Aesthetics and cultural theory

Introduction

Hegel gives his philosophy on art that is, as a whole, his main philosophical system. For us, to comprehend his philosophy of art we must understand his philosophy as a whole. Similar with Aristotle’s way of thinking, Hegel believes that the investigation of logic could lead to a key system of reality. Thus, logic is being characterised as dialectical. Poetryfor Hegel seem not to have something physical as a sculpture. In that way, musicaccording to him is the least spiritual form of art. On the other hand, Kant stated as an important matter that a generic explanation of the world could lead to an oppositeobservation. But Hegel explained that those two notions could be integrated by a move to a different way of thinking. Consequently, our mind moves from thesis, to antithesis, to synthesis[4]. This could be seen in history, nature and cultural progress. All the thinking consists by the idea (thesis), which antithesis is nature, while combining (synthesis) the two it forms the spirit.

This could also be named as the ‘ absolute’ itself and is examined in more detail in Hegel’s ‘ Phenomenology of Spirit’ as a transformation from subjective to objective to the absolute spirit.

‘ Freedom in appearance, autonomy in appearance […] that the object appears as free, not that it really is so’’

However, in Hegel’s view on beauty, is being described as the complete manifestation of freedom. It can be seen or sound like a sensory expression. Hegel moves a step further to explain that beauty can be created by nature but as he calls a ‘ sensuous’ beauty’ it can only be found through art which can be produced by people. For him, beauty has symmetrical qualities. It has elements that are not organised in a framework but are joined organically. We were told, as he explains, that the Greek outline is beautiful, because the nose is flawless under the forehead while the Roman human profile has more sharper angles between them. Nevertheless, beauty’s importance is not only the shape but also the content. Modern art-theorists disagree with Hegel’s theory of beauty and art. They claim that art can include any content. This content is described in religion as God, then a beautiful art could be seen as angelic. Nonetheless, Hegel insists that Godly art is through a humankind form as freedom. He understands that piece of art could consists of nature such as plants or animals but he thinks that art is responsible to show the angelic form, as mentioned before. Only a human can represent reason and spirit through colors and sounds.

References

Hegel G. W. F., Hegel’s Aesthetics: Lectures on fine art, Know, vol. 1 (Oxford: University Press, 2010)

Hegel G. W. F., Hegel: Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion: Volume II: Determinate Religion: Determinate Religion v. 2 (Oxford: University Press, 2007)

Stephen, Houlgate, ‘ Hegel’s aesthetics’, (The Stanford Encyclopedia of philosophy, 2009)[accessed 15 Mar 2011]

Schiller, Friedrich, ‘ Kallias or Concerning Beauty: Letters to Gottfried Korner”, in Classical and Romantic German Aesthetics’, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003)