Other than that, our evidence is mostly second-hand. A few paragraphs of his Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences, in particular in the version published in 1830, shortly before his death in 1831, are dedicated to artistic themes. The influence of Hegel’s writings on art is all the more remarkable given the lack of any ‘writings’ to talk of. To see more art, please visit /photos/venantius/albums Hegel’s Lectures on Aesthetics But to overlook Hegelian philosophy would be to impoverish the intellectual enterprise of art history. Twenty-first century art historians have often been reluctant to engage with Hegel head-on. But he can help us articulate what an ambitious philosophy of art – across peoples, cultures, and civilisations – might accomplish. To be sure, Hegel does not have all the answers. How should we explain the need for certain artistic forms and practices at different times? Can we find patterns across cultures? Is it possible to understand the rise and fall of certain artistic practices over time and across space? If so, what might this make known? And what, in philosophical terms, does the history of art reveal about mankind’s past, present, and future?Īs we navigate such questions, Hegel can serve as unparalleled guide. But the fundamental questions that Hegel posed, no less than his frameworks for tackling them, endure: What do we mean by ‘art’? What does art make known, and how? In what ways might artworks help us to think about the past? And what exactly might the historical study of art accomplish? A knotty nexus of secondary issues ensues. Over the last two hundred years, art historians have taken issue with any number of Hegel’s conclusions. Not only did Hegel instil a ‘historicising’ impulse into the study of art, he also examined the history of artistic production – across peoples, cultures and civilisations – to tell a story about the past, present, and future of philosophy. As Ernst Gombrich famously put it, Hegel might be considered ‘the father of art history’, at least as practised by modern-day art historians.
In doing so, he has also exerted an influence across modern-day arts and humanities departments. But Hegel arguably did more than any of his predecessors to intertwine the study of art with philosophy. Later, in Enlightenment Germany, this tradition was formalised into the study of ‘aesthetics’ – the term favoured by Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten in the mid-eighteenth century, derived from the Greek verb ‘to perceive’ ( aisthanesthai). It is a legacy that stretches back to the ancient Greeks, above all to Plato and Aristotle.
In the Western critical tradition, there is a venerable history of putting philosophy into dialogue with art, and vice versa. For Hegel, this included not just the study of the visual arts (including architecture, sculpture, and painting), but also the critique of literature and music, among other media. What we today call ‘art history’ was fundamental to Hegel’s project. For my money, he is the ultimate interdisciplinary thinker. But working in an age before the subject divisions of modern-day universities, Hegel practised something that went way beyond ‘philosophy’ alone. Love him or loathe him, Hegel has proven to be one of the most influential thinkers of Western academe. Mention the name ‘Hegel’ among art historians, and you’ll likely be met with a blank expression, or else with fear and trepidation.
SUBSCRIBE NOW Hegel & History Hegel, ‘The Father of Art History’? Michael Squire scrutinises Hegel’s historical ideas about aesthetics.
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