreme, in

that

it

is

precisely this material

i)

which has as its centre

the coalescence

of

the Absolute and Divine with a human person as

actually perceived and therefore as appearing externally and corporeally,

and (ii) which must present the Divine in this its individuality,

bound

as it

is to the deficiency of nature and the finite mode of appearance.

In

this

respect, for

the

appearance of God art provides to the contemplative

consciousness the special presence of

an

actual individual shape, a con

crete picture too of the external features of the events in which Christ s

birth, life and sufferings, death, Resurrection

and

Ascension to the right

hand of God are displayed, so that, in general, the actual appearance of

God, which has passed

away,

is

repeated

and

perpetually renewed

in art

alone Werke, 14: 149; A, 1: 535. See also Werke, 14:

130;

A, 1: 519-20 .

The

beauty of which Christian

or

Romantic art is capable

is,

conse

quently, different from that created by the Greeks. The purest Greek beauty,

found in sculpture and drama,

is

spiritual freedom that

is

wholly identical


7/21

Hegel

and the End of Art

7

with,

and

immersed in, visible or imaginable bodilyshape. In Romantic art,

on the other

hand, what must come to appearance in the sensuous or imagi

native medium

is

divinity

that

has withdrawn

out of

the body into the

profound inwardness of love. Romantic beauty must thus take the form,

not just

of

idealized bodily shape as such, but of harmonious human form

that

is

suffused with inner feeling and love. Such beauty

is not pure

beauty,

but the beauty of inwardness

Schonheit der Innigkeit) Werke,

14: 144;

A 1:

531), and

is

found supremely in the images of the Virgin

and

Child

and of Christ and his disciples created

by

painters such as Jan van Eyck,

Raphael and Correggio. Greek sculpture may exhibit the purest beauty, and

Sophocles' Antigone may be the most excellent and most satisfying work

of

art; but, for Hegel,

the

immortal paintings

of

the late Middle Ages and

the Renaissance are

the

most soulful

and

the most inward works that art

is

able to produce Werke, 15: 550,

59;

A, 2: 1218,831).9

This

is

not

the place to provide a detailed discussion

of

Hegel's

account of Christian art, but a couple

of

things should

be

noted. First ofall,

with the move from Classical to Romantic beauty the most appropriate

medium

of

aesthetic expression changes. Classical

beauty the

beauty

of

idealized bodily shape-finds its most perfect expression in the art of ideally

shaped matter, namely sculpture. Romantic beauty,

by

contrast, finds its

fitting expression in painting an

art

which does not present us with

concrete, embodied divinity, but which is nevertheless able to render divine

love

visible for us. By shedding the third spatial dimension that character

izes sculpture, painting dissolves the idea that whatwe behold is a fundamentally

material presence and so opens the way for us to regard what we see as the

shining forth Herausscheinen) of inward, immaterial spirituality Werke,

15:

14;

A 2: 794-95 .

Painting is thus more properly suited to the Romantic

beauty of inwardness than is sculpture (though Hegel did praise the sculpture

of

Michelangelo, a copy ofwhose

ieta

he had seen in Berlin) Werke, 14: 460;

A 2:

790 .

Secondly, the structure

of

what Hegel calls the Ideal presented in art

also changes with the move from Classical to Romantic beauty. The Classi

cal Ideal in

both

sculpture and drama

is

one

of

independence: it

is

complete

in itself, independent, reserved, unreceptive, a finished individual which rejects

everything else. Its shape is its own Werke,

14:

145; A, 1: 532). The Ro

mantic Ideal, by contrast, is one of relatedness and, at times, even dependence,

because

love is

essentially

an

inward, felt

bond

between individuals-between


8/21

8

The wl ofMinerva 29:1

Fall

1997)

God

and

humanity, between Christ and his disciples, and between

the

Vir

gin Mary and the Christ Child. In Romantic art, therefore,

infinite subjectivity is not lonely in itself like a Grecian god who lives

in himself absolutely perfect

in the

blessedness

of

his isolation;

on

the

contrary, i t emerges from itself into a relation with something else which,

however,

is

its own, and in which it finds itself again and remains com

muning

and

in unity with itself. This being at one with itself in the other

is the really beautiful subject-matter of Romantic art, its Ideal which has

essentially for its form and appearance the inner life and subjectivity, mind

and feeling. (Werke, 14: 146;

A

1: 533 10

Similarly, the figures who best manifest religious love in Romantic

art

stand in explicit relation to their external architectural and natural surround

ings. This follows, Hegel believes, from the very nature of

Christian

inwardness itself: for in withdrawing out of the world into itself Christian

inwardness does

not seek to suppress or deny the world,

but

rather lets it go

free as the realm of externality. Furthermore, as is recognised in the Chris

tian doctrine

of

the Incarnation,

that

inwardness enters into the world of

externality in order to make a visible difference to it. Indeed, only in this

involvement with concrete reality does [free subjectivity] prove itself in its

own eyes to be concrete and living Werke, 15: 24-25; A,

2:

803).

The

beauti

ful,

inward bond oflove between the Virgin Mary and the Christ Child is thus

itself most concrete when it is set in the context

of

the visible external world.11

Hegel understands the requirement that the Divine be visualized in

art to stem from the need to preserve for intuition

an

image of divine love's

original Incarnation. t is, however, above all in

the

Middle Ages that

aesthetic expression

of

divine

love

is

given prominence

by

Christian cul

ture, because medieval Catholicism, in Hegel'sview, is governed by the general

belief

that

the Divine is most fully present when it is there for

us

in a sensu-

ous form, for example,

in

the form

of the

Host.

12

The most beautiful

Christian art

is

produced in the late Middle Ages

and

in the Renaissance

(approximately from the time

of

Giotto onwards) once the stiffness of

Byzantine art has begun to give way to a new sense

of

life and full indi

vidual expression Werke, 15: 116; A,

2:

876).13 Late medieval

and

renaissance

art

thus

becomes a

prominent though

not

unique

form

of

religious expression

due

to the distinctive emphasis placed by Catholic

Christianity itself on rendering the Divine visible. And,

by

rendering the

Divine

visible in this

way,

art in this period is able to fulfill the highest

calling of art itself.


9/21


9

With the Reformation the relation between art and religion alters

and

the possibilities for art itself change. The defining characteristic of the

Reformation for Hegel

is

that

divine love comes

to

be understood

as

fully

present, not simply in visible objects which we can behold (such as the Host),

but within faith itself.

14

The implications for art are clear. For, if

God

is

only fully present within the inwardness of

our

own faith, then He cannot

be regarded as fully present

in

the human artifacts which we see before us.

As Hegel puts it, to the Lutherans

truth

is not a manufactured object. 15

Through the Reformation, therefore, religious ideas were drawn

away

from

their wrapping in the element of sense and brought back to the inwardness

of heart and thinking

Werke, 13:

142;

A 1:

103). This does not mean that

Protestantism abandons all interest

in

visualizing

God

there is great

Protestant religious art, for example by Rembrandt. But it does mean that

art ceases to play the

prominent

role in religious life

that

it played in the

Middle Ages and makes way more and more for the inner witness

of

faith

itself.

t

also means

that

to the extent that Protestant spirituality does find

aesthetic expression, it is less

in

the painted images of the Virgin Mary

and

more in religious music, hymns and lyric poems Werke,

14:

159, 15: 211,

459;

A

1: 542-43,

2:

950, 1145).

What is distinctive about Protestantism is not that it shuns all

aes-

thetic expression

as

such, but rather that it frees art from dominance by

religion and so allows it to become fully secular. Indeed, Protestantism actu

ally encourages art to become secular by acknowledging the special value

of

the worldly and the everyday. There was, of course, secular art, including

portrait painting, before the Reformation. But, for Hegel, the Reformation

gave a new

and

powerful impetus to secular

art

by seeing secular forms

of

activity, such as labor, life in the family and life

in

the state, not simply

as

falling outside the religious, monastic life, but as holy in themselves. To

Protestantism alone, Hegel claims, does it fall to get a sure footing

in

the

prose of life, to make it absolutely valid

in

itself independently of religious

associations, and to let it develop

in

unrestricted freedom Werke, 4:

225-26;

A

1: 598). Protestantism thus frees a people such as the

Dutch

to

explore in their paintings everyday scenes and objects which might other

wise have been deemed unworthy

of

artistic portrayal.

The

most beautiful

art

had

previously been religious art. f we look at

Dutch

painting with the

right eyes, however,

we

will discover great cheerfulness

and

freedom in their

pictures

of

peasant merrymaking and of domestic life and we will no longer

suppose that they should have avoided such subjects

and

portrayed only


10/21

10

The Owl ofMinerva 29:1

Fall

1997)

Greek gods, myths

and

fables,

or

the Madonna, the Crucifixion, martyrs,

Popes, saints male

or

female Werke, 15: 130; A, 2: 887).

By freeing

art

from religion

and

by also emancipating

the

secular,

Protestantism allows

art

to explore with a good conscience the subtle beauty

of

the everyday. Once art has become liberated

in

this way however, its

distinctive vocation

is no

longer to give expression to the Divine.

rt is

thus

no

longer able to fulfill its highest calling. Nevertheless,

art is

still able to

carry

out

a task

that

comes close to its highest vocation, because it is still

able to create beauty by giving sensuous expression to concrete human

freedom

and

natural

life.

Hegel

is

well aware

that

some naturalistic art

of

the seventeenth

and

eighteenth centuries confines itself to imitating (or at least seeking to imi

tate) the surrounding world. Such art

no

longer counts as art in the fullest

sense, in his view. Naturalistic artworks do still count

as

genuine works of

art, however, when they do

not

merely show us what things are like,

but

breathe life and soul into the objects portrayed and so continue to give

sensuous expression to the Idea (which, as we know from

the

Logic, first

manifests itself explicitly

as

life).

The

naturalistic paintings

of the Dutch

are

thus quite definitely Kunstwerke, rather

than

mere KunststUcke, because

their aim

is not

simply to reproduce

on

canvas the appearance

of

things

in

the world, but to afford the viewer satisfaction in the presence of life, even

in the commonest and smallest

Werke,

13: 69-70, 14: 223-25; A

1:

45,

596-97 [my italics]). This, Hegel tells us,

is

why Dutch art so often seeks to

capture fleeting moments in paint, such as the lustre

of

metal, the shim

mer

of

a bunch

of

grapes by candlelight, a vanishing glimpse

of

the moon

or

sun

or

a waterfall, the foaming waves of the ocean, still-life with casual

flashes of glass, cutlery, etc. -because it is in their movement, shining

and

gleaming

that

even inanimate objects can be said to be alive Werke,

14:

227; A

1:

599).

What also engages our attention in Dutch art, Hegel claims, is the

complex animated interplay of colors themselves: what Hegel calls objec

tive music

or

a resounding in colors ein Tonen

in

Farben}.lndeed, from

as

long ago

as

the time

of

Jan van

Eyck

Netherlandish artists made

the

study

of

the magical effects of color the explicit concern

of

their art.

In

this way Hegel says they made the exploration

of

the means

of

artistic por

trayal, and indeed the display of the artist's skill in handling such means,

into an end in itself fur sich seiber Zweck). The depiction of the life of


11/21


11

objects was thus often

at

one and the same time for the Dutch

the

explicit

presentation

of

the artist's own artistry Werke, 14: 227-29;

A

1: 599-600).

Such self-presentation continues to

count

as

art to the extent

that

it

presents

not

merely

the

artist's activity

of

creating in the abstract, but the

artist's activity

of

creating

an

object in which concrete

embodied

life or

human freedom come to appearance. Beautiful art, we remember,

is

the

sensuous expression of the Idea; and the Idea takes the form

of

life in na-

ture and, as the Greeks and the Medievals recognised, of concrete, incarnate

human

freedom.

f

art is to fulfill its distinctive task in the modern, post

Reformation era, therefore, it must-where it can-depict or describe concrete

natural

and

human forms, because life

and human

freedom are nothing

outside of or apart from their concrete embodiment.

Hegel sees some modern artists, however, shifting their attention away

from the depiction ofconcrete natural and human forms to the presentation

of

their own act of producing and creating by itself. In the works

of

such

artists, it

is

the stark subjectivity

of

the artist himself which intends to

display itself and to which what matters is not the forming of a finished and

self-subsistent work,

but

a production in which the productive artist lets us

see himself alone Werke, 14: 229; A 1: 600). Hegel does not identify

which artists he has in mind in saying this, or even clarify whether he

is

thinking of painters

or

poets;

but we

are surely familiar with artists from

our own century-Jackson Pollock may be one who want their work to

render

visible

their

own creative activity and performance, rather than

bring objects in the world into view.

Hegel

is

a passionate advocate

of

the living

and

concrete in all areas of

his philosophy, and

is

an unrelenting critic

of

the abstract, the one-sided

and the disembodied. This

is

why he is

less

than enthusiastic about the

distortions of natural and human form which he sees in Indian and Egyp-

tian art. t

is

also why he

is

so critical

of

the abstract characterization in

seventeenth-century French drama and of the pallid, insipid images created

by the Dusseldorf school. To the extent

that

painters such as Pollock en

deavour to present the act

of

creation itself in their work,

but

do

not

proceed

to create images of concrete life and

human

freedom, they, too, would be

guilty

of

abstraction, in Hegel's

view

because they

give

expression to

human

creative activity by abstracting from the concrete embodied form that hu

man freedom itself takes. Music and architecture are by their very nature

non-representational arts. But painting, sculpture and poetry are not. To the

extent

that

they strive to become purely musical and non-representational


12/21

2

The Owl o

Minerva 29:1 Fall 1997)

in their exploration of the interplay of color

and

shape in the

abstract,

there

fore, they fall short of the distinctive aesthetic expression

of

concrete human

freedom

of

which they are capable. This

is

not

to

say

that

Hegel objects to

the abstract exploration

of

musical

color-effects as such.

But it

is to insist that such exploration be integrated,

as

it is in the work of the

Netherlandish and Dutch artists he admires so much, into the exploration

in

paint

of concrete

human

freedom

and

life (see

Werke,

14: 228; A 1: 599-

600 .16

Hegel's criticism

of

Pollock (and, indeed, Mondrian and other abstract

artists) would thus be that, although painters may certainly concern them

selves with abstract color-relations, they should

not

do so in abstraction

from

the

depiction of concrete

human

and natural life.

Hegel was

not

familiar

with

the work

of

J. M. W.

Turner

which

perhaps marks the first turn towards pictorial abstraction in the Western

tradition.

I?

But he does see a related

move

away from naturalistic objectivity

in the

literary art of

modern ironic humor. What distinguishes the writing

of humorists such as Jean Paul Richter

is

not, however, that they aim at the

direct aesthetic presentation of the artist's creativity, but rather that they

aim within their texts

at

the ironic subversion and undermining

of

the

forms

of objectivity. The activity of the ironic artist, for Hegel, thus consists

in

destroying and dissolving everything that proposes to make itself objective

and win a firm shape for itself

in

reality,

or

that seems to have such a shape

already

in

the external world

Werke,

14:

229;

A,

1: 601 .

In

doing so the

artist raises himself above

and

so abstracts himself from the determinate

forms of objectivity

and

thus establishes for himself a freedom of ironic

indeterminacy. Even such humor can still remain within the province of

genuine art, however,

if, as

in

the case

of

Laurence Sterne, the artist's sub

versive activity allows that which is substantial to be seen

Werke,

14: 231;

A

1: 602). But if this does not occur and what comes forth is primarily the

ironic indeterminacy of the artist himself,

then

such art no longer counts as

art

in

the fullest sense, because it

no

longer renders concrete human free

dom

visible

and

imaginable in a definite, determinate manner.

Hegel believes that with the ironic humorist's subversion

of

determi

nate objectivity and consequent emancipation of himself from such

determinacy, the Romantic form

of

art

is

dissolved and comes to

an

end.

This

is

because,

by

subverting determinacy as such,

the

ironic artist sub

verts, suspends

and

withdraws from all

of the

particular religious, chivalric

and everyday forms in which Christian sensibility and its secular counter

part

gave itself aesthetic expression. The humorous, ironic spirit

thus

gives


13/21


13

itself aesthetic expression by showing

that

it

is not

tied to any of

the

determi

nate forms

of

expression which Romantic art has traditionally employed. In

this way

the

ironic artist shows everyone

in

the

modern

world

that art

need

no longer confine itself to traditional Romantic forms of expression and

that

the

Romantic artform

in that

sense has come to

an

end. Indeed, he

shows that

no

particular artform whatsoever need now dominate artistic

creation. As Hegel puts it, bondage to a particular subject-matter and a

mode of portrayal suitable for this material alone are for artists today a thing

of the past Werke, 14: 235; A,

1:

60S).

t is important to note here that Hegel does not think that the

emergence

of

such irony and

humor is

merely an unfortunate contingency

of

the

modern

world which could have

been

avoided.

t is

the necessary

result of the development of Christian art itself. For what the ironic artist

does

is

give secular expression

within art

itself to

the

Christian idea

that the

freedom of the spirit

is

an essentially inward freedom

that

ultimately tran

scends

and

exceeds any determinate form

of

aesthetic expression.

The

Greeks

could only give their gods determinate form within art;

but

Christianity

knows

od

within

purely religious feeling and belief

to

be pure spirit

and

love. As we have seen, Christianity also understands the Divine to become

incarnate

and

thus to be capable of its own distinctive aesthetic expression.

The

Christian

od

found such expression as love

in

the religious art

of the

Middle Ages

and

Renaissance,

at

a time

when

Christianity itself conceived

of od as fully present

when

He appeared

in

a sensuous, visible form. How

ever, the Reformation emphasized

that od

is

in

fact only fully present

in

the very inwardness

of

faith itself,

not in

art, and so liberated

art

to the

exploration

of

secular

human

freedom.

The

Reformation also inaugurated

a turn inward by secular consciousness as well, especially

in

the spheres of

morality

and

philosophy.

By

subverting all the determinate forms in which

spirit has found aesthetic expression

in the

past,

modern humor

indicates

within

art that

this secular

human

freedom also transcends aesthetic expres

sion. In this way Hegel remarks, the history

of

Romantic

art

proves to be

the self-transcendence of art

but

within its own sphere

and

in

the

form of

art

itself'

Werke,

13: 113;

A,

1: 80).

But

by

showing

that

human

subjectivity

is

now

no

longer tied to any

determinate form

of

aesthetic expression,

do not modern

ironists

do

more

than

just bring to an end the Romantic form of art? Do

not modern

ironists

(with

the

possible exception

of

a writer, such as Sterne)

turn

their back

on

the very idea

of

giving determinate aesthetic expression

to

concrete

human


14/21

14

The wl ofMinerva 29:1 FalJ 1997)

freedom

and

so abandon the distinctive vocation

of

art as such? Is it not the

case, in other words, that by becoming ironic modern art actually destroys

its character as art and so effectively commits suicide?

This

is

indeed what Hegel maintains. In his 1820..21 lectures he states

explicitly that in humor and comedy art proceeds

to

self-destruction die

Kunst g ht fort zur Selbstvernichtung).18 But does this

not

contradict the

claim made at

the

start

of

this essay

that

Hegel never says

that

art comes to

an end in the modern world? I do not believe so, because, like

H.

S. Harris,

I believe that Hegel thinks

that

a new form

of

art, which continues to fulfill

the genuine task ofart,

is

resurrectedfrom the death ofart in ironic humor.

19

This new form

of

art is no longer able to fulfill the highest vocation of

art, which is to give direct expression to the truths

of

religion. In

the

modern world, therefore, we can no longer regard art as the direct revelation of

the Divine itself and can no longer worship and revere the God-in-art in the

manner of the ancient Greeks

and

the Medievals. No matter how excellent

we

find the statues

of

the Greek gods,

no matter

how we see God the

Father, Christ, and Mary so estimably and perfectly portrayed: it

is

no help,

Hegel

says; we

bow

our

knee

no

longer [before these artistic portrayals]

Werke,

13: 142;

A, 1:

103). However, this new form of art

is

able to fulfill

the modified vocation of post-Reformation art, because it is able to present

in a concrete, determinate form secular human freedom and natural life.

Modern secular freedom does indeed transcend art in the sense that it finds

its most perfect articulation beyond

art

in philosophy. Nevertheless, such

freedom

is

still capable of determinate aesthetic expression, in Hegel's view;

and it is precisely the task

of

the new, resurrected modern

art

to afford

modern

freedom such expression.

Before describing this new form of art, however, I should point out

that I do not share Harris's view that, for Hegel, the hegemony

of

religion

over art simply gives way in the modern world to the hegemony of philosophy

over art.

20

Hegel certainly recognizes

that

ours is a more reflective and philo

sophical

age

than earlier ages and that,

as

a consequence, our

age is

in many

ways not favorable to art. Thought and reflection have surpassed fine

art die schone Kunst iiberfliigelt), Hegel says, so that our response to art

now takes the form of critical judgement

as

much as sensuous enjoyment

and delight.

Furthermore,

we have developed

the

philosophical science

of

aesthetics to help us understand

the

nature of art,

and

this science ap

pears to have become

as

much a need in the modern world as

art

itself

Werke, 13: 24-25; A,

1:

10..11). But Hegel

is

clear

that

this does not mean


15/21


15

that art has now inevitably to become a vehicle for explicit philosophical

reflection.

He

acknowledges

that

many

modern

artists-for example,

Schiller

have

in

fact

been

misled

verleitet)

into

bringing more

philosophical

reflection

into

their art; but his choice

of

verb indicates

that

he does

not

by

any means regard such a development

as

inevitable in the modern world.

Art, for Hegel, can still offer us a distinctively

aesthetic-that

is sensuous

and imaginative-vision

of

the truth that differs from, and is independent

of,

that

granted by philosophy and religion. Furthermore, the modern re

sponse to art does

not

have to be a predominantly, or exclusively, intellectual

one that always looks for philosophemes

in

art,

but

can still involve imme

diate enjoyment

unmittelbarer GenuS) and

delight

in

the

sensuous or

imaginative vision which we are offered Werke, 13: 25;

A

1: 11). Indeed, I

believe that, for Hegel, art

must

still offer us a sensuous or imaginative

vi

sion of the truth in which we can take delight, because we still have a powerful

need

to see

and imagine

the truth, as well

as

understand it. Art may

no

longer be the highest

need

of the modern spirit, but it is nevertheless still a

need. Stephen Bungay

is

in my view, wrong to claim that, for Hegel,

art

is

now

no

longer a

need

of

spirit

at

all

and that

we

have become

bored with

what art has to tell us.

21

We are still irreducibly sensuous beings for Hegel

and

will always need

to

see the truth in a sensuous or imaginative, as well as

a reflective, form.

Art thus

continues to

be

a need for us

in the modern

world, and still has a role to play that is independent of

both

philosophy

and religion.

-IV-

The character of

the

new-resurrected-form of modern

art

which Hegel

identifies follows from the simple fact that it has

to

be both

modern

and

genuine art On the one hand, as modern, it must enjoy

the

freedom from

previous forms of aesthetic expression which was gained by the art of hu

mor.

t

must also enjoy freedom to choose its own content. In the modern

age, Hegel says, the artist stands above specific consecrated forms

and

configurations

and

moves freely on his own account, independent of the

subject-matter

and

mode

of

conception

in

which

the

holy

and

eternal

was

previously made visible to human apprehension. For the modern artist,

art

thus becomes a free instrument which

the

artist can wield in

proportion

to

his subjective skill in relation to any material ofwhatever

kind Werke, 14:

235;

A,

1: 605). On the other hand, as genuine art, modern

art

must still be


16/21

16

The Owl

of

Minerva 29:1 Fall 1997)

the sensuous expression of the Idea,

that

is of concrete natural life and

human

freedom. This means

that

it must still create animated, harmoni

ous, beautiful forms: every material

may

be indifferent to

him

[the artist] if

only it does not contradict the formal law of being beautiful and capable

of

artistic treatment (Werke, 14: 235; A 1: 605). Modern naturalism has of-

ten sought to reproduce the details of nature or prosaic

human

life even at

the sacrifice of beauty and the Ideal (Werke, 14: 225; A 1: 597); and,

of

course,

modern

irony emancipates itself from beauty

by

distorting and

dissolving, and so pitting itself against, determinate objective form. But these

do

not

any longer represent the highest

that

art can achieve in the

modern

world. They merely prepare the way for a new form

of

art which will be

as

committed to beauty

as

the great art of the past.

Genuine

modern

art must thus present concrete life and human

freedom, whilst making free use

of

the Classical, Romantic and possibly

even Symbolic art-forms. The new holy subject-matter ofsuch art, for Hegel,

is not merely the idealized humanity of the ancient Greeks, or the bourgeois

freedom of seventeenth-century Dutchmen,

or

indeed the bourgeois

cozi-

ness

of

nineteenth-century

German

Biedermeier culture,

but

what Hegel

calls, following Goethe, Humanus: the depths

and

heights of the human

heart

as

such, the universally human in its joys and sorrows, its strivings,

deeds,

and fates (Werke, 14: 237-38; A 1: 607-08).22 This does not mean

that Hegel thinks art should now portray

human

passions

of

eveIysort. The

modern

artist has still to create beauty, so there are some limits to what can

be portrayed in modern art. But these limits are, from Hegel's point of view

at least, not especially restrictive: modern art can

give

expression to what

ever can be alive (lebendig) in the

human

breast,

that

is

to everything in

which

man

as such

is

capable of being

at

home (heimisch) (Werke, 14: 238;

A

1:

607 [my italics]). All

that is

excluded, therefore, is that in which

the

human being cannot find itself at home that which deliberately seeks to

disturb, provoke, elude

or

disorient the viewer-or that which

in

the human

breast

is

itself dead that which is abstract, cold or purely negative.

Hegel

gives no

precise guidelines or rules to determine what

is

and

what

is not

acceptable in modern art. We know from his admiration

of

Shakespeare

that

he has

no

problem accepting the depiction

of

evil

and

criminality in art, but we also know from remarks he makes about a Ger

man genre painting exhibited in Berlin in 1828 that there is a certain

kind

of viciousness which he does not find acceptable.

What

makes the differ

ence, it seems, is the fact that the genre painting Hegel has in mind appears


17/21


17

to him to offer

nothing

ut a scene of spiteful, poisonous people, whereas

Shakespeare manages to imbue evil characters, such as lago and Lady

Macbeth, with a rich poetic imagination which

gives

them life even though

they are ultimately negative, destructive individuals. Such characters thus

do not simply alienate

us,

but also engage us and induce in us

an

attitude of

admiration and affirmation, even

as

they horrify us.

23

The

modern art

Hegel

recommends does not have to be bland, therefore,

but

can, like Shakespeare's

art, explore the darker side

of

the human souL The important thing, how

ever, is

that

in so doing, it must

not

seek merely to disturb us through the

spectacle

of

characters that are simply cold or violent, but must allow us to

feel a sense ofsatisfaction

and

freedom in the presence ofcharacters that are

vital, imaginative and--even if only to a certain degree-worthy

of

affirmation.

Hegel also gives little idea of precisely how human freedom and life

should be portrayed in modern art. All he tells us is that the artist must be

free to draw on his store

of

images, modes

of

configuration, [and) earlier

forms of art (Werke,

14:

235; A,

1:

605). He explicitly states that the artist

can appropriate Homeric forms and forms drawn from medieval art, and he

also points approvingly to Goethe's turn to the Orient in his

West-ostlicher

Divan (Werke,

14: 238, 24142;

A,

1: 607-08, 610_11 .24 But again there are

limits.

As

his criticisms

of

the art

of

ironic humor demonstrate, for example,

Hegel does not think that modern artists should revert to the distortion

of

determinate, natural forms characteristic

of

Indian and some Egyptian art.

He would thus certainly have rejected Picasso's incorporation of African

face masks into es Demoiselles d Avignon. This

is

not merely because of

the distorted contours of the masks themselves,

but

also because of the

polemical, antagonistic purpose to which Picasso

put

those masks.

s

Rob

ert Hughes has noted,

the Demoiselles has

none

of

the

aloofness, the

reserved

containment

of its African prototype; its lashing rhythms remind

us that Picasso looked to his masks

as

emblems of savagery, of violence

transferred into the sphere of culture.,,25

What I have said so far will no

doubt

make it appear as if Hegel's

conception

of

modern art is an extremely conservative one, one that allows

little ofwhat has been produced since Hegel's death to count

as

genuine art.

Some

of

the work

of

the Impressionists, Degas and, perhaps, Cezanne might

satisfy Hegel's criteria for art, but it

is

hard to think of the work of George

Grosz or Francis Bacon or Mark Rothko or Jackson Pollock

as

giving aes-

thetic expression to concrete

human

freedom and life or Humanus. But

one

should remember that many of the modern movements which are today


18/21

8

The wl

of

Minerva

29:1

Fall 1997

regarded

as

revolutionary

and

progressive, would themselves have seemed

reactionary to Hegel, to

the

extent

that

they have abandoned

the

presenta

tion

of

concrete

human

freedom

and

resorted to styles

that

seem

to

be

thoroughly

symbolic

rather

than

modern. The

savage

distortion of the

human

form by Picasso

or

De Kooning, the flattening and geometricizing

of

human

form by Leger, the deliberate evocation

of

mystery by

De

Chirico,

and

the abstract, sublime transcendentalism

of

Rothko, all echo styles of art

which Hegel associates with ancient symbolic cultures

and

so would have

seemed to him to be backward-looking, rather

than modern-offering

a

re-

duced, insufficiently determinate or, indeed, wholly abstract conception of

human

spirituality, rather

than

a concrete

modern

one.

One

could, of course, respond to such a charge by pointing out that

Hegel himself notes that art can do many things apart from giving expression to

concrete freedom and life. It can

be

satirical, critical, decorative, and

entertaining, it can explore

human

misery

and

frailty,

and

it can study the

effects of color

and

light

in

the abstract.

Why

should

we

not just allow mod

ern

artists to experiment

as

they see fit,

without

asking

them

to

do what the

Greeks, the Medievals and the Dutch did; and why can we not seek to ap

preciate

in

their own terms

the

new possibilities which modern artists are

attempting to

open

up for art?

The

problem, as far

as

Hegel

is

concerned,

is

that

whatever else

modern art

may do, if it neglects to offer us

the

concrete

intuition

of freedom and life incarnate, it effectively deprives modern life of

an

essential form

of

self-consciousness. To leave post-Hegelian artists to

their

own experimentation,

and

to seek simply to appreciate their work

on

its

own terms, would thus be to participate in what Hegel regards as the impov

erishment

of modern

experience.

s

I noted before, Hegel does

not

believe

that art

is

the

highest need

of

humanity

in

the

modern

world,

but

it remains

a need nevertheless, because

as

well

as

being thinking beings, we are

sensu-

ous, imaginative beings who require a sensuous or imaginative vision,

not

just a conceptual understanding,

of

what it is to be truly free

and

hu

man.

Without

such a vision, we lack an

important

dimension of

self-awareness,

and

so indeed lead

an

impoverished life.

One

might

add

that, even

though

most twentieth-century high art has

abandoned the

task assigned

to

art by Hegel, the popularity of soap-operas and domestic

comedies on television today bears witness to the truth

of

Hegel's claim that

we still need to see our concrete worldly freedom reflected in works of the

human imagination-though Hegel would surely have

regarded

such

programmes

as

falling woefully

short of what

was offered to

the

Dutch by

their painters

or

to the Greeks by Aristophanes.)


19/21


19

t

has been argued by some that Hegel's aesthetic theory

is

now out

moded because it

can

no longer make sense

of

an art that has emancipated

itself from beauty. Many today look to

Adorno or

to Heidegger,

rather than

Hegel, to elucidate the subtleties

of

modern art. n my view, however, Hegel's

aesthetic theory remains supremely

important

because

it

reminds us

ofwhat

we have lost

through

the so-called emancipation

of

art from beauty:

the

aesthetic expression

of

concrete freedom

and

life

in the

world. Furthermore,

Hegel reminds us

that

we

do

not need to lose this aesthetic expression

of

freedom

and ought

not to lose it. Hegel

is

critical

of

the threat posed to the

religious experience of freedom by an abstract, other-worldly conception of

God

and

by atheism.

He

is

critical

of the

threat posed to social, economic

and political freedom by the excesses

of

the free market.

And

he

is critical

of

the threat

posed to the aesthetic experience

of

freedom by excessive subjec

tivism and subversive irony. In each case Hegel's complaint is

the

same: that

the true nature

of

modern religious, political and aesthetic freedom is in

danger

of

being obscured and

undermined

by

abstract

one-sided concep

tions

of

the role

of

religion, politics

and

art.

And, in

each case, he sees it as

his

own

task to provide a

thorough

speculative critique

of

such abstractions

in order

to keep true freedom alive

in

the

modern

world.

Hegel did not believe that true religion

or

genuine political and eco

nomic freedom

had been

altogether killed offby abstraction in

the

modern

world.

Nor

did he believe

that

art

had

come to a definitive end, since he saw

above all in

the

work

of Goethe

a new

art of

Humanus arise from

the

disso

lution

of

the Romantic artform.

6

However, his persistent criticisms

of

writers

such Friedrich Schlegel, E T A Hoffmann and Heinrich von Kleist, all of

whom

anticipate features

of

later post-modernist art, show

that he

per

ceived the

continuing

threat

of

a definitive

death of

art right

until

his

own

death. To

the

extent that many artists

of

the last

one

hundred and fifty

years have sought to call into question

or

openly subvert

the

very ideal

of

concrete human freedom to which Hegel was committed, it would appear

that they have

brought

art ever closer to

the death

he

hoped to

prevent.

Whether

Hegel's aesthetic theory has

the

power to help

art

revive

at

the

beginning of the twenty-first century remains, of course, to be seen.

NOTES

1 This paper was originally presented at a conference entitled

The Ends

of

Arc

which

was held at the University of Warwick on 13-14 June, 1997 I should like to thank my


20/21

20 The Owl o fMinerva 29:1 Fall 1997)

colleague, Dr. Miguel Beistegui, for inviting

me

to participate in the conference and all

those who commented on

my

paper for their helpful and provocative remarks.

2.

D. Henrich, The Contemporary Relevance

of

Hegel's Aesthetics, in

Hegel,

ed.

M. Inwood (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985), pp. 200-01,

and

A. Danto,

The

Philosophical Disenfranchisement of

rt

{New York: Columbia University Press, 1986),

pp. 107-15.

3.

A. Gethmann-Siefert, Das moderne 'Gesamtkunstwerk:' Die Oper, in

Phiinomen

versus System. Zum Verhiiltnis von philosophischer Systematik und Kunsturteil in Hegels

Berliner Vorlesungen aber Asthetik oder Philosophie der Kunst,

ed. A. Gethmann-Siefert

(Bonn: Bouvier, 1992),

p. 221.

4.

G.

W. F.

Hegel,

Werke in zwanzig Blinden,

ed.

E.

Moldenhauer and

K

M. Michel, 20

Vols.

and

Index (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 19690,

14:

220, 231;

15:

415, 457.

For the English text see G.

W.

F.

Hegel,

Aesthetics. Lectures

on

Fine Art,

trans. T. M. Knox,

2 Vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press,

1975), 1:

593, 602;

2: 1110, 1143.

Further references will

be given in the main text in the form:

Werke, 14:

220;

A, 1:

593. The English translation

has occasionally been emended.

5. Danto, The Philosophical Disenfranchisement ofArt, p. 114.

6. The relation between art and religion in Hegel's aesthetics is explored in detail

by

William Desmond in

rt and the Absolute: A Study

of

Hegel s Aesthetics

(Albany: SUNY

Press, 1986), especially chapter three.

7.

See also

S.

Houlgate,

Freedom, Truth and History. n Introduction

to

Hegel s Phi

losophy

(London: Routledge,

1991),

pp. 162-63.

8.

G. W. F. Hegel,

The Philosophy ofHistory,

trans.

J

Sibree (New

York:

Dover Publica

tions, 1956), p. 50;

Werke,

12: 70.

urther

references will be given in the form:

Werke,

12:

70; Hegel,

The Philosophy

of

History, p.

50. The English translation has occasionally

been emended.

9. For Hegel's views on

the relative merits of the Netherlandish and Italian masters, see

Werke, 15: 125; A, 2: 883.

10.

See

also

G.

W. F.

Hegel,

Vorlesungen aber Asthetik. Berlin 1820/21. Eine Nachschrifr.

1 Textband, ed. H. Schneider (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1995), p. 245. Further refer

ences will be given in the form: Hegel,

Asthetik 1820/21,

p. 245.

11.

Craig Harbison notes that the material splendor of Jan van Eyck's religious paintings

allows figures such

as

Nicolas Rolin, who aspired to be both worldly and devout, to simu

late material riches

as

well

as

personal piety Jan van Eyck. The

Play

ofRealism [London:

Reaktion Books,

1991],

p. 190). But he also confirms Hegel's insight by drawing attention

to the

way

van Eyck's choice of setting reinforces the Real Presence of the Divine in the

painting itself. The domestic setting of the Lucca Madonna,

for

example, quite literally

brings religious

life

home to fifteenth-century viewers who increasingly wanted to

see

their own world

as

the setting for the highest truth (pp.

97,

99); and the ornate ecclesiasti

cal setting of the Dresden Triptych-especially the warm, living glow of the interior

(p. 132)-reinforces the visible physicality (p. 155)

of

the Virgin Mary and the infant Jesus

for a developing popular piety that longed, in a non-intellectual, unadulterated

way,

for a

vision of the Christ Child

p.

132).

12. Hegel,

Werke, 12:

467-68;

The Philosophy ofHistory,

pp. 389-90.

13. See also Hegel,

Werke, 12:

488;

The Philosophy ofHistory, p.

408.

14. Hegel, Werke, 12: 495; The Philosophy ofHistory, pp. 415-16.


21/21

Hegel and the End of

Art

21

15. Hegel, Werke, 12: 496; The Philosophy ofHistory, p.

416.

16. The term Netherlandish is used to refer to fourteenth-, fifteenth-, and sixteenth

century painters from the

Low

Countries (such as Jan van

Eyck

or Pieter Bruegel the Elder).

The term Dutch is used to refer to painters from the northern Low Countries (such as

Rembrandt), who lived from the seventeenth century onwards. The Dutch Republic -The

United Provinces of the Netherlands-was formed in 1579-80 after a revolt against the rule

of the Spanish Habsburgs. The term Flemish is used to refer to painters from the south

ern Low Countries (such as Rubens), who lived between the late sixteenth century and the

founding of modern-day Belgium in 1831,

but

is sometimes applied to earlier Netherland

ish painters from the southern

Low

Countries as well.

17. Andrew Graham-Dixon writes of Turner's Interior at Petworth that it evokes a strange,

elemental, primal world, a place such

as

the universe might have been before the advent of

objects

(my

italics). He also

says

of

one

of

Turner's late watercolors,

A Bedroom in Venice,

that in it

we

can see, almost as mapped out for future generations, the entire course of

what we call modern art[:] the spatial freedom of Cubism[,] the imperious free

geometry of Mondrian[,] the sublimity of the finest absrract American paintings of the

twentieth century. See A. Graham-Dixon, A History ofBritish rt (London: BBC Books,

1996), pp. 155, 159.

18. Hegel, Asthetik 1820/21,

p.

306.

19. See H.

S.

Harris, The Resurrection of Art, The Owl ofMinerva 16, 1 (Fall 1984):

7.

20. Harris, The Resurrection of Art,

p.

7: the important art of

our

western culture has

had to be philosophical because it could no longer be religious.

21.

S. Bungay, Beauty and Truth: A Study ofHegel's Aesthetics (Oxford: Oxford Univer

sity Press, 1984), p. 78.

22. The (in

my

view, mistaken) association

of

the art

of

Humanuswith

i e d e r m e i e ~

art

is

made by Dieter Henrich in The Contemporary Relevance of Hegel's Aesthetics, p.

201.

The most important discussion

of

the relation between Hegel's remarks on Humanus

in

his

lectures on

aesthetics and Goethe's poem, Die Geheimnisse, to which Hegel alludes, is

provided

by

Martin Donougho in Remarks on 'Humanus heiBt der Heilige', Hegel-Studien

17 (1982): 214-225.

23. The genre painting to which Hegel refers is identified by Annemarie Gethmann

Siefert

as

Sermon

by

Constantin Schrotter. See

Hegel in Berlin. PreuBische Kulturpolitik

und idealistische Asthetik. Zum 150. Todestag des Philosophen, ed. O. Poggeler and others

(Berlin: Staatsbibliothek Preul3ischer Kulturbesitz, 1981), pp. 236-37. For Hegel's remarks

on

this painting, see Werke, 13: 223, 15: 130; A,

1:

169,2: 887. For Hegel's remarks on the

rich poetic imagination of evil Shakespearean characters, see Werke,

15:

561.62; A

2:

1227-28.

24. On Goethe, see also Hegel, Werke, 12: 4334; The Philosophy ofHistory, p. 360. The

poems in Goethe's West-6stlicher Divan are actually understood

by

Hegel to belong to the

transitional form (Obergangsform)

of

objective humor, rather than to the art of Humanus

itself. However, Hegel's remark that Persian and Arab poetry affords a brilliant example

even for the present suggests

that

he also considered it appropriate for those seeking to

give aesthetic expression to Humanus to draw

on

Near Eastern models in their art. On the

art of objective humor, which

falls

between the art of ironic, subjective humor and the

art of Humanus, see Werke, 14: 239-42; A, 1: 608-11.

25. R. Hughes, The Shock of he New (London: BBC Publications, 1980), p. 21.

26. See Hegel,

Asthetik 1820/21,

pp. 181-82.

hegel and the end of art

Documents