Hegel's Aesthetics

Abstract

Abstract Hegel’s Aesthetics: The Art of Idealism is the first comprehensive interpretation of Hegel’s philosophy of art in English in thirty years. In a new analysis of Hegel’s notorious “end of art” thesis, it argues for a variety of ways art ends, including historical, conceptual, and prosaic endings. It shows the indispensability of Hegel’s aesthetics for understanding his philosophical idealism and introduces a new claim about his account of aesthetic experience. In contrast to previous interpretations, it argues for considering Hegel’s discussion of individual arts—architecture, sculpture, painting, music, and poetry—on their own terms, unlocking new insights about his theories of perception, feeling, selfhood, and freedom. This new approach allows Hegel’s philosophy to engage with modern aesthetic theories and opens new possibilities for applying Hegel’s aesthetics to contemporary art. Hegel’s Aesthetics also clarifies why Hegel is known as the “father of art history” by elucidating his controversial analysis of symbolic, classical, and romantic art and by clarifying his examples of each. By incorporating newly available sources from Hegel’s lectures on art, it expands our understanding of the particular artworks Hegel discusses as well as the theories he rejects. Hegel’s Aesthetics situates his arguments in the intense philosophizing about art among his contemporaries, including Kant, Lessing, Herder, Schelling, and the Schlegel brothers. It gives us a rich vision of the foundation of his ideas about art and the range of their application, confirming Hegel as one of the most important theorists of art in the history of philosophy.

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