This is a distillation of the ideas recovered from Hegel’s Introductory Lectures on Aesthetics. His impact is immeasurable, having influenced framers of western society such as Marx, Heidegger, and finally Baudrillard, who took us beyond Hegel. He is the grandfather of the term ‘zeitgeist’, which references a common feeling or aesthetic a community shares during a particular time. Art is the manifestation of these thoughts and impressions of a people across time, enabling us to piece together a coherent telling of human history, and its progression into what has come to be known as ‘post-modern’. It wasn't until Baudrillard, in 1981, took us into post-modern territory that we surpassed Hegel’s logic. Our focus will remain on all mankind previous to that, so that we may not lose sight of the scale of the human endeavor.
Hegel believes we became modern by first becoming sentient, wielding nature, and recognizing that it is our ability to build beyond ourselves that makes us human. Modernity, according to Hegel, begins in his time, around 1800, all men narcissistically believe the world is ending in their time. We'll follow Hegel’s logic to convince us why he was so lucky. Today we are tasked with understanding our appreciation of art, how it became so rooted in our lives, and how we use it to separate ourselves from nature. Artistic beauty stands higher than that of nature, for it stands separate and beyond which is produced determinately, according to the requirements of the environment in nature. Hegel explains the development of levels in art comprehension, which extend into the production of art itself. My feelings are that this comprehension extends into an understanding of life broadly, for a well formed life evades any formulaic process. A formula for art appreciation hasn't been calculated and tamed by the scientific process. The human capacity of plastic production is beyond the scope of the rules and regularity observed in scientific thought, for creative activities, born of imagination, are free from the rules and regularity in nature. Art is capable of representing divine ideals, unlike nature, which is bound by the laws of physics, the climate of particular regions, or the mode of biological reproduction. Science deals with what is strictly necessary, treating art in the same way reduces it to abstract simplicity, removed from reality. We must state early that, without the structure of Science, there can be no laws regarding universal taste, the themes of cultures from around the world cooperate towards Ideas beyond the barriers produced by distance or language. The beautiful transcends subjective feelings for taste is unable to distinguish universal principles, and the indications towards it in particular works. Man uses art as its tool to escape the formality required by nature, Dasein, being thrown into a super-sensuous world, looks around to find nothing one can relate to. He flees from the alienation of nature by externalizing attributes of himself, realizing himself physically, rescuing himself from the trap of immediacy through the permanence maintained in art, nature demands individuals, particularities, remain transient by definition. Art upholds a standard of fitness according to the concepts it aims to express. In immortalizing a smile in a photograph it grants permanence to a fleeting moment of happiness. In reflecting on the photo, man compares his immediate person against the happiness that once was. A smile can be demonstrated by a simple drawing with pen and paper, however, a smile is evidence of a uniquely human passion and can only be realized by one embodying joy. It allows for the recognition of an Ideal by determining the fitness of an image to its abstract concept. “Fine art is the reconciliation between pure thought and what is external, sensuous and transitory between nature with its finite actuality and the infinite freedom of the reason that comprehends it.(pg. 10)” This thinking does not aim to grasp itself as its particular form but to recognize itself in the other, “translating dispersed abstract particulars back into definite thoughts, thus restoring oneself.(pg. 15)” The realization of abstractions in art is the function of Spirit by virtue of it being a product of a thinking and contemplating consciousness. The Spirit is a concept not separate from reality, but intrinsically tends to realize itself. The need for self-production extends across other mediums, not only external things but oneself, their natural form and mind, the human spirit is evidence of this process. A cultivated person tends to realize themselves physically and mentally, displaying strength and discipline by practicing weightlifting and socially through an established career and network of like minded peers. Art is the revelation of the human spirit. What is Art? Art can not be made through natural processes but is realized by human activity. It was created for the pleasure of man, borrowed from his sensuous surroundings and addressed to himself. Art intends to excite the passions and emotions of man, one is indifferent to whether the effect is produced in the external environment or by other means, for the content of art is “all that finds a place in the mind of man.” A common objection to the lower status of nature is the argument that nature carries a divine right by being a product of the hands of God, whereas the works of humans are limited. This misconception implies God isn't capable of working through the hands and mind of man, instead divinity is in an operative mode within man that is appropriate to the essence of God. Logical ideas, thoughts, make up the core of the human mind, temporal only at the phase of spirit. Through art, God descends from obscurity and becomes a logical Idea, or Concept, forming a trinity with Nature and Man/Spirit. “A child's first impulse involves the practical modification of external things” i.e., they throw stones into a river, and stand admiring the circles which emanate across time and space from his doing. One relates to things using reason and logic to find himself in nature, thereby reproducing the inner essence of himself. Man’s consciousness is developed in two ways, first bringing his own mind to consciousness, by reflecting on works external to himself; secondly, by impacting his environment to strip the outer world of its alienation. This evokes a self-consciousness, an understanding that objectifies one's own Being, making it available to study. He satisfies his escape from the material world by producing works that are reflective of his inner being but wholly avoid a reproduction of himself. An artist is a craftsman which transforms the worldly into something digestible to himself, and in turn, their peers. Nature must be conquered before the production of art can take place, we do so by identifying what is beholden to us and consuming it, making an individual a mere concentration of the universal product they’ve consumed. Levels of Apprehension A completed work has a purpose in mind, although its creation is the free play of an effervescent individual mind, the work ultimately aims to translate a higher message. An artist lets their subconsciousness produce ideals out of universal validity, resisting the urge to self-edit, or unnecessarily injecting philosophy and intention into something that is to be ingested wholly and singularly. In our lowest mode of being man is propelled by the mere instinct and passions of his animal connection to nature. The mind recognizes objects in a purely sensuous apprehension, it naturally consists in looking, listening, feeling, and passive cognition. They do not open their mind to senses through the universal but in their particular being, remaining grounded in the moment. In order to satisfy his need for self-preservation he sacrifices, and consumes them, stripping the independence and freedom from it. This binds the individual to their impulses, he does not determine himself out of essential universality nor the rationality of his will but his desires. This aids in the distinction between natural items, trees to be used as lumber, or animals to be eaten, and a work of art, although art is often treated in the same manner. Taken further, if man objectifies the otherness of his peers, and acts through his desire, it can only result in destruction of the other. Desire consumes the whole being of man, so that he’s unable to separate himself as a universal being, separate from determinateness. His aim is to satiate the passions that immediately bore him, but by using reflection he begins to understand that his impulses are external to himself and open to manipulation. Art escapes practical desires of things in nature, for art is not serviceable to animalistic needs, and reveals itself to be useful in other modes. Art is an independent object one relates with as it appeals to the theoretical side of the mind. The reflection of art then reveals that its notion has the capacity to mitigate the intensity of desires. During theoretical contemplation one has no interest in consuming things in their particular but instead relates to them in their universal. All things outside of the self become alien. It is conceiving of things according to their notion, the universal which preserves itself in its particularizations, dominates alike itself and its others. As so, theoretical contemplation becomes the activity of undoing the alienation which has evolved from the notion. Desire isn't capable of displaying universality because the sensuous particularity can only be concerned with the individual. Theoretical contemplation invests itself in scientific inquiry by providing structure to the universal abstract, crudely quantifying enjoyment, and since science can only concern itself with practical inquiry, abstract contemplation falls to the level of desire. By transforming a concrete object into a theoretical abstraction it divests itself from the sensuous phenomenon that is the object. In contrast, artistic contemplation accepts the work of art just as it displays itself qua external, in immediateness, and sensuous individuality. Artistic contemplation cherishes the interest of the object as an individual existence and not set to work to transmute it into its universal thought and notion. Art must maintain the semblance of the sensuous, for if one were propelled by consumptive impulses they would work to materially or theoretically deconstruct through abstraction. Sensuous presence, while not ceasing to be sensuous, is liberated from the apparatus of material nature, thus the sensuous in art ranks higher than that of the immediate existence of things in nature. It occupies the space between the immediate sensuous and ideal thought. One must maintain that a work of art is separate from the subject but is instead for it. Art presents itself not for its own sake but with the purpose of satisfaction of a higher spiritual interest; the sensuous is spiritualized by it being a product of man. The artist must behave in the same manner as art, balancing between the element of sensuousness and immediateness. The genuine mode of production constitutes the activity of artistic fancy, a process of extruding consciousness but not contemplating oneself until it does so in sensuous form. At this point we have come close to the pinnacle of artistic contemplation but before productive expression can begin one must pass through the phase of espirit, or one who prevents the universal from emerging in his own life. “He may have all the main stakes in life understood, and maintain a substantive interest in what motivates himself and his peers but fails to apprehend this content in the form of its notion, nor is able to explain it to others in general reflections. He lives solipsistically, trapped in his capacity to explain his particular self and what occupies his mind to others. His imagination rests on his recreation of past experiences, relying on preservation instead of reflection, restricting the universal.(pg. 45)” In turn, an artist holds the capacity of creation of ideas and shapes, by demonstrating his ability to address the most profound and universal human interests in definite sensuous representations. Through the creation of art man externalizes himself, grasp his immediate being as momentary, and projects his thoughts and feelings into the future and into the lives of those who perceive his work. Everyone has the capacity to create art but due to it being an unconscious activity it takes substantial talent to attain art in its highest form. By aspiring to an artistic-life one makes plain to himself and others the motivations and attention necessary to form a comprehensive understanding of their life. The Ideal of Art Its content must be worthy of representation and should not be anything abstract in itself. The correspondence of the Idea and its plastic embodiment develop levels of excellency in art according to the realization of its Idea. The beautiful in art is not the Idea, which logic apprehends as the absolute, but how the Idea has been made into a concrete form fit for reality. The Idea must be defined in and through itself in concrete totality, thereby possessing its own particularization. For example, It was impossible to represent God as a total abstraction until He created Jesus, this developed into a Trinity of Persons into a One: Essentiality, Universality, and Particularity. The Christian God can only be represented in human form and man’s intellectual capacity, because God Himself is completely known in Himself as mind. How reality is molded into conformity with the conception of the Idea it's trying to develop, is the Ideal. The Ideal is not to be understood, any content may be fit to represent the subject according to the standard of its own nature, but it has no claim to the artistic beauty of the Ideal. Art is not solely a technical pursuit, the principle of imitation is purely formal, to reduce art to mere imitation of the natural world is insulting to the beautiful itself. These works fall short of an Ideal by incorporating a quantitative measure to its accuracy, and require superfluous labor to achieve the desired levels of mimicry. Quality is not determined by the defects in a work of art; defectiveness of form arises from defectiveness of content, for even defective art can be technically perfect, the ugly is a misunderstanding of a work’s concept. What is ugly is the result of superfluously abstracting a concept or an immature reflection on that which is ideal to the concept. Higher quality art holds the capacity to be contemplative toward sacred ideals. This pronounces that art does not contain its ideal within itself but is rooted in something beyond, making art a means to an end. The mitigation of passion releases man from his thrownness and becomes conscious of them as something external to him, towards which he must now enter into an ideal relationship with himself. Thus, the supreme goal of art is the improvement of mankind, it aims to purify the passions, not to simply provide pleasure and entertainment. Our method is reduced to an ought, it is not a direct representation of Idea as such, nor technical pursuit, but a good faith effort at the hands of an artist. Beauty is the unification of the rational and the sensuous, and this unification to be genuinely real. The universal and particular, freedom and necessity, of the spiritual and the natural, make up the essence of art. They come together not by denying its antithesis but by recognizing the other and forming a clear understanding of the conflict and its higher level resolution. Art therefore has the vocation of revealing truth in the form of sensuous artistic shape, out of the immediately sensuous and its inward abstractions. Women are more often the subject matter because it is in their character to combine the spiritual and the natural, spontaneously and immediately, an achievement of beauty. Art consciousness is developed by the expansion and reconciliation of the particularities of the Idea, a deeper understanding of a concept allows for a wide array of representation within a piece, and more concrete Ideas generate their true shape through a kind of imminence. Divisions of the Subject The content of art is the Idea, and its form lies in the plastic use of images accessible to the senses. Art along human history can be broken up into three epochs of creation, Symbolic, Classical, and Romantic. The first form of art does not possess individuality which the Ideal demands, it's a mere searching for its plastic portrayal, not genuine representation. The concept it aims to represent has not yet found the true form of itself, and therefore continues to struggle and aspires. Before written language, cave paintings described the available resources in the area through a semblance of the actual; buffalo and water were drawn into rudimentary maps to aid others seeking to satisfy their needs, not for explicit contemplation. This continues until the Idea is not satisfied in natural objects and takes to exploiting and exaggerating attributes to a level unrecognized in nature, introducing sublimity to representation, or going beyond itself. Natural objects are capable of interpreting the Idea because they contain universal meaning, but are only referenced through an abstract attribute; a lion is a symbol of strength. Natural phenomena and the human shapes are accepted, and left as they were, though at the same time understood to be inadequate to their significance, which is exalted far above any earthly content. “In spite of all aspiration and endeavor the reciprocal inadequacy of shape and Idea remains insuperable.(pg. 85)” Art comprehension graduates to the Classical age when the physical form becomes an appropriate embodiment of the Idea. In classical art the particularity of the content consists in being itself a concrete idea, and, as such, the concrete spiritual. Idea must search within Nature for what possesses free individual spirituality, and discovers it in the human form. The classical phase is the perfect conformity between the spiritual and sensuous existence. Greek mythology is the culmination of this artistic ideal of myths, Stoicism and the power to formally wield nature, the absolute limit of imagination in worldly form. Mythology adheres to the immediacy art should maintain, however, as we look back on the classical age we inject philosophical interpretation into its stories. Prometheus bringing fire to man is interpreted as the abstract gift of intelligence, instead of accepting the gift of fire as literal fact. Classical art fails by restricting the Idea to the human mind, not realizing it as a universal being, limiting the ideal to the human form. The Greek god is a product of incomplete ideals and limited imagination, therefore has the bodily shape of man. “The circle of his power and of his being is individual and individually limiting. It has attained the highest excellence, of which the sensuous embodiment of art is capable.”(pg. 86) If art, at this stage, is in any way defective, it is in art as a whole, in the limitations of its sphere. This limitation stems from the object of art being the Mind, a conception that is infinite concrete universality. “Mind cannot be represented according to its true notion, for mind is the infinite subjectivity of the Idea (pg. 87)”, and remains tied to the bodily medium as the existence appropriate to it. "Man breaks the boundary of merely potential and immediate consciousness, so that just for the reason that he knows himself to be animal, he ceases to be animal, and as Mind, attains to self-knowledge." If the unity of the human and divine nature is elevated from the immediate to a conscious unity, it follows that the true medium of content is no longer the immediate human shape but self-conscious inward intelligence. Spirit finally frees man’s inner world from his bodily form by unifying his nature with the beyond of possibility and allows spirit to pursue it, this development pushes us into the final phase of art comprehension, Romanticism. Romanticism is a byproduct of the “invention” monotheism, which provides an absolute that can be distributed to the many. Christianity, made available through Jesus, brings God before our intelligence as spirit, or mind - not as a particularized individual spirit, but as absolute and in truth. For this reason Christianity retires from the sensuousness into intellectual inwardness. The unity of the human and divine nature is to be realized by spiritual knowledge, or kinship with Jesus. Thus the new content, won by this unity, is not inseparable from sensuous representation, but is freed from immediate existence. The final stage of art is free concrete intellectual being, which has the function of revealing itself as spiritual existence for the inner world of self. It is this inner world that forms the content of the Romantic. Romanticism is what defines man as modern, allowing us to escape the bindings of an Essential reality, into spiritual human freedom. Degrees of Fine Art Not all art is created equal, it’s initially revealed in the maturity of the concept a piece of art attempts to convey. Though everyday items such as knives and forks are considered art, higher forms attempt to develop a whole world-process rather than some peripheral aspect of it, contributing more to the development of man’s (spirit) self-consciousness than the production, use and contemplation of knives and forks. Its status is also shaped by the limitations within the medium itself. Artistic comprehension that is grounded by desire is limited in its possibilities, its art is determined by impulse. Man acknowledges his separation from nature by recognizing his immediacy and developing a self-consciousness. Consciousness makes God its object, in which the distinction of objectivity and subjectivity is done away with and we advance from God as such to the devotion of the community, for God is living and present in all members of subjective consciousness. The community is the spiritual reflection into itself, and is the animating subjectivity and inner life which brings about the diverse representation of Idea across all mediums. These three modes of apprehension present themselves in the world through linear development. Fine art can only present itself to two senses, sight and hearing. Smell, taste, and feeling have to do with its physical matter, and by observing art in these ways the object is tampered with; art must maintain its independence through its permanence. Fine dining cannot be considered high art due to its explicit satisfaction of desires, relieving hunger thus destroying the dishes independence. Over the course of the meal its arrangement changes visually from what the “artist” initially lays down, putting its perception in the hands of the patron, all the while changing materially by reduced temperature or chemical processes within the dish itself. The physical senses restrict man to the material world. Architecture presents itself one step removed from nature, a structure pioneers a space for adequate realization of the Idea. Its form is more or less determined by the use of the structure and the materials available for construction. For what takes place within a structure defines its meaning, not the shape it maintains, though, the mass and space of a building is intrinsically connected to its value as a piece, in its immediacy. It is, however, unable to break from the laws of physics, nature, to develop new abstract understandings of the Idea, grounding it in symmetry. For these reasons architecture remains a symbolic art but within the temple individuality permeates the inert mass, while the infinite and no longer material mind concentrates itself and gives shape to the corresponding bodily existence. Sculpture places the spirit before us in its bodily form and in immediate unity with spiritual and the sensuous. It represents that which is solid in itself, not broken up or unstable but standing firm and singular. Its form must be animated by one’s content of spiritual individuality. Primarily through the human body, Classical art begins to take aim at the mind of the individual. At its highest achievement sculpture shatters into the multitudinous inner lives of individuals, whose unity is not sensuous but purely Ideal, later progressing into a common religion among peoples. God is the alternation between His unity with himself and his realization in the individual’s knowledge and in its separate being, as also in the common nature and union of peoples. “In the community, God is released from the abstraction of unexpanded self-identity, as well as from the simple absorption in a bodily medium, by which sculpture represents Him… He is thus exalted into spiritual existence and into knowledge, into the reflected appearance which essentially displays itself as inward and as subjectivity… God, through self-manifestation, is human passion, action, and incident, and in general, the wide realm of human feeling, will, and its negation - is for its own sake the object of artistic representation.”(pg 92) In conformity with the content of mind (God), art has transcended the sensuous external and is solely subjective inwardness. Media that escape the material, are represented by visual illusion, musical sound, and language; these are indications of inward perceptions and concepts, shared by the community. The visual arts are of the first order removed from the external world, the lack of operative heavy matter, like architecture, or the complete sensuous attributes of space, in sculpture, elevates paintings to the abstract or, for the mind exclusively. Paintings use contrast and illusion to produce theoretical space. Its range of expression is more diverse than the mediums previously discussed, the content of painting includes the whole realm of particular existence, the highest embodiment of the mind down to the most isolated object of nature, are available for representation. Mountains may be scaled down, spared from their fate of constant erosion and deterioration. Illusion allows for nature to enter the realm of art by escaping its transients, gaining permanence, while staying clear of all efforts of mere duplication. At the time of Hegel visual art had begun to romanticize, slowly exiting classical age thinking, individualizing God in man. This continues today, as artists take to canvas to present their subconscious as they fancy. Music continues to the next level of abstracting the universal. Music treats the sensuous as ideal, by negating and idealizing a singular point, indifferent to space, which was the soul focus in a painting. It relates itself in no way to the material world, but is capable of inspiring the passions in a physical way. Passions can only be experienced in their immediacy, therefore music must be enjoyed as its positive essence is projected into the negative space of silence, the immediacy of music is evidence of its temporal ideality. However, music finds its limits by remaining beholden to laws on the part of tones, their relation and succession. Poetry evades these laws entirely and is no longer sensuous but sign, as evidence of Concept or the Idea. Concepts find their notion and develop into Words as a community comes to an agreement on their shared experience, forming language. Community remains to be the aggregate understanding of God, or divine ideals. Poetry forces the audience to reflect on language and express signs in the full array of their notion. During pre-written history stories passed down in the community formed an adolescent form of poetry. The sound needed to express written symbols is merely symbolic, poetry may be reduced to letters which have no inherent value or expression of their own. This leaves more to the interpretation of the audience, and allows their mind to determine the content for its own sake. Poetry is the universal art of the mind, which has become free in its own nature, expressed exclusively in the inner space and inner time of ideas and feelings. Poetry transcends itself by abandoning the unity of mind and sensuous medium altogether, passing from the poetry of imagination into prose of thought organically. Artists reveal themselves at all ages but as their medium progresses it demands they develop a temporal consciousness of their own. An architect must attend to much training, as they learn to conquer nature, whereas a musical virtuoso can express themselves at a young age due to the subconscious element of their medium. Still musical artists express themselves earlier in life in contrast to poets or novelists, whose wordsmithing requires a deep understanding of language and demands a living of life to fully comprehend their community, or disembodied God. Genius is the revelation of subconscious talent through repetitive reflection, industry, and practice. Conclusion Hegel asserts humanity was at its best in the mode of Classical thinking, when we were individually limited in our range of interest and impact due to our apprehension of art being singular and whole. The human condition was accepted singularly and wholly, by recognizing we are the highest achievement of mind and nature. Humans have surpassed nature, with the advent of Christianity; the value of the material world has been diminished by our striving toward ideals beyond the material, in Heaven, in turn, opening the doors of Hell, by our failure to apprehend the Ideal in ourselves. Does this view change with the introduction of Existentialism or has Art come to completion upon entering the Romantic period of the early 19th century? According to Baudrillard, we’ve advanced into post-modernism by grounding our images in themselves, losing all frames of reference to the Idea and not allowing for the particular manifestation of an Ideal; the beyond essentially spirals into oblivion. Art has become its own monolith, a reconstruction of the Tower of Babel, a stack of lifeless corpses with the hopes of reaching for something that's already inside of us.
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