Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831)

   The Philosophy of Fine Art   [selection in Goldblatt and Brown] written: 1820-1829 
German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel  1770-1831
Books Hegel Published in his lifetime 
•	The Difference Between Fichte’s and Schelling’s Systems of Philosophy [1801] 
•	Phenomenology of Mind [1807]  
•	Science of Logic  [1812-16] 
•	Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences [1817-30] 
–	(Pt. I) The Logic of Hegel, 
–	(Pt. II) Hegel's Philosophy of Nature 
–	(Pt. III) Hegel's Philosophy of Mind 
•	Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821]  

Books Published After his Death 
•	Lectures on Aesthetics [our reading]
•	Lectures on the Philosophy of History 1837 
•	Lectures on Philosophy of Religion 
•	Lectures on the History of Philosophy 

Birthplace of Hegel in Stuttgart, Germany 
Hegel with students
Lithograph by F. Kugler 
Current Conceptions of a Work of Art
•	A work of art is no product of Nature but of man.
•	It is created essentially for man, uses a sensuous medium [such as paint in painting], and is addressed to his senses.
•	It contains an end [a purpose] bound up with it  [explained in the last section]
False inferences.
•	One could infer from the first point that such an activity can be known, divulged, learned, and reproduced by others.
•	Also, one could infer that the imitator needs only master the way of doing it, and that anybody may produce works of art once they are acquainted with the rules of art production.  
•	Yet, such works can only be formally regular and mechanical, something exterior requiring only an empty effort of will and dexterity.
•	It is not a matter of contributing out of [one's] own resources.  [This point is similar to Kant.]
Animation of a work of art.
•	Ordinary thinking naturally assumes that works of art are subordinate to works of Nature, possessing no feeling of their own, since they are dead things.  
•	We admit that the work of art merely shows animation on its surface, and is merely stone etc., but this element of external existence is not what makes a work a creation of fine art.
Art originates in the human spirit
•	“A work of art is only truly such in so far as originating in the human spirit, it continues to belong to the soil from which it sprang”
•	It has received the baptism of the mind and soul of man.

The higher rank of landscape paintings over actual landscapes.
•	The spiritual values of a single event, character, etc. are seized in the work of art with greater purity and clarity.
•	So it is of higher rank than any product of Nature that hasn’t passed through the mind.
•	For example the landscape painting is of higher rank than purely natural landscape.
•	“Everything which partakes of spirit is better than anything begotten by mere Nature.”
•	Art, unlike Nature, is able to represent divine ideals.
Joseph Mallord William Turner English Romantic Painter, Watercolorist & Draftsman 
1775 – 1851  The Burning of the Houses of Parliament: 1834

Contemporary photo Houses of Parliament at night, London
2. Sensuous medium.
•	Art is produced for man's sense-apprehension [for example, seeing] under obligations to a sensuous medium [for example, paint]. 
•	[Some infer from this] that the function of fine art is to arouse feeling, precisely pleasant feeling.  
•	The investigation of fine art becomes, then, a treatise on the emotions, determining which feelings art ought to excite, i.e. fear and compassion.
Contemplating misfortune.
•	For example it might be noted that contemplating misfortune through art can bring satisfaction  [Aristotle first observed this, although Hegel dates the idea to Moses Mendelssohn, a German-Jewish philosopher 1729 – 1786 who wrote “On sentiments” in 1755] 

But feeling is the undefined obscure region of spiritual life. 
•	“What is felt remains cloaked in the form of separate personal experience…”
•	And the distinctions of feeling are wholly abstract: they do not give us any knowledge of   the subject-matter itself. 
•	Fear, anxiety, etc., are one type of emotion under various modifications:  they are in part purely quantitative degrees of intensity, and are also indifferent to content. 
Fear
•	In fear, for example, the individual possesses an interest in the existence [of a thing, e.g. a tiger] which is fused with the negative affection [feeling], but this fear does not condition any particular content.
•	It is a wholly empty form of a subjective state.
•	It sheds no light on essential content [e.g. of the feeling of justice].
•	The feeling remains purely subjective, and the concrete fact vanishes.
3. The End of Art
•	What is the End which man proposes to himself in the creation of the content embodied by a work of art?  (A detailed discussion of this will give us the “true notional content” or essence of art. [like Plato and Aristotle])
•	One of the most prevalent ideas is the principle of the imitation of Nature.  The idea is that we get the most complete satisfaction of Nature is successfully imitated.  [Gombrich]
Against the Imitation View
•	But this is only the aim of bare [superfluous] repetition. 
•	This is presumptuous trifling, for it lags behind Nature, and can only produce one-sided illusions, a semblance of real fact addressed to one sense.  [Similar to Plato’s point.] 
•	Also it gives us only a pretense of Nature's substance.
Muslims: no copies of men.
•	[That is why the] Turk [meaning, more generally, Mohammedans or Muslims] will have no pictures or copies of men and other objects
•	[On this view] the body is given, but no living soul. 
Left, “James Bruce, Scottish explorer of the Nile.” by Dofter Esther.  On the right is  “A Learned Abyssinian at Gondar” whom Bruce knew. 
Fine architectural detail at the Alhambra Palace [Muslim]  in Southern Spain. 1333-1391
Ethiopian church art 18th century
•	“These pictures will rise up in judgment against their creators on the Last Day.” Mohammed
Al-Muwatta Hadith  Hadith 54.8, Koran
JUAN FERNANDEZ, EL LABRADOR, Spainish, Madrid
Still Life with Two Bunches of Grapes, 1620-1630.  Said to have been inspired by Zeuxis’ grapes.
•	There are completely deceptive imitations:  painted grapes of Zeuxis.

Franz Rösel von Rosenhoff Austrian, born after 1626-died after 1700 Trompe l'oeil of a capuchin monkey in his crate (The cheeky monkey) 
•	Bultner's monkey bit a painted cockchafer in a Rösel  illustration.

•	August Johann Roesel von Rosenhof,
•	Insecten Belustigung ([1746]--61),
The business of imitation.
•	But it is foolish to think the quality of a work is enhanced if the last word about it is that it deceives even doves and monkeys.
•	So, in the mere business of imitation, art cannot maintain its rivalry with Nature.

Pleasure in producing a resemblance.
•	We then have no end left here but pleasure in [the magic] of producing a resemblance to Nature.
•	If the copy must follow slavishly the thing copied the delight becomes null and cold, or bring surfeit [excess or overindulgence].
•	As Kant said, we become soon tired of a man who can imitate a nightingale's song perfectly:  we take it to be but a clever trick, neither Nature nor art.
We expect more from the free creative power of man.

•	We like the nightingale's song when it resembles the rhythmic flood of human feeling from the native springs of its life.
•	Our necessarily-restricted delight in imitation is contrasted to enjoyment in man's own invention, even of insignificant technical products. 
•	We may feel more proud of the invention of the hammer [than of a highly realistic painting].

•	Abstract zest in imitation is like the man who threw lentils through a small hole [hard to do, but not too admirable], and was rewarded by Alexander with some lentils.

The proper end of art is higher than moral improvement. 
•	It is false that art has to serve moral ends, be didactic [teaching] and ameliorative [improving]:  it would then have its essential aim not in itself but in something else.
•	"What is the end?" does not imply "what is the use?"
•	Art is not merely a useful instrument for realizing an end outside the realm of art. 
Art’s Function
•	Art's function is to reveal truth under the mode of art's sensuous or material configuration, and prove that it possesses its final aim in itself.  [This is against both Plato and Kant, who thought art could give us no knowledge.  Hegel is more like Aristotle here.]
It should represent its own self-revelation.
•	Instruction, purification, improvement, etc. have nothing to do with the work of art as such.
•	This point of view leads to the fundamental idea of art in terms of its ideal or inward necessity.
•	True appreciation of art takes its origin from this.
An antithesis overcome.
•	There was an antithesis between spirit and nature found in educated men and in philosophy itself, and when philosophy overcame this opposition, it found its own content, and that of Nature and of art.
•	The reawakening of philosophy [by Hegel himself in his other writings] implies the re-awakening of the science of art [aesthetics] concerning its true origination.
•	This also allows us to more highly appreciate art. 

•	Sistine Madonna Raphael,
•	1513-1514
•	Oil on canvas 265 × 196 
•	Dresden
•	Hegel saw this painting.
Jan van Eyck 1390 – 1441
The Ghent altarpiece: Adoration of the Lamb
oil on panel (138 × 242 cm) — 1432
Saint Bavo Cathedral, Ghent.  Hegel saw the central panel of this painting.

Rembrandt The Militia Company of Captain Frans Banning Cocq 1642.  Hegel saw this painting.

Bartolomé Estéban Murillo (1618-1682)  Old Woman and Boy ("La Vieja"), 
around 1670
Stephen Houlgate, “Hegel Aesthetics,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2009)  http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hegel-aesthetics/  accessed March 7, 20111
•	“Art, for Hegel, [like Religion and Philosophy] gives expression to spirit's understanding of itself. It differs from philosophy and religion, however, by expressing spirit's self-understanding not in pure concepts, or in the images of faith, but in and through objects that have been specifically made for this purpose by human beings. Such objects—conjured out of stone, wood, color, sound or words—render the freedom of spirit visible or audible to an audience. In Hegel's view, this sensuous expression of free spirit constitutes beauty. The purpose of art, for Hegel, is thus the creation of beautiful objects in which the true character of freedom is given sensuous expression.
Aim of Art
•	The principal aim of art is not, therefore, to imitate nature, to decorate our surroundings, to prompt us to engage in moral or political action, or to shock us out of our complacency. It is to allow us to contemplate and enjoy created images of our own spiritual freedom—images that are beautiful precisely because they give expression to our freedom. Art's purpose, in other words, is to enable us to bring to mind the truth about ourselves, and so to become aware of who we truly are. Art is there not just for art's sake, but for beauty's sake, that is, for the sake of a distinctively sensuous form of human self-expression and self-understanding.”

Beauty is Objective
•	“Hegel [unlike Kant, holds that] beauty is an objective property of things. In his view, however, beauty is the direct sensuous manifestation of freedom, not merely the appearance or imitation of freedom. It shows us what freedom actually looks like and sounds like when it gives itself sensuous expression (albeit with varying degrees of idealization). Since true beauty is the direct sensuous expression of the freedom of spirit, it must be produced by free spirit for free spirit, and so cannot be a mere product of nature. Nature is capable of a formal beauty, and life is capable of what Hegel calls “sensuous” beauty (PK, 197), but true beauty is found only in works of art that are freely created by human beings to bring before our minds what it is to be free spirit. 
Formal qualities
•	Beauty, for Hegel, has certain formal qualities: it is the unity or harmony of different elements in which these elements are not just arranged in a regular, symmetrical pattern but are unified organically... [a Greek sculptural] profile is beautiful… because the forehead and the nose flow seamlessly into one another, in contrast to the Roman profile in which there is a much sharper angle between the forehead and nose (Aesthetics, 2: 727–30). 
Beauty as Content
•	Beauty, however, is not just a matter of form; it is also a matter of content… the freedom and richness of spirit… the Idea, or absolute reason, as self-knowing spirit. Since the Idea is pictured in religion as “God,” the content of truly beautiful art is in one respect the divine. Yet… the Idea (or “God”) comes to consciousness of itself only in and through finite human beings. The content of beautiful art must thus be the divine in human form or the divine within humanity itself (as well as purely human freedom)... the most appropriate sensuous incarnation of reason and the clearest visible expression of spirit is the human form…. Truly beautiful art thus shows us sculpted, painted or poetic images of Greek gods or of Jesus Christ—that is, the divine in human form—or it shows us images of free human life itself.