Hegel's Contested Legacy - Rethinking The Relation Between Art History and Philosophy (Jason Gaiger)

Hegel's Contested Legacy: Rethinking the Relation between Art History and Philosophy
Author(s): Jason Gaiger

Source: The Art Bulletin, Vol. 93, No. 2 (June 2011), pp. 178-194
Published by: CAA
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Hegel's Contested Legacy: Rethinking the Relation
between Art History and Philosophy
Jason Gaiger
It is widely acknowledged that the ideas of the German reason itself. For Habermas and other contemporary philos
philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel played a vital ophers, Hegel's analysis of the sociality of spirit, or Geist,
role in the formation of the modern discipline of art history should be understood as an explanation of how we are both
and that his attempt to discern underlying structures of subject to the claims of reason and yet also responsible for
meaning in the historical development of art provided an instituting the norms and values through which reason be
important stimulus for figures such as Alois Riegl, Heinrich comes active in our lives.6
Wolfflin, and Max Dvorak. However, it is equally widely ac It is not difficult to see that this reconstruction of Hegel's
cepted that Hegel's own theory of art—including the highly views also has profound consequences for his theory of art.
problematic notion of a historically unfolding "world spirit" Rather than reading the lectures on aesthetics as a colorful
(Weltgeist)—is bound up with a set of metaphysical commit but improbable set of illustrations to the march of the world
ments that are no longer tenable today. To speak of Hegel's spirit, philosophers such as Martin Donougho, Dieter Hen
contested legacy is thus to invite the question whether there rich, Stephen Houlgate, and Terry Pinkard have focused on
remains anything to contest in the work of a philosopher the underlying problem of art's status and function in rela
whose last public lectures on aesthetics were given in Berlin tion to other forms of knowledge and experience.' In the
in 1829. As long ago as 1907 Benedetto Croce published a words of Robert Pippin, perhaps the leading exponent of this
book with the title What Is Living and What Is Dead in Hegel's approach, Hegel is "the art theorist for whom the link be
Philosophy.1 In the intervening century numerous efforts have tween modernity and an intensifying self-consciousness, both
been made to salvage isolated elements that can be put to use within art production and philosophically, about art itself, is
within an alternative theoretical framework. Nonetheless, it is the most important."8 A reassessment of Hegel's aesthetics is
scarcely controversial to claim that the challenge to construct particularly timely in light of the new critical editions of his
a complete system of knowledge, in which the place of art is work that have been published in Germany. As we shall see,
secured in advance by a "science of logic," no longer compels access to the original auditors' transcripts of the lectures
conviction.2 If speculative idealism has collapsed as a coher provides an insight into Hegel's philosophy that is strongly at
ent philosophical project, it would seem that the Lectures on variance with the version presented by his critics and offers us
Aesthetics can be quarried for critical insights concerning a fresh opportunity to reconsider his views.
particular artworks, and perhaps for more general claims Before going into Hegel's philosophy, it is useful to look at
concerning the changing cultural and historical functions of the reasons for the comparative neglect of Hegel's aesthetics
art, without having to engage with the substantive body of within the discipline of art history. Ernst Gombrich's critique
ideas through which these insights were generated. On this of Hegel as the proponent of a mystifying theory of art that is
view, whatever recognition might be accorded to Hegel as immune to correction by empirical evidence still commands
one of the "founding fathers" of the discipline, his work widespread assent, even though few contemporary art histo
belongs to art history's history rather than to its present rians accept Gombrich's conception of properly "scientific"
concerns.3 knowledge or his contention that the appropriate model of
This assessment of Hegel's significance—typified by Hans inquiry is to be found in the writings of Karl Popper.9 Gom
Belting's observation that a workable "aesthetics of content" brich's blanket identification of Hegel with a "metaphysical"
must first be "severed from its dogmatic mooring in Hegel's tradition of thinking in which agency is attributed to hypos
'system' "—remains dominant among art historians.4 By con tatized entities, whether it be the "spirit of a people" (Volks
trast, there is an exceptionally vigorous debate taking place geist) or the "will to art" (Kunstwollen), and his condemnation
among philosophers, for whom the question of Hegel's con of this tradition as a form of "mythmaking" that accords
temporary relevance has, if anything, gained in impetus over explanatory value to unitary principles are rooted in his
the last two decades. The guiding thread for understanding conviction that "the habit of talking in terms of collectives, of
this new critical approach is to be found in Jiirgen Haber 'mankind,' 'races,' or 'ages'. . . weakens resistance to totali
mas's assertion that Hegel was the first philosopher for whom tarian habits of mind."10 This formulation is clearly indebted
modernity itself became a philosophical problem.5 Accord to Popper's analysis of the rise of totalitarianism and his
ing to this interpretation, Hegel's relevance to us resides in denunciation of Hegel in The Open Society and Its Enemies,n
his recognition that under the specific historical conditions However, it is also decisively shaped by Gombrich's experi
of modernity, that is to say, after the rejection of all merely ence of exile and the need to work through the inheritance
external claims to authority, be it in the form of religious of the Vienna school of art history. Gombrich had already
doctrine or brute political power, reason must find a means questioned the "facility of the correlation" between artworks
of grounding its own claims to rationality without recourse to and the "spirit of the age," as well as the "unreflecting as
prior suppositions: the refusal to obey any external authority sumption that one can make an inference from one to the
without examining its warrant or entitlement also extends to other," in a review of an essay by Ernst Garger, which he
HEGEL'S CONTESTED LEGACY J7g
published in 1937 when he was just twenty-eight years old.12 dynamic and potentially destabilizing thinker whose ideas
The current resurgence of interest in the writings of Riegl could be deployed against the forces of reaction and conser
and other Vienna school art historians affords a vantage vatism.
point from which to question some of the simplifications of The powerful influence exerted by Hegel's philosophy
Gombrich's account, and the ways in which Gombrich's ideas throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries is due, at
in their turn have been simplified, while acknowledging the least in part, to the way in which subsequent movements—
entanglement of art and politics in late-nineteenth- and early including, besides Marxism, existentialism, phenomenology,
twentieth-century art history. pragmatism, and, more recently, deconstruction—sought to
I draw on recent "nonmetaphysical" interpretations of He define themselves through opposition to his work, thereby
gel's philosophy—whose advocates include Anglo-American setting in train a complex process of rejection and retrieval.
analytic philosophers such as Robert Brandom and John As Katerina Deligiorgi has astutely observed, the reception
McDowell as well as philosophers working within the so history of Hegel's thought "is shaped not only by those who
called Continental tradition—in order to sketch out the lin saw themselves as preserving his teachings but also by those
eaments of an alternative and, I hope, more productive read who criticised them."16 This also holds true for the discipline
ing of Hegel's lectures oh aesthetics.13 Far from vitiating his of art history, which emerged in its modern form in German
position, the identification of unresolved—and potentially speaking countries in the wake of Hegel's aesthetics. The
irresolvable—tensions between, for example, the concept of "critical historians of art," to use Michael Podro's helpful
art and its historical manifestations or between art's sensuous term, remained deeply indebted to Hegel's ideas while at the
nature and its rational content lends his work much of its same time subjecting his approach to far-reaching criti
contemporary interest and helps to secure its relevance to a cisms.1' It is difficult now to tease apart the various strands
period in which traditional frameworks and narratives have that linked together Hegelianism, Neo-Kantianism, and
lost their hold. The most challenging, but also potentially the overtly empiricist stances. The charges that idealism had cut
most rewarding features of Hegel's aesthetics become appar itself adrift from the natural sciences and that it was inade
ent only if we address his claims concerning the deep histor quately responsive to historical facts were countered by the
icalness of art, and we should therefore resist the temptation material richness of Hegel's philosophy and its success in
to adopt a fragmentary or atomistic approach to broader identifying meaningful patterns of order within an otherwise
questions of meaning. This allows me to address the relation overwhelming mass of data. In seeking to "go beyond" Hegel,
between art historical and philosophical inquiry and to inves the critical historians of art drew freely on a wide range of
tigate whether the "fateful division" inaugurated by Hegel intellectual resources with the aim of extending as well as
resides not, as Belting maintains, in the separation of the correcting his conception of art as the product of a histori
historical study of art from contemporary problems and con cally specific constellation of ideas and values that is none
cerns but in the separation of art history and philosophy, theless subject to its own "immanent" processes of develop
which once worked so closely together. The dispute over the ment.
correct interpretation of Hegel's ideas thus has broader im One of the reasons why Gombrich's narrative of the Hege
plications for art historians working today, for it bears not lian origins of art history has proved so enduring is that it
only on the discipline's troubled relation to its past but also imposes a retrospective sense of order on a densely com
on its relation to other, contiguous fields of knowledge that pacted set of theoretical and methodological debates. The
reside on the fault line between historical and theoretical central task of his essay "In Search of Cultural History"—first
understanding. delivered as a lecture in 1967—is to show that the discipline
of art history is constructed on Hegelian foundations that
Conceptions and Misconceptions of Hegel's Philosophy could no longer bear the weight of the edifice they were
Critical responses to Hegel's philosophy have been sharply intended to carry.18 Gombrich identifies a roster of art his
polarized since the division into right and left Hegelians in torians, including Jakob Burckhardt, Erwin Panofsky, and
the years immediately following the philosopher's death in Johan Huizinga, as well as Riegl, Wolfflin, and Dvorak, who
1831.14 The philosopher who was lauded for discovering the rejected the idealist premises of Hegel's metaphysics but
"rational in the real" through his investigation of the organi nonetheless continued to operate with his theory of history. If
zation of the Prussian state and the doctrinal claims of Prot Gombrich is right that the very project of Kulturgeschichte, or
estantism—which characterized him as an unquestioning cultural history, "has been built, knowingly and unknowingly,
apologist of the status quo—was also identified as the most on Hegelian foundations that have crumbled," there remains
acute analyst of the "contradictions" of modern society, a theoretical deficit at the heart of the discipline that can be
whose dialectical method and radical "sublation" (Aujhebung) made good only by extirpating the last remnants of Hegel's
of Christianity provided the resources for a revolutionary philosophy and constructing a more robust explanatory
overthrow of established values. Ludwig Feuerbach declared framework.19 The model for this is to be found in Popper's
that he had succeeded in turning Hegel's method of critical interpretation of the "logic of scientific discovery," in which
analysis back against speculative idealism, while Karl Marx falsification through empirical evidence plays a key role in
famously insisted that he had placed dialectics on its feet, establishing the validity of scientific knowledge. At the same
whereas Hegel left it standing on its head.15 Both thinkers time, Gombrich places faith in more localized studies in
emphasized the radical historicism and implicit social cri which attention is fixed on the achievements of individual
tique that was contained within the apparently static confines artists rather than broad historical periods.20
of Hegel's system. Their interpretation pictured Hegel as a It is unsurprising, then, that Gombrich's arguments are
IgO ART BULLETIN JUNE 2011 VOLUME XCIII NUMBER 2
directed for the most part at Hegel's philosophy of history "transcendent power" but rather "the rationality that is inher
rather than the lectures on aesthetics. He puts forward a ent in the world itself: the world's own immanent logic."28
number of powerful criticisms of Hegel's "exegetic method," An alternative strategy, pursued by Pippin, is to concede
focusing in particular on the problematic idea of a unified that Hegel does make highly problematic metaphysical
"spirit of the people" that is revealed in the religious views, claims about the nature and activity of "spirit." When it comes
cultural life, and moral commitments of a particular nation to specific problems concerning, for example, the nature of
or society as well as in its political constitution, legal system, moral action or the exercise of agency within norm-governed
and characteristic modes of thought. The recognition that social institutions, though, he consistently furnishes an expla
these different elements are interconnected in myriad ways nation "in terms internal to the topic at issue" rather than
should not, according to Gombrich, lead us to make the relying on his conception of the "unfolding of the Abso
unfounded and deeply misleading supposition that "all as lute."29 Following this interpretation, Hegel's view of "spirit"
pects of a culture can be traced back to one key cause of as an extrapersonal force can safely be set to one side since it
which they are manifestations."21 The twin Hegelian postu has no practical bearing on the issues that really matter. I will
lates of the "spirit of the age" and "the spirit of the people" return to these issues, but for the moment it is important to
rest on the assumption "that everything must be treated not note the powerful dissenting voices in contemporary Hegel
only as connected with everything else, but as a symptom of studies and the philosophers, including Frederick Beiser,
everything else."22 What makes this assumption "metaphysi Sebastian Gardner, and Rolf-Peter Horstmann, who argue for
cal" rather than "a genuinely scientific search for causal the indispensability of Hegel's metaphysical commitments.30
connections" is its "a priori character."23 Drawing on Pop Beiser, for one, contends that the nonmetaphysical interpre
per's lines of reasoning in The Poverty of Historicism, Gombrich
tation represents an illegitimate "domestication" of Hegel's
ideas and that "the tendency to read the metaphysical themes
contends that the deficiencies of the holistic approach be
and issues out of German idealism" removes precisely those
come obvious once we acknowledge that "there is no neces
elements that are "challenging to our own ways of doing
sary connection between any one aspect of a group's activities
philosophy."31 What gives these debates their sense of ur
and any other."24 This insight forms the basis of Gombrich's
gency is the notion that Hegel's analysis of the "sociality" of
lifelong attempt to identify and slay the metaphysical "giants"
the norms, practices, and institutions within which rational
that he believed had emerged from Hegel's philosophy: "aes
choices are made affords a genuine alternative to method
thetic transcendentalism," "historical collectivism," "histori
ological individualism and thus offers a "live" set of possibil
cal determinism," "metaphysical optimism," and "dialectical
relativism."25 ities for philosophers working today.
At least initially, these larger theoretical questions do not
Gombrich is primarily concerned with the afterlife of these
appear to have any direct bearing on Gombrich's analysis of
ideas in the discipline of art history. However, given the
the deleterious consequences of Hegel's ideas for the devel
weight that Gombrich places on the concept of "spirit," it is
opment of art history. His diagnosis of the persistence of
worth pausing to examine the complex role that this term
Hegelian modes of thinking—or what he terms "Hegelianism
plays in Hegel's philosophy. Hegel's observation in the Lec
without metaphysics"—rests on the understanding that the
tures on the Philosophy of World History that "spirit is essentially
critical historians of art, while rejecting Hegel's account of
active; it makes itself into that which it is in itself, into its own
the operation of reason in history, continued to assume that
deed, its own creation" can be recast in more acceptable form
there is an underlying unity that links all the manifestations
by translating the German word Geist as "mind" rather than
of a culture: attempts to replace the world spirit with the "will
spirit. On this "nonmetaphysical" reading, Hegel is simply
to art" (Riegl), the "history of vision" (Wolfflin), or changing
reminding us that the social and cultural world is the product "conditions of production" (Marx) only reproduce the same
of human decision making and that our character and iden
problems in a different guise.3" Once we relinquish the Hege
tity are formed, at least in part, through the institutions that lian model and examine the empirical evidence, we are
we create.26 But when he goes on to say that "it is the same forced to accept that even the most homogeneous societies
with the spirit of a nation; it is a specific spirit which makes contain considerable internal diversity, that the spheres of
itself into an actual world which now exists objectively in its science, jurisprudence, and politics overlap and diverge in
religion, its rituals, its customs, constitution and political unpredictable ways, and that the various arts rarely develop in
laws," he seems to posit the existence of an independent tandem with one another.33 Having learned from the mis
force or power that exercises agency on a supraindividual takes of our predecessors, we can place art history on a secure
level. Hegel frequently speaks of "reason" and "spirit" as if empirical footing and finally lay to rest the specter of its
they were objective forces that are somehow "realized" Hegelian past.
through human actions. This provides the basis for what As so often with Gombrich, however, the coherence and
Houlgate terms "the infamous Hegelian Absolute which is persuasiveness of the story he wants to tell is belied by the
supposed to be the all-powerful puppet master governing acknowledgment of greater complexity, which is pushed to
history and using human beings as the vehicle for its the margins but never fully suppressed. Although he appears
schemes." Houlgate contends that this is "an absolute fiction" to put forward a rallying cry for a "return to the facts," he
and, furthermore, "Such an Absolute does not exist in He recognizes that the facts cannot speak for themselves and that
gel's philosophy but only in the minds of his critics."2' He without some "principle of relevance," the historian is con
gel's formulation of the manifestation of reason in nature fronted with an "infinite array of documents and monu
and history, or what he terms "the Idea," describes not a ments." Indeed, "history could not be written at all" without
HEGEL'S CONTESTED LEGACY
a "preconceived idea" that enables us to discern order and exorable laws,' " not through study of Riegl's writings but
meaning rather than simply accumulating isolated units of through reference to Sedlmayr's revisionary account of the
information.34 The task of the art historian is not merely to "quintessence" of Riegl's teaching.4'1 Gombrich finds there in
describe the empirical diversity of artworks but to analyze the summary form the doctrines he spent a lifetime opposing,
underlying visual and conceptual schemata through which including the statement that "spiritual collectives" possess
artists at different historical periods have represented the independent reality and that there is such a thing as the
world. Contrary to what we might expect, in these passages "meaningful self-movement of the Spirit which results in
and elsewhere in his work, Gombrich relies on what is, per genuine historical totalities of events."44 In a review of a
haps, the key insight on which Hegel's philosophy is based: Festschrift published for Sedlmayr in 1964, Gombrich pre
the realization that the mind plays an indispensable role in sented a forceful critique of the method of "structural anal
the structuring of experience and that we therefore need to ysis," contending that "failure to speak out against the ene
challenge all claims to "immediacy."35 Gombrich's richly in mies of reason has caused enough disasters to justify this
formative and wide-ranging investigations into topics as di breach of Academic etiquette."45
verse as the psychology of pictorial representation and the Together with colleagues such as Otto Pacht and Guido
interplay of tradition and innovation in historical learning Kaschnitz von Weinberg, Sedlmayr had sought to turn Riegl's
processes rest on the contention that there is no perception ideas into a rigorous "science of art history" that would
without conception: seeing and knowing are inextricably disclose the structural principles underlying the formal orga
bound up with each other in visual experience.36 nization of individual works of art as well as larger processes
The Hegelian provenance of these ideas—which received of historical change. The ambiguities attendant on Riegl's
their classic formulation in Hegel's critique of "sense cer notion of Kunstwollen were to be replaced by the more neutral
tainty" in the opening section of the Phenomenology of Spirit—is analysis of "structure," but Sedlmayr also declared that this
obscured by Gombrich's uncritical acceptance of the consis elusive concept should be understood in terms of "objective
tently right-Hegelian interpretative approach he found at spirit," with its strong Hegelian resonance, and that it pos
work in art history.37 Starting out from the mantra "one does sessed the character of a "supra-individual will" with its own
not argue with the Absolute," he maintains that Hegel's reality and "power [Kraft]."46 Already in 1936, in a critical
entire philosophy should be understood as "an exten review of Kunstwissenschaftliche Forschungen, a journal edited
sion ... of the Christian interpretation of providential his by Sedlmayr and Pacht as a vehicle for disseminating their
tory."38 This interpretation depends on a strongly metaphys ideas, Meyer Schapiro had observed:
ical reading of the relation between Hegel's Science of Logic
and his practical philosophy, which supposedly "repeats its The authors tend to isolate forms from the historical
essential and inevitable dialectical steps as an ascent through conditions of their development, to propel them by myth
the logical categories."39 Gombrich assumes that Hegel ical, racial-psychological constants, or to give them an
worked out his views in advance in accordance with the independent, self-evolving career. Entities like race, spirit,
exigencies of his system and then simply "applied" the results will, and idea are substituted in an animistic manner for a
to the various domains of art, science, morality, and so forth. real analysis of historical factors.47
He concedes that Hegel "displayed much skill and even
poetic gift in presenting the development of the arts as a The concept of a Volksgeist had been introduced by Johann
logical process accompanying and reflecting the unfolding of Gottfried Herder in the eighteenth century as a means of
the spirit."40 However, it is only when the "clappering of his combating the complacent assumptions of classicist aesthet
conceptual mill falls silent" that his "genuine love of art" can ics. His emphasis on the distinctive character of a people, as
come to the fore.41 The underlying assumption here is that manifested in its art and social structures, was intended to
philosophical reflection distorts or obscures our purportedly give due weight to cultural diversity by showing that there is
more natural responses to art and that Hegel's attempt to no single normative standard that can be used to evaluate
grasp the interrelation between different domains of experi other cultures, which are guided by their own ideals and
ence is driven by a spurious search for unity, in which he values.48 Subsequent history has shown, however, that roman
imposes the order he claims to discover. tic notions of "organic community," including the construal
Gombrich's criticisms of Hegel are deeply entangled in of a specific national character, readily lend themselves to
recent German history and his dual assimilation and rejec ideological exploitation. Detached from their original con
tion of the methods of the Vienna school of art history in text and combined with ideas of historical progress, concepts
which he was trained, but which in the work of figures such such as Volk and Geist were used to endorse aggressively
as Josef Strzygowski and Hans Sedlmayr had been tainted expansionist enterprises and to give pseudoscientific support
with racism and right-wing ideology.1" For Gombrich, not to the belief in cultural superiority that Herder had sought to
only Hegel's ideas but also those of Riegl are to be viewed undermine. In the writings of Sedlmayr and other members
through the lens of their subsequent adoption and reinter of the second Vienna school of art history, the project of
pretation by art historians who gave their support to National Geistesgeschichte (cultural history) was allied to strongly reac
Socialism. His willingness to evaluate earlier thinkers on the tionary tendencies that were explicitly anti-Semitic and racist.
basis of their inheritance in art history is made explicit in Art It would thus appear that Gombrich's view of the dangers
and Illusion, where he grounds his assertion that "[t]he 'will of appealing to "unitary principles" was borne out by events.
to-form,' the Kunstwollen, becomes a ghost in the machine, Nonetheless, we need to be wary of retrospective generaliza
driving the wheels of artistic development according to 'in tions and of placing too much weight on the problematic
182 ART BULLETIN JUNE 2011 VOLUME XCIII NUMBER 2
concept of "influence." It is noteworthy, for example, that outside the domain of the natural sciences—can be seen by
Pacht continued to defend a structural interpretation of considering Popper's strictures on what counts as legitimate
Riegl's ideas long after his exile to England as a Jewish social and political theory. He rejects as nonscientific efforts
refugee in 1937, and that Riegl himself—unlike his contem to understand social change through the behavior and action
porary Strzygowski—showed little susceptibility to notions of of collectives, on the basis that social phenomena must be
racial purity or pan-German nationalism.49 In an article pub grasped in terms of individual choices and decisions, since
lished in the Burlington Magazine in 1963, Pacht challenged these alone are susceptible to causal explanation, prediction,
Gombrich's supposition that art history could dispense with and testing—and, hence, to "falsification." Not only does he
the consideration of broader historical structures while at the rule out holistic forms of "understanding" (Verstehen), he also
same time presenting a more nuanced rendition of Riegl's discounts the existence of meaningful methodological differ
approach that emphasized the empirical basis of his work and ences between the social and natural sciences. Despite his
the extent to which his ideas arose from the close study of criticisms of the specific doctrines of logical positivism and
objects in his capacity as a museum curator.5" Pacht accepts his resistance to the use of the term, Popper can still be
that the concept of Kunstwollen has extrapersonal connota characterized as a "positivist" insofar as he remained commit
tions, but he contends that it provides an answer to a genuine ted to the three basic tenets identified by G. H. von Wright:
problem insofar as it allows the analysis of "deeper-lying the fundamental unity of science, the establishment of the
changes" that cannot be explained on the level of individual exact sciences as a model for the others, and adherence to a
volition. Gombrich's famous observation, "There really is no restrictively nomological, or law-based, theory of explana
such thing as Art. There are only artists," has its correlate in tion.67 Equally contentiously, Popper holds that any presen
Croce's contention that "there is, strictly speaking, no history tation of the conditions for good government is potentially
of art, only individual artists." For Pacht, the upshot of such open to corruption and misuse, and that philosophers such
radical individualism is that everything becomes a matter of as Plato and Hegel directly contributed to the emergence of
subjective decision, an "arcanum of pure art," in which "the totalitarianism by attempting to provide a positive theory of
artistic genius intervenes as a deus ex machina."51 what constitutes a just society. Here, too, Popper proposes
More recent studies, such as those by Jas Eisner and Chris the adoption of a via negativa: the only legitimate criterion
topher S. Wood, have stressed the tension between Riegl's for democracy is the ability to remove an unwanted govern
detailed visual examination of individual objects and his at ment. While it is now widely accepted that this is a necessary
tempt to solve "much larger problems about the cultural condition for a genuinely democratic society, few would
meaning of art itself."52 The rehabilitation of Riegl's reputa agree that it is a sufficient condition or that we should forsake
tion in the English-speaking world has much to do with any endeavor to articulate a substantive formulation of con
recognition that the question of how we move from the stituent elements such as justice, representative power, or the
scrutiny of individual artworks to broader arguments and rule of law.
generalizations, or what Eisner terms "the big picture," can Since many of the contemporary misconceptions about
not be circumvented.53 Pacht's assessment of Riegl's signifi Hegel's philosophy derive from Popper, it is important to
cance, and his defense of what he terms a "hybrid type of recognize the tendentious and deeply misleading character
enquiry," is thus closer to contemporary approaches than of his approach. In a devastating analysis of the chapter
Gombrich's highly partisan critique.5 Rather than identify devoted to Hegel in The Open Society and Its Enemies, Walter A.
ing a single lineage that leads from Hegel to Sedlmayr, art Kaufmann has shown the extent to which Popper allowed his
historians have begun to produce a more differentiated ac political convictions to override his methodological scru
count that is attentive to internal controversies and disputes. ples.58 He puts forward three principal charges. First, rather
At the same time, however, the return to Riegl has revealed than reading the original texts, Popper relied on the book
that there are substantial methodological problems that still Hegel Selections edited by Jacob Loewenberg and published by
remain unresolved. Eisner's observation that "our generaliza Scribner's in 1929; besides seeming to be unaware of passages
tions inevitably leap beyond what is strictly provable by the and, indeed, entire works, that are not included by Loewen
precise analysis of something so particular as a specific object berg, he pays no attention to the original context from which
or set of objects" raises, once again, the problem of induc the isolated sections are taken, even where this decisively
tion, which so troubled Popper.5:1 Drawing on the insights of changes their meaning. Second, he deploys the method of
David Hume and other empiricist philosophers, Popper ar composite quotation, stringing together sentences and
gued that universal affirmative propositions cannot be in phrases from different contexts and even different works, to
ferred from an accumulation of facts, no matter how consis attribute views to Hegel that are quite at variance with those
tent the evidence may appear, for we cannot rule out the he actually held or that mislead insofar as Popper omits
possibility that a counterinstance might arise.56 Popper's so Hegel's own caveats and qualifications.59 Third, he relies on
lution to the problem rests on the principle of falsification, a concept of "influence" that derives from the logically falla
according to which only hypotheses that are falsifiable by cious principle post hoc ergo propter hoc (A occurred, then B
experience count as scientific. Since knowledge arises not occurred, therefore, A caused B). In claiming that Hegel
from the confirmation of a hypothesis but from the correc represents "the missing link" between Plato and fascism, he
tion of error, the principle of falsification affords a via nega not only ignores Hegel's defense of the modern constitu
tiva that can be used to assess the status of any claim to tional state in his Philosophy of Right, he also fails to examine
knowledge or duly scientific methodology. whether official Nazi ideology actually made use of Hegel's
The limits of this principle—at least in its application complex and demanding philosophical writings. Kaufmann
HEGEL'S CONTESTED LEGACY Jg3
points out that "Hegel is rarely cited in Nazi literature, and, undertaking to develop a more socially responsive art history
when he is referred to, it is usually by way of disapproval. The "worried Gombrich and other scholars for whom the Period
Nazi's official 'philosopher,' [Alfred] Rosenberg, in Der My Eye invoked the Zeitgeist and all its ominous associations."66
thos des Zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts, mentions, and denounces, According to Langdale, the reasons for this can be traced
Hegel twice."60 Kaufmann's arguments are supported by de back to a fundamental difference in approach that is all the
tailed historical studies by Shlomo Avineri, Franz Gregoire, more marked because of the apparent continuity with Gom
Henning Ottmann, and others who have sought to expose as brich's interpretation of the "beholder's share." Whereas
a "myth" the notion that Hegel was an apologist of the Gombrich treats "artistic production as a practice sealed off
Prussian state and a totalitarian theorist.61 This is not to deny, from other social activities," isolating the study of psycholog
of course, that Hegel's ideas, like those of other major think ical processes from other factors, Baxandall "integrates paint
ers, have been subjected to ideological distortion. Many of ing by embedding it in a much greater number of and
the key elements of his philosophy—including his concep broader range of social practices, activities removed from the
tion of historical progress, the role of the nation-state, and his world of visual art, though not removed from the world of
emphasis on the unity of ethical life (Sittlichkeit)—are open to visuality." As a result, Baxandall "had to confront the laby
both interpretation and misinterpretation, and they have rinth of problems his project generated: the individual versus
been taken up by protagonists from both wings of the polit the collective, the innate versus the conditioned, and so
ical spectrum, sometimes in disastrous ways. The problem on."67 Langdale overstates the contrast, but his discussion
with Popper's account is not that it is unremittingly critical usefully reveals the difficulties attendant on Gombrich's at
but that it shares the same flattening out and reductive tempt simply to excise from art history the historical "collec
isolation of certain aspects at the expense of others that tivism" and "determinism" that he identified with Hegel's
characterize the worst aspects of this reception. philosophy. Unless the field of inquiry is artificially narrowed
Gombrich's declaration in Art and Illusion that he would to exclude a richer, more social account of artistic activity,
"be proud if Professor Popper's influence were to be felt these Hegelian themes are likely to reemerge, not as "meta
everywhere in this book" now represents a major impediment physical errors" but as genuine problems that a socially em
to the acceptance of his ideas.62 His commitment to a prop bedded history of art needs to address. Similar issues are at
erly "scientific" model of art history undoubtedly had bene stake in the hostile reception accorded to Svetlana Alpers's
ficial effects, allowing him to break with the early-twentieth The Art of Describing, which was portrayed by the adherents of
century preoccupation with questions of style and to build a more narrowly "iconological" interpretation of seventeenth
close links with current research in the natural sciences, century Dutch painting as a regression into Hegelianism,
including, above all, the psychology of perception. His dem characterized by "holism" and "the habit of thinking in col
onstration of the complex interrelation of conceptual and lective terms."68
perceptual elements in the making and appreciation of art In his lecture "Hegel and Art History," delivered in 1977,
still forms an indispensable starting point for current re Gombrich offers a more sympathetic version of the disci
search in the philosophy of depiction.63 Moreover, as I have pline's debt to Hegel, even portraying himself as a "run-away
already observed, his actual practice as an art historian was far Hegelian" in a note added to the English translation.69 Al
more sophisticated than his official pronouncements would though he refers to Hegel's Lectures on Aesthetics as the "found
seem to indicate. James Elkins's contention that Gombrich's ing document of the modern study of art," he maintains that
work is not connected to contemporary art history—put for if art history is to "free itself of Hegel's authority," it is
ward in an essay published in 2002, a year after Gombrich's necessary to work off this inheritance by subjecting it to
death—already seems dated in light of the renewed interest critical examination. The influence of Popper is not hard to
in "visuality" and theories of the image, or what in Germany discern in his contention that "[t]he genuine scientist does
is termed Bildwissenschaft,64 Gombrich's insistence that art not seek to confirm his hypothesis—he looks primarily for
history must be answerable to Popper's analysis of the "logic counter-examples. A theory that does not encounter any
of scientific enquiry" was intended to secure the methodolog resistance, does not have any scientific content. The danger
ical rigor that he believed was lacking in the "mythmaking" of Hegel's inheritance lies precisely in the seductive ease of
and "simulacrum of explanation" provided by Hegel and the its application." 0
Vienna school. However, the resulting traduction of a rich Gombrich's reminder that we should be wary of the un
and varied tradition of thought created a highly distorted questioning deployment of any thinker's ideas contributes an
picture of art history's history, leaving a theoretical vacuum important corrective to the reliance on Hegelian forms of
that had to be filled by other means, and it also relied on a "explanation" by some members of the Vienna school. It can
conception of art historical research that was inadequately be argued, however, that Gombrich's own treatment of He
responsive to the distinctive forms of inquiry appropriate to gel, like that of Popper, substitutes one highly simplified
the human and social sciences. reading for another and that his ready dismissal of an entire
The deleterious consequences for Gombrich's own theory tradition of thinking possesses the same "seductive ease" as
of art can be brought out by considering his response to the the views he rejects.
work of Michael Baxandall, whose book Painting and Experi The fatal lack of traction in Gombrich's analysis of Hegel's
ence in Fifteenth-Century Italy begins with the statement, "A legacy can be brought into relief by comparing his concep
fifteenth-century painting is the deposit of a social relation tion with the more complex view of Hegel developed in
ship."65 In an article on the critical reception of the concept Continental Europe in the period before and after World
of the "period eye," Allen Langdale observes that Baxandall's War II. Although my discussion focuses on Germany, it is
important to realize that there was an equally strong critical of speculative and dialectical thinking by a later generation of
engagement in France. The publication in 1929 of Jean art historians who had read and been deeply influenced by
Wahl's Le malheur de la conscience dans la philosophie de Hegel the work of thinkers such as Benjamin and Adorno provided
marks the beginning of a distinctive interpretative tradition ample resources to challenge the theistic, quietist, and pan
in which the figure of the "unhappy consciousness" was ac logicist interpretation of Hegel's philosophy that Gombrich
corded a key role in understanding Hegel's theory of moder had done so much to establish. Just six years after Gombrich
nity—a figure that has recently resurfaced in T. J. Clark's gave his lecture "In Search of Cultural History," Clark ob
Farewell to an Idea.71 Alexandre Kojeve's celebrated seminars served in Image of the People that works of art never simply
on Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit, held in Paris in the 1930s, "reflect" ideologies or social structures and issued a call for a
were attended by many of the leading figures in French "history of mediations" that takes into account the intricate
thought, including Raymond Aron, Georges Bataille, Andre processes of conversion and relation that link specific forms
Breton, Jacques Lacan, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. For con of representation to concrete social circumstances.76 Clark's
temporary art historians, the central point of reference is insistence that " [i] n art history ... it is precisely the Hegelian
undoubtedly the work of Judith Butler, whose research into legacy that we need to appropriate: to use, criticize, reformu
the controversies surrounding the Hegelian "subject of de late" opened the way for a renewed engagement with dialec
sire" in twentieth-century French thought laid the foundation tical thinking.77 However, despite the institutional consolida
for her investigation of "performativity" and the construction tion of the social history of art and the establishment of the
of social identity.72 At the same time, many of Hegel's ideas so-called new art history, Clark's attempt to "disinter" Hegel's
also made their way into art theory through more subterra philosophy was, for the most part, unsuccessful. Careful his
nean routes, such as the close engagement with the phenom torical studies, such as those by Margaret Iversen, Hubert
enological tradition by artists and critics in the 1960s who Locher, and Michael Podro, have greatly enriched our un
explored the relevance of the concept of "embodiment" and derstanding of the nineteenth-century origins of the disci
the dialectics of "subject-object relations" to recent develop pline but they do not seem to have displaced the orthodox
ments in painting and sculpture. picture of Hegel, which is still disseminated in art history
In Germany calls for a "return" to Hegel were more explic textbooks and is regularly set up as an easy target for criti
itly political in orientation. Motivated by the need to offer a cism.'8
viable alternative to the crude reflectionist account of art that Podro's work, in particular, showed that it was possible to
was promoted by orthodox Marxism, or at least the version combine a critical and intellectually probing approach to the
that was dominant in Eastern-bloc countries, proponents of philosophical underpinnings of art history with sensitivity to
Western Marxism, including Theodor Adorno, Walter Benja the distinctive interests and concerns of an earlier tradition
min, Max Horkheimer, and Herbert Marcuse, sought to re of thought. It is all the more striking, then, that theoretically
cover the critical impetus of dialectical thinking. This recog sophisticated art historians such as Michael Ann Holly and
nizably left-Hegelian approach placed great emphasis on key Keith Moxey, who have initiated an important set of debates
Hegelian concepts such as "mediation," "contradiction," and on the appropriate methods and conceptual frameworks for
"determinate negation" while, at the same time, rejecting the study of visual culture, continue to describe Hegel in
Hegel's effort to reconcile conflicting tendencies within the terms virtually indistinguishable from those employed by
realm of thought. Adorno, for example, explicitly contrasts Gombrich over forty years ago.79 In her book Panofsky and the
the "unreflected copy theory" upheld by those who "admin Foundations of Art History, Holly contends that Hegel "postu
ister the dialectic in its materialist version" with the "critical lated an 'Infinite Spirit' or 'Idea' behind history that works
ferment" contained in Hegel's philosophy.'5 Defining dialec itself out dialectically through time by manipulating human
tics as "the unswerving effort to conjoin reason's critical actors caught in its path."80 Iversen rightly observes that Holly
consciousness of itself and the critical experience of objects," "seems to have read Hegel through the lens of hostile critics
he contends that the superiority of Hegel's dialectical who tend to caricature his philosophy" without stopping to
method lies in its ability to preserve "the distinct moments of ask "why anyone should hold such a bizarre view" or whether
the subjective and the objective while grasping them as me we might still have something to learn from Hegel's "mind
diated together."74 Adorno's target here is not merely ortho formulated" account of the social world.81 In his 1998 essay
dox Marxism, with its rigidly deterministic framing of the "Art History's Hegelian Unconscious," Moxey also rehearses
relation between mind and world, but also Popper's positivist the standard criticisms of Hegel, reproducing many of Gom
"logic of science," for which "objective truth is what is left brich's arguments verbatim, but he embeds them in a post
over when the so-called subjective factors have been re structuralist perception of truth as something "constructed"
moved."75 Hegel's core insight—adumbrated in Gombrich's rather than "found." Despite his assertion that the historiog
acknowledgment of the crucial role of cognition in visual raphy of art remains essentially Hegelian and that art histo
(and other) experience—is that we have no access to the rians need to sustain their resistance to the working of the
world undescribed except through specific frames of refer discipline's "Hegelian unconscious," Moxey refers directly
ence, and that we therefore need to reflect critically on the not to any of Hegel's own writings but only to texts by
subjective dimension of even purportedly neutral knowledge Gombrich and other art historians.82
claims. Before delving further into the question of why Gom
The reception of critical theory within the discipline of art brich's image of Hegel still retains its hold, I want to investi
history created a moment in which it was possible to under gate whether this account corresponds to the views that He
take a revised assessment of Hegel's legacy. The recuperation gel actually put forward in his lectures on aesthetics.
HEGEL'S CONTESTED LEGACY }g5
1 Franz Theodor
Kugler, Hegel wahrend
einer Vorlesung, 1828,
lithograph on paper,
7% X 93A in. (19.5 X
24.7 cm). Kupferstich
kabinett, Staatliche
museen zu Berlin,
462-103 (artwork in
the public domain;
photograph provided
by BPK, Berlin)
Examination of the original sources will enable me to identify tice as a lecturer, which can be placed alongside the famous
some of the core interpretative issues at stake in current lithograph by Franz Kugler, based on his own drawing "from
reassessments of Hegel's philosophy and to show that these life [nach derNatur]" of 1828 and reproduced in his Handbuch
bear on problems that are of direct concern to art historians der Geschichte der Malerei of 1837 (Fig. I).85
working today. Hegel did not publish any of his lectures in his lifetime; the
versions that appeared in the Werke edition, or "complete
Normativity and the Exchange of Reasons works," organized by "an association of friends of the immor
Any reconsideration of Hegel's views on art must begin with talized [philosopher]" between 1832 and 1845, were recon
the discovery and ongoing publication of the original audi structed from his notes and from those of his students and
tors' transcripts of his lectures on aesthetics. As Annemarie were subject to varying degrees of editorial intervention. The
Gethmann-Siefert, Helmut Schneider, and others have work that most of us know as the Lectures on Aesthetics was put
shown, close investigation of these texts casts doubt on the together by his student Heinrich Gustav Hotho, who had
reliability of the posthumous edition on which most of the known Hegel since 1822 and attended many of his lecture
extant literature is based and, further, it decisively modifies courses.86 After Hegel's death he took over his lectures on
our understanding of key elements of Hegel's philosophy.83 aesthetics at Berlin University, and in 1832 he was offered a
Hegel first lectured on aesthetics in Heidelberg in 1818, post in the painting section of the newly built Altes Museum.
though at this stage he still treated art and religion together. An insight into Hotho's views, or at least the views by which
After his move to Berlin he dedicated four separate lecture he wished to be identified, is furnished by his application
courses to aesthetics, in 1820-21, 1823, 1826, and 1828-29. letter for this position, addressed to the minister of culture,
Auditors' notebooks or transcripts (Nachschriften) survive for Karl von Altenstein: "as the highest goal of science I have set
all of these, in some cases in multiple versions, and publica myself the task of treating aesthetics only in the closest con
tion has proceeded apace since 1995.84 Note taking seems to nection with art history so that a justification and guarantee
have been a highly developed skill that was prized by univer of universal aesthetic principles can be provided through the
sity students: not only were transcripts circulated among historical development of the arts."87
those who could not be present, but also in some cases they The tension between historical and systematic approaches
were preserved in expensive bindings and placed for safe to art was far from resolved at this time. As James J. Sheehan
keeping in private libraries. The survival of transcripts of the has shown, it played an important role in the design, build
same lecture series by different hands, and of transcripts of ing, and organization of the Altes Museum and led to an
lectures on other topics for which Hegel's own notebooks acrimonious split between Alois Hirt, who had first called for
remain, allows a check on their accuracy. The published the establishment of a public art museum in Berlin, and
editions of the transcripts clearly mark the presence of lacu others on the committee, including Wilhelm von Humboldt,
nae and deploy a system of brackets to show where interpo Carl-Friedrich Rumohr, Karl Friedrich Schinkel, and Gustav
lations have been made. Although the transcripts vary in Waagen, who argued that the selection and display of works
quality, they give a remarkably vivid picture of Hegel's prac should be based on aesthetic rather than historical consider
Igg ART BULLETIN JUNE 2011 VOLUME XCIII NUMBER 2
ations. In the end a compromise was reached: the collection The Werke edition presented his lectures on the various
of antiquities was arranged thematically on the first floor, in topics of philosophy as part of a completed, consistent,
accordance with Schinkel's insistence that the purpose of the unitary system, but we now know that Hegel lectured with
museum was to teach people about beauty, not the history of an innovative spirit, unwilling ever simply to repeat what
art, while the paintings on the second floor were placed in he said before. . . . Far from imposing an abstract, a priori
broadly chronological order.88 schema on the history of religions, Hegel approaches this
It is in the context of these debates that Hotho began the topic as an experimental field in which a variety of inter
task of editing Hegel's lectures for publication. It took him pretative strategies must be tried out.94
nearly four years to prepare the first volume of the Lectures on
Aesthetics, which finally appeared in 18S5, followed by two Gethmann-Siefert contends that when Hotho began editing
further volumes in 1837 and 1838. The result of his editorial Hegel's lectures on aesthetics he sought to counter the chal
labors runs to nearly sixteen hundred pages in the modern lenge posed by the rival systems of "speculative aesthetics"
German edition and is incomparably larger in scale than any that had been developed by Karl Solger and Friedrich Schel
of the surviving transcripts and lecture notes. A measure of ling, and that he was therefore induced to reconstruct what
he described as mere "sketches and observations" into a
comparison is given by the printed version of Hotho's tran
script of the 1823 lecture series, which is just over three tightly organized and structured whole. In so doing, he
hundred pages long and is free of the numerous repetitions turned the lectures into a "closed part of a self-contained
and the forced transitions between the various parts that conceptual system" and obscured the tentative and explor
make the published edition so unwieldy. Hotho was able to atory manner in which Hegel presented his ideas.95 Geth
mann-Siefert also attributes to Hotho the normative assess
consult Hegel's notebooks, which are now lost, as well as
ments of individual artworks from the standpoint of the
several other student transcripts alongside his own.89 None
system, which seem so at variance with Hegel's recognition
theless, questions about the authenticity of his edition were
that the appropriate terms of evaluation are internal to the
raised as early as 1931 by Georg Lasson, who pointed to
aims of different cultural practices. Her principal criticism is
discrepancies between the published text and the available
that through his editorial reworkings Hotho transformed the
sources, noting, for example, that the claim that art is "the
open-ended and discursive character of Hegel's aesthetics
sensible appearance of the idea [das sinnliche Scheinen tier
into a rigid and unyielding exposition of the place of art,
Idee]," on which so much weight has been placed, is not to be
whose very "completion" runs contrary to the spirit of the
found in any of the extant transcripts.90 These questions have lectures.
been given renewed prominence by the research of Geth
The posthumous publication of any writer's work is likely
mann-Siefert, the leading figure behind the publication of
to prove controversial, and Hotho was clearly aware that his
the transcripts and the fiercest critic of Hotho's editorial
edition of the Lectures on Aesthetics was exposed to potential
practice, which she judges "unreliable to a high degree."91
objections. In the preface to the first volume he eloquently
Gethmann-Siefert maintains that "Hegel's original concep
articulates the difficulties he had to overcome and the frag
tion is only to be found in the lecture transcripts" and that
mentary state of the materials he had before him. He ob
"the basis for contemporary discussion of Hegel's aesthetics
serves that his task was not to edit a finished manuscript for
should no longer be the text published by Hotho, but rather
publication but rather "to fuse the most diverse and fre
the sources for the Berlin lectures."92 Her assertions have not
quently contradictory materials, where possible, into a
gone unchallenged, and Hotho continues to have his defend
rounded whole, whilst exercising the greatest circumspection
ers on both stylistic and substantial grounds.93 However, it is
and wariness at making improvements."96 He likens himself
now generally accepted that while Hotho's edition remains a to "a faithful restorer of old paintings . . . who allows himself
valuable historical document, not least because it was
to make only those additions that are necessary to preserve
through this text that Hegel's ideas were made available to what remains of the original."9' By combining what he saw as
later readers, the published transcripts must be consulted as the best elements of each of the various lecture courses and
an indispensable supplement and corrective. adding the interconnections needed to bring them into "har
Far from being an obscure problem, of interest only to mony [Einklang]" with one another, he sought to present
committed Hegel scholars, the status of the textual sources Hegel's work in the best possible light. Yet just as practices of
for the lectures is a matter of central importance, for many of restoration have changed over the last one hundred and fifty
the arguments put forward by both supporters and critics of years, so have modern conceptions of scholarship. We now
his work are based on the heavily edited reconstructions that prefer to have access to the original sources, no matter how
were published by his followers after his death in an attempt incomplete or contradictory they may be. While Hotho un
to secure the dominance of the Hegelian school. The new derstands that Hegel sought to extend his account of art and
critical editions of his lectures on topics such as natural to improve its exposition in each new lecture series, he never
philosophy, religion, and world history, which make the in entertains the possibility that he might have altered his views.
dividual lecture courses available for the first time, differ It is now very difficult to prise apart what belongs to Hegel
markedly from the Werke edition, in which the lectures were and what to Hotho, and without access to Hegel's papers we
presented as a definitive exposition of Hegel's views. Peter C. cannot reach a definitive conclusion concerning the extent
Hodgson's observations concerning the lectures on the phi of Hotho's interventions.
losophy of religion bear close comparison with Gethmann Unlike Hotho's edition, which gives the appearance of a
Siefert's analysis of the lectures on aesthetics: finished text that had been made ready for the printer, the
HEGEL'S CONTESTED LEGACY Jg7
transcripts return the reader to the lecture hall. Whereas and their "realization" or "expression" in outward form, the
Hotho fused Hegel's arguments and ideas into a single sys "perfection" of classical art turns out to be transient and
tematic work, the transcripts enable us to examine the differ unsustainable rather than yielding a timeless norm. His anal
ences between the various lecture courses, each of which is ysis of the "dissolution [Auflosung]" or "destruction [Zertrum
separated by some two or three years. There we find substan merung]" of the classical ideal prepares the ground for a
tial structural changes—such as the move from a bipartite to pluralist outlook in which art has no given nature or essence
a tripartite division in the final series (a change adopted by but is simply the sum total of what has been treated as art.101
Hotho for his posthumous edition)—as well as marked shifts Martin Donougho, who has provided the best examination of
in emphasis, particularly concerning the relation between art Hegel's aesthetics in these "presuppositionless" terms, con
and religion. Gethmann-Siefert has urged that we view He cedes that "just how far we can take this radical, non-essen
gel's aesthetics as a "work in progress," subject to continual tialist historicising is moot," but he insists that "the classical
examination and reassessment over the different lecture se 'norm,' in both form and content, is not to be taken as
ries, for far from constructing a rigid system, Hegel treated normative for Hegel: the 'Ideal' is not his ideal." 02 Hegel has
aesthetics as a "field of philosophical experimentation" in comparatively little to say about classical art in the lectures;
which the heuristic potential of his theory could be tested he is primarily interested in what is not classical, that is to say,
against specific examples.'18 This claim is particularly signifi the breakdown and discontinuities of form and content that
cant in light of Gombrich's insistence that Hegel's theories characterize both symbolic and romantic art. As Pippin has
are immune to correction by empirical evidence and that he pointed out, Hegel's historical treatment of art leads him to
shaped the available historical material to fit the "logical "a most paradoxical conclusion":
necessity" of an a priori conceptual structure. If Gethmann
Siefert is right, Hegel was just as interested in the way in much of what we consider post-classical art (what Hegel
which the close study of the art of different periods and terms "romantic" art) is treated as art in the process of
places could confound or problematize his assumptions as in "transcending itself' as art, somehow "against itself' as art,
the way it could be used to confirm them. as much a manifestation of the "limitations" and increas
A close reading of the transcripts also permits us to chal ingly dissatisfied "life" of the practice of the production
lenge a second, pervasive misunderstanding that has served and appreciation of art as it is part of a continuous tradi
as an obstacle to grasping Hegel's views: the belief that he was tion. (The even deeper paradox is that romantic art is all
committed to an aesthetically conservative form of classicism. of this "as art").103
On this interpretation, although Hegel purported to investi
gate art from a "higher" philosophical standpoint, he shared Hegel's claims that the transition to romantic art is brought
many of the prejudices of Johann Joachim Winckelmann and about by the "progression of art beyond itself' and that the
other eighteenth-century "Hellenophiles." In particular, he is content that is to be expressed "demands more than the
accused of identifying the art of ancient Greece as an ideal representational form of the artwork can achieve" introduce
against which to measure the artistic achievements of all a tension or conflict within the very concept of art, for he
other cultures: not only what he terms "symbolic art," that is insists that what is lacking in classical art is something that is
to say, the art of early Eastern civilizations and ancient Egypt, lacking in art itself.104 This line of interpretation, in which
but also what he terms "modern" or "romantic art," that is to Hegel's judgment of the "inadequacy" and "incompletion" of
say, all art after the high point of "classical art" in fifth-century romantic art tells us something about the problematic char
Athens, is regarded as in some sense defective or inadequate. acter of art in modern civil society—and the specific chal
Hegel's famous observation that the concept of art reaches lenges and difficulties to which it is exposed—allows his ideas
"perfection [ Vollendung\" in ancient Greek sculpture and that to be related directly to pressing contemporary concerns. Not
"[n]othing can be or become more beautiful" is also to be just the practice of art but also its relation to other forms of
found in the lecture transcripts." However, he qualifies these human agency turn out to be radically unstable. More needs
remarks by characterizing the classical ideal as "cold, for to be said, of course, about Hegel's account of the relation
itself, and self-contained" in contrast to romantic art, which is between art and philosophy, and his much misunderstood
addressed not to the "ideal" but to the needs of other human thesis of the "end of art." Nonetheless, it should already be
beings. He then goes on to propose that the unity of form clear that the lectures on aesthetics do not present a trium
and content achieved in the greatest examples of classical phant, Whiggish formulation of the inevitable "progress" of
sculpture was possible only in the context of a limited, and art, guided from on high by the categories of Hegel's Science
essentially premodern, understanding of subjectivity and that of Logic, as Gombrich and others would have us believe.
what enables this brief realization of "adequacy" is the unde What, then, is the correct way to characterize the relation
veloped character of the content that is represented.100 The between art and philosophy as it is presented in the lectures
Greek ideal of beauty cannot survive the transition, on the on aesthetics? And how does this inform Hegel's distinctive
one hand, to the greater "inwardness" and "self-reflection" of perception of modernity? The core of his position resides in
Christianity, and, on the other, to the merely formal or the proposition that art occupies a unique position between
universal concept of the self that is operative in the abstract abstract conceptual thought and sensuous immediacy, partic
system of rights and the institution of private property that is ipating in both but functioning as a "middle term [Mittel
instantiated in modern legal codes. glied!]" that brings cognition and sensibility together without
Properly located within Hegel's more involved account of giving priority to either.105 His contention that art contains a
the relation between changing conceptions of subjectivity "truth content [Wahrheitsgehalt\" affords a means of acknowl
Igg ART BULLETIN JUNE 2011 VOLUME XCIII NUMBER 2
edging that artworks possess both cognitive and expressive gang von Goethe and Bertel Thorvaldsen still alive and
value. However, this formulation is potentially misleading Ludwig van Beethoven only recently deceased—Hegel could
insofar as it suggests a merely external connection between declare that German art was "dead as a doornail [mause
artistic "form" and conceptual "content." Already in the tot\."uo
1820-21 lecture series, he stated that "it is necessary to rid Most scholars now agree that Hegel's thesis concerns not
ourselves of the idea that the concept, the content of an the "death" of art but only its "end" or "pastness," and that his
artwork is something already thought, as if it already existed analysis of the profound historical and cultural transforma
in a prosaic form. . . . Art has the purpose of bringing a tions that accompany the transition to modernity is fully
not-yet-conscious concept to consciousness."106 Hegel per compatible with awareness of art's continuing production
ceives that both the making and appreciation of art are and vitality.111 What had changed, according to Hegel, is the
irreducible to other' forms of experience and that it is there meaning that individual works of art can have for us. Here is
fore wrong to conceive an artwork simply as a "vehicle" for his presentation of the thesis in the 1820-21 lecture series:
transmitting thoughts and ideas for which it supplies the
appropriate external shape or cladding. As Pippin observes, Our relation to art no longer has the high solemnity and
art for Hegel is "an achieved form of self-knowledge; knowl significance that it possessed in earlier periods. ... As a
edge we would not, could not have, except for this realiza result of our education and culture [Bildung\, we inhabit
tion."107 an intellectual world rather than a world of sensuous
But how is this sophisticated and nondeterministic concep apprehension. The representation of ideas through forms
tion of the relation between cognition and sensibility to be is more essential, more necessary, for those peoples for
reconciled with Hegel's assertion that art, religion, and phi whom the universal has not yet disintegrated into partic
losophy share the same "content" even though they articulate ulars, for whom the life of the mind has not yet developed
it in different ways? This idea, which Hegel first elaborated in to this point, whereas for us the spirit of the universal, the
the Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences in 1817, survives genus, can only be identified through particulars.112
throughout the various lecture series on aesthetics.108 His
practical philosophy, or "philosophy of spirit," is based on the In drawing a distinction between premodern and modern
notion that art, religion, and philosophy—in their "highest forms of consciousness, Hegel exposed himself to the charge
vocation"—are all concerned with bringing to reflective con of cultural generalization and essentialism, as well as of mak
sciousness the conditions for the exercise of freedom that ing an implicit appeal to a narrative of historical progress.
underpin rational agency. Although he maintains that the However, the declaration that art is unable to fulfill the same
forms of "absolute spirit" differ only in the "mode" in which symbolic and unifying role that it did in the past is primarily
this deeper truth is revealed, the content that each is capable intended as a critique of the Romantic belief that it was
of expressing turns out to be progressively more substantial possible to restore the sense of unity and wholeness that had
and articulate. The recognition that we are self-determining been destroyed by the "age of reason." His target here is the
beings whose ethical existence is constituted through struc work of Novalis and other leading figures of early German
tures of self-relation that are sustained in the concrete prac Romanticism, as well as artistic groups such as the Nazarenes,
tices and institutions that make up the social world is only who offered an idealized evocation of medieval Christianity.
fully realized in the modern age. There is thus a profound Hegel's rejection of this attitude follows directly from his
ambivalence underlying Hegel's characterization of the rela identification of a close internal relation between modernity
tion between art and philosophy. On the one hand, he and the self-grounding character of theoretical and practical
identifies art as a unique and irreplaceable human activity reason: critical reflection on normative principles and the
that cannot be reduced to other forms of knowledge and exchange of reasons take precedence over sensuous immedi
experience. On the other hand, he treats the sphere of art as acy, which cannot survive the disintegration of traditional
a prior and subordinate stage in the development of human worldviews. To put it crudely, if we want to resolve complex
ity's "being-for-self' whose irremediable "defect" or "limita social problems such as the fair distribution of goods, the
tion" lies in its inseparability from sensuous intuition. Philos relation between rights and responsibilities, or the imposi
ophy has the task of unifying and rendering fully intelligible tion of legitimate constraints on human freedom, we now rely
to modern reflective thought insights that are expressed on the deliberative model of reason enshrined in modern
inchoately in the form of sensuous imagery and symbolism. judicial and parliamentary systems. Although the Romantics
The claim that art and religion have been "superseded held onto the dream that art could satisfy the unifying func
[aufgehoben]" by philosophy, in the double sense of "pre tion once accomplished by religion, Hegel offers a hard
served" and "overcome," represents one of the most prob headed view of its limited role in modern nation-states. His
lematic aspects of Hegel's aesthetics and leads directly to his observations are not uncolored by a sense of loss, but he
notorious pronouncements concerning the end of art. As insists that our stance toward art is characterized by "reflec
Gethmann-Siefert readily acknowledges, the lecture tran tion" rather than veneration: we "value art and respect it," but
scripts reveal that this argument originates with Hegel, not we "no longer see it as something final."113
Hotho, as some readers had hoped, and that he held fast to It is a remarkable feature of Hegel's aesthetics that his
his position through all four series, including the final one in declaration of the "end" of art took place at the very historical
1828-29.109 Rather than backtracking, he seems to have rel moment when the modern concept of art was gaining wide
ished the provocation of his remarks, which left the com spread recognition through the development of public insti
poser Felix Mendelssohn wondering how—with Johann Wolf tutions such as art museums, lending libraries, and subscrip
HEGEL'S CONTESTED LEGACY Jgg
tion concerts.114 We have already seen that the conflict but to displace a false unity that obscures "the genuine diver
between "aesthetic" and "historical" standpoints played a role sity of art as manifested in its ever changing roles and defi
in the design and organization of the Altes Museum in Berlin nitions in history."121 Although Belting presents his argu
and that these tensions informed not only Hegel's lectures on ment as a straightforward critique of Hegel, the terms in
aesthetics but also Hotho's approach to editing them for which he couches his analysis suggest that he is more plausi
publication. Although the Altes Museum did not open until bly understood as using Hegel to think against Hegel, a
1830, a year after Hegel's final lecture course on aesthetics, strategy that has frequently been adopted by left-Hegelians as
the fact that Hegel delivered his lectures at Berlin University, a means of recovering the "critical impulse" of dialectical
just a short walk from the site where the museum was being thinking. Hegel's reflections on the diversity of artistic prac
built, has led some critics to identify the two projects with one tice, and the difficulty of subsuming this diversity under any
another and to charge that Hegel should be held responsible single definition or description, provide a means of elucidat
for the "museumification" of art. Sheehan observes that the ing the insufficiently historical character of the concepts and
idea that museums should feature "visible histories of art" categories that are available to us. On the interpretation I
drew sustenance from Hegel's philosophy while at the same have defended here—which is closer to Arthur Danto's con
time creating "new possibilities of artistic identity and new trasting assessment of the relevance of Hegel's aesthetics to
criteria for aesthetic judgment," insofar as artworks began to recent and contemporary art practice—Hegel's claims con
be created with the museum in mind as their ultimate desti cerning the "end of art" do not mark an absolute break with
nation.115 One way of addressing this issue, adopted in dif the past; rather, they are intended to broaden the question of
ferent permutations by Hans Belting, Stephen Melville, and what art means for us today and its constitution as an auton
Beat Wyss, is to contend that Hegel "constitutes" art as his omous field of human activity, making it more forceful, chal
torical by considering it from the standpoint of the present. lenging, and difficult to answer.122
Melville, for example, holds that: A greatly simplified and much cruder understanding of
Hegel's position is to be found in Wyss's widely read book
what we now call the history of art... in its specific visi Hegel's Art History and the Critique of Modernity.123 Wyss's pre
bility becomes possible only at a certain moment within sentation is organized around the conceit that the lectures on
the Western tradition, and this moment is firmly moored aesthetics can be reconstructed as a vast imaginary museum
to the name of Hegel, whose claim that art has come to an of art in which Hegel guides us through the various stages of
end—has become, that is, merely historical—engenders art's historical development. We are asked to picture the
both an object and a question about our access to it.116 philosopher as he walks through the rooms of a building that
houses the entire history of culture: we follow him as he
Melville's sophisticated presentation of the problem allows passes in succession through the different stages of the world
him to show that the very identification of art as a discrete spirit—morning, noon, and evening—that correspond to his
sphere of human activity "is thus bound up with the notion of treatment of symbolic, classical, and romantic art. As the day
its end; its achievement is inseparable from its pastness—art draws to a close, Hegel leaves his museum, content in the
comes to presence and explicitness precisely as historical, as awareness that he "had condensed the entire path of the
already overcome."117 To read Hegel today, therefore, is to world spirit from morning to evening in one overview." Wyss
confront the question of art's historicalness and the way in contends that:
which this is implicated in the writing of art history.
In his book The End of the History of Art ? Belting acknowl [Hegel's] art history is museum-like, since the present is
edges that Hegel's ideas concerning the "pastness" of art cut off from the past. Only what has the aura of the
cannot be fully understood outside of his "system," but he historical and what has been passed by the social consen
goes on to suggest that his views are "symptomatic of a new sus is admitted. . . . There is no room for the unexpected
understanding of art itself characteristic of his epoch"; fur or the yet imagined in this concept of art.124
ther, "On the basis of this understanding rests the entire
project of the historical study of art as a scholarly disci Wyss's adoption of the museum as a guiding metaphor for
pline."118 Hegel's conception of the "emancipation" of art understanding Hegel's aesthetics creates the very rigidity and
from its earlier religious and historical functions enabled ossification that it is designed to criticize. Far from confining
critical reflection on art to gain "a new dimension." However, art within the walls of the museum, the lectures on aesthetics
Belting contends that by "offering art history as contempla require that art be understood as a social practice—a practice
tion of past modes of human expression, modes which no that stands in an inherently dynamic and unstable relation to
longer . . . suggest a model for the future of art itself," Hegel other practices and institutions. What Sheehan terms the
initiated a "fateful division" between the historical study of art "museum age" postdates Hegel's philosophy, but the role of
and the concerns of contemporary artists and critics, thereby the museum in shaping the modern understanding of art
opening up a rupture that we are still struggling to over must be taken into account by any theory that seeks to
come.119 Rather than accepting the de facto split between art vouchsafe a genuinely historical narrative of art's relation to
criticism and empirical art scholarship, we need to recognize the wider social world.125 The development of the modern
that "[t]he question of what art has been in history, and art museum is a consequence rather than a presupposition of
whether it at all resembles this historical entity in our own the profound historical shift that Hegel is trying to explain.
time, hinges on our understanding of modern art."120 Belting The real issue at stake in these debates, or so I wish to
insists that he is seeking not to restore a "lost notion of unity" argue, is not the relation between art history and contempo
rary art practice, which is, in any case, more open and dy elucidate the procedures through which norms are acknowl
namic than either Belting or Wyss seems willing to admit, but edged as possessing authority over us and therefore as the
the relation between art history and philosophy. What Mel outcome of rational reflection and choice. As Beiser points
ville terms "the name of Hegel" has come to stand for a out, this point of view involves downplaying the religious
specific image of philosophy in which the pursuit of abstract dimension of Hegel's thought as well as the overtly metaphys
generalizations is allowed to ride roughshod over the empir ical ambitions of his philosophy of nature. He describes the
ical evidence. It is not necessary to attribute a strong causal nonmetaphysical readings as "acts of enormous interpretative
role to Gombrich's particular construal of the relation be charity" and claims that they can only be sustained by ignor
tween art history and philosophy to recognize that his char ing "the most difficult and troubling aspect of his philoso
acterization of Hegel's aesthetics as the product of a totaliz phy." According to Beiser, Hegel scholarship is faced with an
ing metaphysics that is no longer answerable to the world was unavoidable dilemma:
influential at a formative stage in the discipline's develop
ment. Gombrich's antimetaphysical rhetoric, his appeal to If our scholarship is historically accurate, we confront a
common sense, his distrust of abstract universals, and his Hegel with profound metaphysical concerns alien to the
insistence that we have to choose between the methods of the spirit of contemporary philosophical culture, which mis
natural sciences and reliance on philosophy all signal a break trusts metaphysics. But if we continue to interpret Hegel in
with the German idealist heritage of art history. Few would a nonmetaphysical manner, we have to accept that our
now align themselves with Gombrich's chosen alternatives, interpretation is more a construction of our contemporary
but his reductive explanation of Hegel's legacy continues to interests than the real historical school.127
serve as a barrier to the intensive reengagement with his work
that has been such a marked feature of contemporary de The two horns of the dilemma are "anachronism" (interpre
bates in epistemology, political theory, ethics, and philosoph tation in terms of our contemporary interests and concerns)
ical aesthetics. and "antiquarianism" (a merely historical interest that cuts
One of the things I have sought to show here is that art off the past from the present). To accept that we must decide
history is ill served by the tendency to treat philosophical between these two alternatives as a strict either/or means to
arguments as inert material that can be used for its own perpetuate the invidious distinction between doing philoso
purposes rather than as an occasion to think philosophically phy and studying the history of philosophy. The adoption of
about the underlying problems and issues at stake. Unless a strictly antiquarian standpoint isolates philosophical texts
concepts and ideas that are derived from philosophy are from contemporary debates, thereby barring access to poten
subject to critical examination they are likely to harden into tially valuable resources that might shed light on issues that
immutable givens. The resulting loss of "resistance," which matter directly to us. Similarly, a concern with the historical
Gombrich rightly identified as essential to genuine research, correctness of our interpretations of past philosophers, in
leads to the establishment of fixed rather than relative values, formed by a close analysis of the primary sources, provides an
which can then be assimilated or dismissed as need dictates. important corrective to anachronism and the dangers of
From this perspective, the difference between Gombrich's misinterpretation that this entails. It is only by sustaining
condemnation of Hegel and the uncritical adoption of Hege both approaches that we can ensure that the use of philo
lian motifs within the Vienna school starts to narrow, insofar sophical arguments encounters adequate resistance. The
as both provide a merely external treatment of philosophical question whether the nonmetaphysical interpretation of He
positions and ideas. I have defended the view that art history's gel's philosophy is legitimate can thus be answered in the
concourse with philosophy must itself be philosophical, pro affirmative, for it places his ideas within the realm of argu
ceeding through the asking of questions rather than the ment and contestation, where they can be handled critically
uncritical deployment of resources that are serviceable for rather than treated as "inert material."
the task at hand.1"1' I would like, therefore, to conclude by Recent work in philosophy has succeeded in bringing He
asking whether the nonmetaphysical reading of Hegel pre gel's ideas into conversation with the secular and deflationary
sented here offers a legitimate interpretative framework for positions that characterize our own, postmetaphysical age.
understanding his ideas or whether, as Beiser and others have However, it is important to recognize that Hegel's philosophy
proposed, it is actually a projection onto his work of our own cannot be made simply to shed its transcendental and meta
interests and values. physical dimensions. Those aspects that have been brought to
Even those who are sympathetic to what Beiser terms the the fore by philosophers such as Brandom and Pippin, who
"puzzling Hegel renaissance" concede that the revival of offer a strictly "horizontal" interpretation of his contribution
interest in German idealism is closely tied to the dominance to debates on normative authority and self-legislation—or
of naturalism and that it is driven, at least in part, by a desire what Pinkard terms the "infinite activity of giving and asking
to make good naturalism's perceived limitations. In particu for reasons"—are closely entwined with deeper commitments
lar, philosophers such as Brandom and Pippin have been concerning the historical truth of Christianity and the "im
drawn to Hegel's work by the insight that naturalism is un manent logic" that Hegel believed he could discover in both
able to account for the distinctively human activities of exer the natural and the social world.128 Moreover, it was the
cising judgment and employing normative concepts. Hegel's metaphysical dimension of Hegel's philosophy that arguably
account of reason, agency, and mutual recognition, which had the greatest impact on later thinkers. Nonetheless, I
once seemed hopelessly outmoded, has been shown to con hope that I have shown that his work is susceptible to a variety
tain a rich set of conceptual resources that can be used to of interpretations and that we need to resist the reduction of
HEGEL'S CONTESTED LEGACY J91
his philosophy to a fixed set of received ideas. Hegel's claim make?" See, too, Stephen Houlgate's account of Hegel's commitment
to "presuppositionless thinking" in An Introduction to Hegel: Freedom,
that the study of art should concern itself with all aspects of Truth and History, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell, 2005), 26
a culture rather than treating artworks in isolation retains its 47.
relevance and requires that we engage constructively with the 7. Representative texts include Martin Donougho, "Art and History: He
distinctively social form of mindedness that he termed Geist. gel on the End, the Beginning and the Future of Art," in Hegel and
the Arts, ed. Stephen Houlgate (Evanston, 111.: Northwestern University
The nonmetaphysical interpretation of Hegel's aesthetics is Press, 2007), 179-215; Dieter Henrich, Fixpunkte: Abhandlungen und
open to challenge, but the recognition that many of his Essays zur Theorie der Kunst (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 2003); Stephen
Houlgate, "Hegel and the Art of Painting," in Hegel and Aesthetics, ed.
problems are also our problems should allow us to address his William Maker (Albany, N.Y.: SUNY Press, 2000), 61-82; and Terry
work in a spirit of open intellectual inquiry. Pinkard, "Symbolical, Classical, and Romantic Art," in Houlgate, Hegel
and the Arts, 3-28.
8. Robert Pippin, "What Was Abstract Art? (From the Point of View of
Hegel)," Critical Inquiry 1 (2002): 1-24, at 1. See, too, idem, Idealism
Jason Gaiger is university lecturer in contemporary art history and as Modernism: Hegelian Variations (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1989); and Modernism as a Philosophical Problem, 2nd ed. (Cam
theory and a fellow of St. Edmund Hall at the University of Oxford.
bridge, Mass.: Blackwell, 1999). For a critical discussion of Houlgate's
His books include Aesthetics and Painting (Continuum, 2008) and Pippin's contrasting views on Hegel and abstract art, see Jason
and, as co-editor, Art in Theory: 1648-1815 (Blackwell, 2000) Gaiger, "Catching up with History: Hegel and Abstract Painting," in
Hegel: New Directions, ed. Katerina Deligiorgi (Chesham, U.K.: Acu
and Art in Theory: 1815-1900 (Blackwell, 1998) [The Ruskin men, 2006), 159-76.
School of Drawing and Fine Art, University of Oxford, 74 High 9. Gombrich readily acknowledged his indebtedness to Karl Popper, es
Street, Oxford, 0X1 4BG, U.K., [email protected]]. pecially his Logik der Forschung, which was published in Vienna in 1935
and translated into English as The Logic of Scientific Discovery in 1959.
For a critical account of Gombrich's reliance on Popper, see Andrew
Hemmingway, "E. H. Gombrich in 1968: Methodological Individual
Notes ism and the Contradictions of Conservatism," Human Affairs 19
(2009): 297-303. This special issue on Gombrich contains a number
I would like to thank Lisa Florman and Cordula Grewe, whose invitation to of valuable papers.
contribute to the panel they chaired, "Art and Art History after Hegel," at the
10. Ernst Gombrich, Art and Illusion: A Study in the Psychology of Pictorial
Annual Conference of the College Art Association in Los Angeles in 2008
Representation, 5th ed. (London: Phaidon, 1977), 16-17.
provided the initial impetus for writing this paper. It has been much revised
in response to invaluable comments and suggestions from those who heard 11. Karl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies, 2 vols. (London: Rout
later versions. I would like to record particular thanks to Wolfgang Br'uckle, ledge, 1945).
Katerina Deligiorgi, Andy Hamilton, Stephen Melville, and Paul Smith. I am 12. Ernst Gombrich's review of Ernst Garger's "Wertprobleme und mittel
also indebted to the comments of two anonymous referees for The Art Bulletin alterlicher Kunst" is reprinted in a translation by Michael Podro un
and to the exchange of ideas with its editor-in-chief, Karen Lang. Work on this der the title "Achievement in Mediaeval Art," in Gombrich, Medita
paper was enabled by the award of a Leverhulme Trust Research Fellowship. tions on a Hobby Horse (London: Phaidon, 1963), 70-77, at 75. For a
Unless otherwise indicated, translations are mine.
discussion, see Jan Bakos, "Gombrich's Struggle against Metaphysics,"
Human Affairs 19 (2009): 239-50, at 239.
1. See Benedetto Croce, Cid che e vivo e cid che & morto nella filosofia di He
gel: Studio critico (Bari: Laterza, 1907). The distinction between what is 13. See Robert Brandom, Making It Explicit: Reasoning, Representing, and
"living" and what is "dead" in a system of thought is Hegel's own and Discursive Commitment (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,
goes back to his earliest reflections on Christianity and Greek ethical 1994); idem, Tales of the Mighty Dead: Historical Essays on the Metaphysics
life. See, in particular, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, "The Positivity of Intentionality (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2000);
of the Christian Religion" (1795-96), in Early Theological Writings, and John McDowell, Mind and World (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Uni
trans. T. M. Knox (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, versity Press, 1994), which he provocatively describes as "a prolegome
1971), 67-179. non to a reading of [Hegel's] Phenomenologyxi.
2. Hegel described his Science of Logic, which was published in two vol 14. An excellent overview of the reception history of Hegel's philosophy
umes in 1812 and 1816, as "the system of pure reason . . . the realm is provided by Robert Stern and Nicholas Walker, "Hegelianism," in
of pure thought," adding that its content could be conceived as "the Routledge Encyclopaedia of Philosophy (London: Routledge, 2000); the
exposition of God as he is in his eternal essence before the creation most detailed study remains John Edward Toews, Hegelianism: The Path
of nature." Hegel, Science of Logic, trans. A. V. Miller (Atlantic High toward Dialectical Humanism, 1805-1841 (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni
lands, N.J.: Humanities Press, 1989), 50. For the German text, see He versity Press, 1980).
gel, Wissenschaft der Logik, vol. 1 (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1986), 44. 15. For Feuerbach's response to Hegel, see Toews, Hegelianism, 327-55.
3. The identification of Hegel as the "father of art history" was made by Marx's remark about dialectics is contained in the afterword to the
Ernst Gombrich in "Hegel und die Kunstgeschichte," Neue Rundschau, second edition of Das Kapital: Kritik der politischen Okonomie (Hamburg,
88 (1977): 202-19, at 202. This text, which was originally delivered as 1873), trans. Samuel Moore and Edward Aveling in Capital: A Critical
a lecture in 1977 when Gombrich was awarded the Hegel Prize of the Analysis of Capitalist Production (Moscow: Foreign Languages Publish
City of Stuttgart, is translated (by Gombrich) in a revised version as ing House, 1961).
" 'The Father of Art History': A Reading of the Lectures on Aesthetics of
16. Katerina Deligiorgi, "On Reading Hegel Today," in Hegel: New Direc
G. W. F. Hegel (1770-1831)," in Tributes: Interpreters of Our Cultural tions, 2.
Tradition (Oxford: Phaidon, 1984), 51-69.
17. Michael Podro, The Critical Historians of Art (New Haven: Yale Univer
4. Hans Belting, The End of the History of Art ? trans. Christopher S. Wood sity Press, 1982).
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), 9-10, originally pub
lished as Das Ende der Kunstgeschichte? (Munich: Deutscher Kunstver 18. Ernst Gombrich, "In Search of Cultural History" (1967), reprinted in
lag, 1983). Ideas and Idols: Essays on Values in History and in Art (Oxford: Phaidon,
1979), 24-59.
5. See Jiirgen Habermas, The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity, trans.
19. Ibid., 28.
Frederick Lawrence (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1995), 43, origi
nally published as Der Philosophische Diskurs der Moderne (Frankfurt: 20. Gombrich refers to Popper's work in both "In Search of Cultural His
Suhrkamp, 1985). Habermas contends that "Hegel was the first phi tory," 54, and "Hegel und die Kunstgeschichte," 211. His most explicit
losopher to develop a clear concept of modernity. We have to go attempt to apply Popper's "logic of situations" is to be found in The
back to him if we want to understand the internal relationship be Sense of Order: A Study in the Psychology of Decorative Art (Oxford: Phai
tween modernity and rationality. . . ." (4). "Modernity can and will no don, 1979).
longer borrow the criteria by which it takes its orientation from the
21. Gombrich, "In Search of Cultural History," 46.
models supplied by another epoch; it has to create its normativity out
of itself' (7). 22. Ibid., 46-47.
6. For a discussion of the Kantian origins of this problem, see Terry 23. Ernst Gombrich, "Style," in International Encyclopedia of the Social Sci
Pinkard, German Philosophy, 1760-1860: The Legacy of German Idealism ences, vol. 15 (New York: Macmillan Free Press, 1968), 352-61, at 357.
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 67. In Pinkard's for 24. Ibid., 358. In Art and Illusion, 17, Gombrich cites the following pas
mulation, the central question is: "How can we be bound by laws we sage from Popper's The Poverty of Historicism (London: Routledge,
1957) and notes that he "cannot improve" his words: "I have not the vation that "it would be worth collecting these passages in a small an
slightest sympathy with these 'spirits'; neither with their idealistic pro thology" encapsulates the view that Hegel's genuine insights can be
totype nor with their dialectical or materialist incarnations, and I am treated independently of his philosophical system.
in full sympathy with those who treat them with contempt." 42. See Jan Bakos, "The Vienna School's Hundred and Sixty-Eighth Grad
25. Gombrich, "Hegel und die Kunstgeschichte," 203ff., trans, idem, uate: The Vienna School's Ideas Revised by E. H. Gombrich," in Gom
" 'The Father of Art History,' " 52-55. brich on Art and Psychology, ed. Richard Woodfield (Manchester: Man
chester University Press, 1996), 234-57. Bakos (234) cites Gombrich's
26. Hegel, quoted in Houlgate, An Introduction to Hegel, 21. I have used
observation, made in the last decade of his life, that "I can say that I
Houlgate's translation in preference to G. W. F. Hegel, Lectures on the
am a member of the Vienna School of art history." Gombrich studied
Philosophy of World History: Introduction; Reason in History, trans. H. B.
under Julius von Schlosser at the University of Vienna from 1928 to
Nisbet (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975), 58. For the
1933.
German text, see Hegel, Werke, ed. Eva Moldenhauer and Karl Markus
Michel, 20 vols. (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1969-71), vol. 12, 99. 43. Gombrich, Art and Illusion, 17. Gombrich focuses on Hans Sedlmayr's
essay "Die Quintessenz der Lehren Riegls," which was published as
27. Houlgate, An Introduction to Hegel, 24.
the introduction to a collection of Riegl's essays, Gesammelte Aufsatze,
28. Ibid., 25. ed. Sedlmayr (Augsburg: Benno Filser, 1929), at xii-xxxiv.
29. Robert Pippin, Hegel's Practical Philosophy: Rational Agency as Ethical Life 44. Gombrich, Art and Illusion, 17. Gombrich is referring to Sedlmayr's
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 10. "Die Quintessenz," xxxi-xxxii, where the latter lists five "false presup
30. See, for example, Frederick Beiser, "Dark Days: Anglophone Scholar positions" that need to be relinquished.
ship since the 1960s," 70-90, and Sebastian Gardner, "The Limits of 45. E. H. Gombrich, review of Kunstgeschichte und Kunsttheorie im 19. Jahr
Naturalism and the Metaphysics of German Idealism," 14-49, both in hundert, by Hermann Bauer et al., Art Bulletin 46, no. 3 (1964): 418
German Idealism: Contemporary Perspectives, ed. Espen Hammer (Lon 19.
don: Routledge, 2007); and Rolf-Peter Horstmann, "Subject, Sub

46. Sedlmayr, "Die Quintessenz," xviii.
stance and Infinity: A Case Study of the Role of Logic in Hegel's Sys
tem," in Deligiorgi, Hegel: New Directions, 69-84. 47. Meyer Schapiro, "The New Viennese School," Art Bulletin 18, no. 2
31. Beiser, "Dark Days," 70-71. See Gardner's contention in "The Limits
(1936): 258-66, at 259. Schapiro goes on to note (260), "We re
of Naturalism" (44) that "the considerations which can be argued to proach the authors not for neglecting the social, economic, political
and ideological factors in art but rather for offering us as historical
give idealism definite philosophical advantages over naturalism are at
the same time considerations which support its metaphysical rather explanations a mysterious racial and animistic language in the name
than deflationary interpretation." of a higher science of art."
48. I discuss Herder's views in more detail in my introduction to Johann
32. David Summers observes that " 'Hegel without metaphysics' turned
Gottfried Herder, Sculpture: Some Observations on Shape and Form from
out to be Hegel with some kind of psychology or Weltanschauung or
mentalities or cultural developments of 'vision.' " He adds, "For Gom Pygmalion's Creative Dream, ed. and trans. Jason Gaiger (Chicago: Uni
brich this improvement upon Hegel is a distinction without a differ versity of Chicago Press, 2002), 1-28. Herder's deployment of the
ence." Summers, "E. H. Gombrich and the Tradition of Hegel," in A concepts of Volk and Geist was influenced by Montesquieu, who em
Companion to Art Theory, ed. Paul Smith and Carolyn Wilde (Cam ployed the expression "esprit de la nation" (spirit of the nation) in
bridge, Mass.: Blackwell, 2002), 139-49, at 144. his L'esprit des lois of 1748. For a discussion of Herder's ideas in rela
tion to Johann Joachim Winckelmann, see Alex Potts, Flesh and the
33. Several years earlier Meyer Schapiro had presented a powerful cri Ideal: Winckelmann and the Origins of Art History (New Haven: Yale Uni
tique of holistic ("organic") concepts of style in which he decisively versity Press, 1994).
undermined the claim that "each style is peculiar to a period of a cul
ture and that, in a given culture or epoch of culture, there is only 49. See Otto Pacht, Methodisches zur Kunstgechichtlichen Praxis (Munich:
one style or a limited range of styles." Schapiro drew attention to the Pretel, 1977), trans, by David Britt as The Practice of Art History: Reflec
concurrence of different styles during the same historical period and tions on Method, (New York: Harvey Miller, 1999). For an examination
the difficulty of identifying stylistic affinities between works produced of Riegl's views in relation to Strzygowski, see Jas Eisner, "The Birth of
in different media. Schapiro, "Style" (1953), reprinted in Theory and Late Antiquity: Riegl and Strzygowski in 1901," Art History 25, no. 3
Philosophy of Art: Style, Artist and Society (New York: George Braziller, (2002): 358-79. Eisner observes (360) that Riegl's activities, both as
1994), 51-102, at 53. For an illuminating study of stylistic pluralism, an art historian and as "a pioneer in issues of conservation," were
see Wolfgang Briickle, "Postmoderne um 1600: Haarlemer Stilzitate "tied to a genuinely multicultural politics in the context of late Haps
und die Standortbestimmung der Kunst nach Vasari," in Stil als Bedeu burg imperialism, which set him firmly apart from the pan-German
tung in der nordalpinen Renaissance: Wiederentdeckung einer methodischen nationalism and ethnically purist art history which developed rapidly
Nachbarschaft, ed. Stephan Hoppe, Matthias Miiller, and Norbert Nuss at precisely this time and would soon descend into Nazism." An alter
baum (Regensburg: Schnell und Steiner, 2008), 212-37. native assessment is provided by Matthew Rampley, "Art History and
the Politics of Empire: Rethinking the Vienna School," Art Bulletin 91,
34. Gombrich, "In Search of Cultural History," 41-42.
no. 4 (2009): 446-62.
35. Reservations concerning Gombrich's reading of Hegel are also to be
50. Otto Pacht, "Art Historians and Critics—vi: Alois Riegl," Burlington
found in James Elkins, "Art History without Theory," Critical Inquiry
Magazine 105 (May 1963): 188-93.
14, no. 2 (Winter 1988): 354-78. However, whereas Elkins (359) con
tends that Gombrich seeks to replace Hegelianism with an untheo 51. Ibid., 192.
rized, and untheorizable, empiricism, and that "an empirical critique 52. Eisner, "The Birth of Late Antiquity," 359. See, too, idem, "From Em
of 'Hegelianism' results in nothing other than its continued accep pirical Evidence to the Big Picture: Some Reflections on Riegl's Con
tance and use," I argue that Gombrich is more indebted to Hegel's cept of Kunstwollen," Critical Inquiry 32, no. 4 (Summer 2006): 741-66;
ideas than he realizes. Elkins's critique is exposed to Gombrich's un and Christopher S. Wood, introduction to The Vienna School Reader:
doubtedly correct riposte: "I do not advocate 'Art History without Politics and Art Historical Method in the 1930s (New York: Zone Books,
Theory,' but the search for better theories." Gombrich, "Response to 2003), 9-81.
James Elkins," Critical Inquiry 14, no. 4 (Summer 1988): 892.
53. Eisner, "From Empirical Evidence," 741-43. Eisner argues (747-48)
36. For a detailed discussion of these issues, see Jason Gaiger, Aesthetics that "Riegl's greatness as an art historian lies in his absolutely acute
and Painting (London: Continuum, 2008), 38-62. awareness of this problem and his own sense of being pulled in both
37. See G. W. F. Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit (1807), trans. A. V. Miller directions—towards the satisfyingly described single object and at the
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977), 58-66; for the German text, same time the fully elaborated historical picture."
see Hegel, Phanomenologie des Geistes (Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 1988), 54. Pacht ("Art Historians and Critics," 191) describes Riegl's work as "the
69-78. Hegel maintains that the idea of pure apprehension without first adumbration of that hybrid type of enquiry which later became
comprehension cannot withstand critical scrutiny since even the most known under the programmatic title of art history as history of the
minimal identification of qualitative differences involves a mediating spirit of the time."
capacity for discrimination and unification. For an illuminating analy
55. Eisner, "From Empirical Evidence," 741.
sis of Hegel's views, see Robert Pippin, Hegel's Idealism: The Satisfactions
of Self-Consciousness (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 56. Although David Hume is primarily concerned with predictive infer
116-25. ence and does not actually use the term "induction," it is generally
accepted that he identified the problem in its modern form. See
38. Gombrich, "In Search of Cultural History," 29, 33.
Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature (1739-40), bk. 1, pt. 3, sec. 1 (Ox
39. Ibid., 28-29. ford: Oxford University Press, 1978).
40. Ibid., 33.
57. Georg Henrik von Wright, Explanation and Understanding (Ithaca, N.Y.:
41. Gombrich, "Hegel und die Kunstgeschichte," 209. Gombrich's obser Cornell University Press, 1971), 4. See, too, the useful discussion by
HEGEL'S CONTESTED LEGACY ^93
David Frisby in his introduction to the English edition of The Positivist Michael Hatt and Charlotte Klonk, Art History: A Critical Introduction to
Dispute in German Sociology by Theodor Adorno et al. (London: Heine Its Methods (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2006). The au
mann, 1976), ix-xiii. As Frisby makes clear, although Popper denies thors claim (3, 37; my emphasis) that Hegel presents a "mono-causal
that he is a positivist, he defines the term in ways that other partici account of history" and that "art's evolution through its various stages
pants in the debate, including Theodor Adorno and Jurgen Haber is ultimately caused by a metaphysical force, the Absolute Idea."
mas, do not share.
79. See, for example, the essays collected in Norman Bryson, Michael
58. Walter A. Kaufmann, "The Hegel Myth and Its Method," Philosophical Ann Holly, and Keith Moxey, eds., Visual Theory (Cambridge: Polity,
Review 60 (1951): 459-86, reprinted in The Hegel Myths and Legends, 1991).
ed. Jon Stewart (Evanston, 111.: Northwestern University Press, 1996),
80. Michael Ann Holly, Panofsky and the Foundations of Art History (Ithaca,
82-103, from which all citations are taken.
N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1984), 27-28.
59. Kaufmann notes (ibid., 84) that "Popper's first composite quotation
81. Margaret Iversen, "The Primacy of Philosophy," Art History 9 (1986):
consists of eight such bits of which not a single one was published by 271-74, at 271-72.
Hegel."
82. Keith Moxey, "Art History's Hegelian Unconscious" (1998), reprinted
60. Ibid., 86.
in The Practice of Persuasion: Paradox & Power in Art History (Ithaca,
61. See Shlomo Avineri, "Hegel and Nationalism" (1961); Franz Gregoire, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2001), 8-41.
"Is the Hegelian State Totalitarian?" (1962); and Henning Ottmann,
83. See Annemarie Gethmann-Siefert, "Asthetik oder Philosophic der
"Hegel and Political Trends: A Criticism of the Political Hegel Leg
Kunst: Die Nachschriften und Zeugnisse zu Hegels Berliner Vorlesun
ends" (1979), all reprinted in Stewart, The Hegel Myths and Legends,
gen," 92-110, and Helmut Schneider, "Eine Nachschrift der Vorle
109-28, 104-8, 53-69.
sung Hegels uber Asthetik im Wintersemester 1820/21," 89-92, both
62. Gombrich, Art and Illusion, ix. in Hegel-Studien 26 (1991). Detailed information is given in the edito
63. See, for example, Dominic Lopes, Understanding Pictures (Oxford: rial essays accompanying the published editions of the lecture tran
scripts.
Clarendon Press, 1996); and John Hyman, The Objective Eye: Colour,
Form and Reality in the Theory of Art (Chicago: University of Chicago 84. Wilhelm von Ascheberg's transcript from 1820-21 is published as
Press, 2006). I discuss the importance of Gombrich's work for con G. W. F. Hegel, Vorlesungen iiber Asthetik, ed. Helmut Schneider
temporary theories of depiction in Gaiger, Aesthetics and Painting, 3-4, (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1995). Heinrich Gustav Hotho's transcription
39-58. from the 1823 series is published as Hegel, Vorlesungen iiber die Philoso
64. James Elkins, "Ten Reasons Why E. H. Gombrich Is Not Connected to phie der Kunst, ed. Annemarie Gethmann-Siefert (Hamburg: Felix
Art History," Human Affairs 19, no. 3 (2009): 304-10. The original Meiner, 1998). P. von der Pfordten's transcription from the 1826 se
version of this paper was written in 2002 for an online forum orga ries is published as Hegel, Philosophie der Kunst: Vorlesung von 1826, ed.
nized by the College Art Association; it is clearly intended to stimulate Gethmann-Siefert, Jeong-Im Kwon, and Karsten Berr (Frankfurt:
discussion, not to close it down. Suhrkamp, 2005). The transcription of the same series by C. H. V.
von Kehler is published as Hegel, Philosophie der Kunst oder Aesthetik:
65. Michael Baxandall, Painting and Experience in Fifteenth-Century Italy, 2nd
Nach Hegel, im Sommer 1826, ed. Gethmann-Siefert and Bernadette
ed. (1972; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), 1.
Collenberg-Plotnikov (Munich: Wilhelm Fink, 2004). The only series
66. Allen Langdale, "Aspects of the Critical Reception and Intellectual for which there is, as yet, no published version available is the final
History of Baxandall's Concept of the Period Eye," Art History 21, no. one from 1828-29. All references to the lecture transcripts will be
4 (1998): 479-97, at 483. given by the name of the transcriber and the year of the lecture
67. Ibid., 483. course, for example, Ascheberg (1820-21).
68. See, for example, Eddy de Jongh's review of The Art of Describing, by 85. The sheet is inscribed "Nach d. Nat. gez 1828 u. lith. von F. Kugler"
Svetlana Alpers, Simiolus: Netherlands Quarterly for the History of Art 14,
(drawn from nature 1828 and lithographed by F. Kugler). Kugler's
no. 1 (1984): 51-59. De Jongh (53) refers to Popper and Gombrich Handbuch der Geschichte der Malerei von Constantin dem Grossen bis auf die
to support his criticism of Alpers's reliance on "false associations and neuere Zeit was published in two volumes (Berlin: Duncker und Hum
generalizations which do serious violence to historical reality." bolt, 1837). For a discussion of the role played by Kugler's lithograph
in the "representation" of art history, see Dan Karlholm, The Art of
69. Gombrich, Tributes, 50.
Illusion: The Representation of Art History in Nineteenth-Century Germany
70. Gombrich, "Hegel und die Kunstgeschichte," 212; see, too, idem, and Beyond (Bern: Peter Lang, 2004).
" 'The Father of Art History,' " 62-63.
86. G. W. F. Hegel, Vorlesungen iiber die Asthetik, ed. H. G. Hotho, in He
71. See T. J. Clark, Farewell to an Idea: Episodes from a History of Modernism gel, Werke: Vollstandige Ausgabe durch einen Verein von Freunden des
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999), 371-73. I discuss Clark's Verewigten, vol. 10 (Berlin, 1835-38). A second edition, with minor
reception of Hegel below. changes, was published in 1842. This text provides the basis for the
modern German edition, published in the Suhrkamp edition of He
72. Judith Butler, Subjects of Desire: Hegelian Reflections in Twentieth-Century
gel's Werke, edited by Eva Moldenhauer and Karl Markus Michel: He
France (New York: Columbia University Press, 1987).
gel, Vorlesungen iiber Asthetik, Werke, vols. 13-15 (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp,
73. Theodor W. Adorno, Hegel: Three Studies, trans. S. W. Nicholson (Cam 1986), henceforth cited as Hegel, Asthetik, followed by the Werke vol
bridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1993), 8. For the German text, see Adorno, ume number. It is also the basis of the English translation by T. M.
Drei Studien zu Hegel (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1963), 15. Knox, Hegel's Aesthetics: Lectures on Fine Art, 2 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon
74. Adorno, Hegel: Three Studies, 9-10, 7; and Drei Studien, 16, 14. Press, 1975).
75. Adorno, Hegel: Three Studies, 7 (translation modified); and Drei Studien, 87. Heinrich Gustav Hotho, letter to Karl von Altenstein, July 27, 1830,
14. quoted in Elizabeth Ziemer, Heinrich Gustav Hotho, 1802-1873: Ein
Berliner Kunsthistoriker, Kunstkritiker und Philosoph (Berlin: Dietrich
76. "If the social history of art has a specific field of study, it is exactly
Meiner Verlag, 1994), 254.
this—the processes of conversion and relation, which so much art his
tory takes for granted. I want to discover what concrete transactions 88. See James J. Sheehan, Museums in the German Art World: From the End of
are hidden behind the mechanical image of 'reflection,' to know how the Old Regime to the Rise of the Museum Age (Oxford: Oxford University
'background' becomes 'foreground'; instead of analogy between form Press, 2000), 54-55, 79-81. Hotho's first book on art, Vorstudien fur
and content, to discover the network of real, complex relations be Leben und Kunst (Stuttgart: Cotta, 1835), was published in the same
tween the two." T. J. Clark, Image of the People: Gustave Courbet and the year as volume one of his edition of Hegel's Lectures on Aesthetics. He
1848 Revolution (London: Thames and Hudson, 1973), 12. became a leading figure in the "Berlin school" of art historians. See
Ziemer, Heinrich Gustav Hotho\ and Udo Kulturmann, Geschichte der
77. T.J. Clark, "The Conditions of Artistic Creation," Times Literary Supple
Kunstgeschichte: Der Weg einer Wissenschaft (Berlin: Ullstein, 1981), 171—
ment 24 (May 1974): 561-62, reprinted in Art History and Its Methods:
72.
A Critical Anthology, ed. Eric Fernie (London: Phaidon, 1995), 248-53,
at 250. For a discussion of Clark's response to Hegel, see Martin 89. After completing his edition, Hotho broke up the notebook that He
Donougho, "Must It Be Abstract? Hegel, Pippin and Clark," Bulletin of gel had used for the Berlin lectures and distributed pages to friends
the Hegel Society of Great Britain 55-56 (2007): 87-106. and colleagues. A few fragments have since been recovered. See Lucia
Sziborsky, "Hegel iiber die Objektivitat des Kunstwerks: Ein Eigenhan
78. See Margaret Iversen, Alois Riegl: Art History and Theory (Cambridge,
diges Blatt zur Asthetik," Hegel-Studien 18 (1983): 9-22; and Helmut
Mass.: MIT Press, 1993); Hubert Locher, Kunstgeschichte als historische
Theorie der Kunst, 1750-1950 (Munich: Wilhelm Fink, 2001); Michael Schneider, "Neue Quellen zu Hegels Asthetik," Hegel-Studien 19
(1984): 9-46.
Podro, The Manifold in Perception: Theories of Art from Kant to Hildebrand
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972); and idem, The Critical Histori 90. Lasson's dissatisfaction with Hotho's text led him to embark on a new
ans of Art. For a recent example of an art history textbook that pro edition of the lectures on aesthetics, but he was unable to complete it
vides a strong metaphysical interpretation of Hegel's aesthetics, see before his death. Only the first volume was published, as volume ten
of the Leipzig edition of Hegel's Samtliche Werke. See G. W. F. Hegel, losophy. The Encylopedia presents an overview of his entire philosophi
Die Idee und das Ideal: Nach den erhaltenen Quellen neu herausgegeben von cal system. The first edition was published in 1817, with two further
Georg Lasson (Leipzig: Felix Meiner, 1931). The phrase "das sinnliche editions in 1827 and 1830. For an English translation of the final sec
Scheinen der Idee" (the sensible appearance of the idea) is to be tion, based on the third and final edition of 1830, see G. W. F. Hegel,
found in the section of Hotho's edition entided "The Idea of the Hegel's Philosophy of Mind, trans. William Wallace (Oxford: Clarendon
Beautiful." Hegel, Asthetik, 13, 151, trans. Hegel's Aesthetics: Lectures on Press, 1971).
Fine Art, 111.
109. Gethmann-Siefert, "Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel," 373-75.
91. Gethmann-Siefert, "Asthetik oder Philosophic der Kunst," 92.
110. Mendelssohn attended Hegel's final lecture series on aesthetics in
92. See Gethmann-Siefert, "Einleitung," xvi, and "Georg Wilhelm 1828-29; he made this observation in a letter to his sisters in May
Friedrich Hegel," 263-376, at 364-65, in Asthetik und Kunstphilosophie 1831. It is cited by Donougho in "Art and History," 179. I have fol
von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, ed. Julian Nida-Rumelin and Monika lowed Donougho's translation of "mausetot," which literally means
Betzler (Stuttgart: Kroner, 1998). "dead as a mouse."
93. For reservations concerning Gethmann-Siefert's conclusions, see Rob 111. The most important early treatments of this issue are Karsten Harries,
ert Pippin, "The Absence of Aesthetics in Hegel's Aesthetics," in The "Hegel on the Future of Art," Review of Metaphysics 27 (1973-74): 677
Cambridge Companion to Hegel and Nineteenth-Century Philosophy, ed. 96; Willi Oelmuller, "Hegels Satz vom Ende der Kunst," Philosophisches
Frederick L. Beiser (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), Jahrbuch 73 (1965): 75-94; and Dieter Henrich, "Zur Aktualitat von
394-418, at 395. Both Houlgate and Pippin continue to refer to Hegels Asthetik," in Stuttgarter Hegel-Tage 1970, Hegel-Studien, suppl.
Hotho's edition as the "standard text." vol. 2, ed. Hans-Georg Gadamer (Bonn: Bouvier, 1974), 295-301.
94. Peter C. Hodgson, "Hegel's Philosophy of Religion," in Beiser, The 112. Ascheberg (1820-21), 38.
Cambridge Companion to Hegel, 230-52, at 232. Discussion of Hegel's
113. Hotho (1823), 6. Hegel goes on to say, "Our world, our religion and
philosophy of religion has been decisively modified by Walter Jae
our culture of reason [ Vernunftbildung] have taken a step beyond art
schke's reconstruction of the individual lecture series, based on the
as the highest form in which the absolute is expressed. The work of
available evidence. See G. W. F. Hegel, Vorlesungen uber die Philosophie
art can no longer fulfill our ultimate, absolute need; we no longer
der Religion, ed. Jaeschke, 3 vols. (Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 1983-85).
pray to a work of art, and our relation to it is of a more reflective [be
95. For H. G. Hotho's description of Hegel's aesthetics as mere "sketches sonnener] character."
and observations [Skizze und Ausfuhrung]," see his "Vorrede," in He
114. On the emergence of the "modern concept of art," see Preben
gel, Vorlesungen uber die Asthetik, v-xv, at xii. Hotho refers to Solger
Mortensen, Art in the Social Order: The Making of the Modern Concept of
and Schelling on the very first page of his editor's preface. For Geth
Art (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997). For a dissent
mann-Siefert's claim that Hotho presents Hegel's aesthetics as part of
ing view, which challenges many of the assumptions on which this ac
a closed system of philosophy, see her "Einleitung," in Hotho (1823),
xvi.
count is based, see James Porter, "Is Art Modern? Kristeller's 'Modern
System of the Arts' Reconsidered," British Journal of Aesthetics 49
96. Hotho, "Vorrede," vi. Hotho notes (xi), "The principal difficulty lay in (2009): 1-24.
the editing together and fusing [Ineinanderarbeitung und Verschmelzung]
of the most varied materials." 115. Sheehan, Museums in the German Art World, 94.
97. Ibid., vi. 116. Stephen Melville, "The Temptation of New Perspectives," October, no.
52 (Spring 1990): 3-15, at 6.
98. Annemarie Gethmann-Siefert, Einfuhrung in die Asthetik (Munich:
117. Ibid., 6.
Fink, 1995), 204.
118. Belting, The End of the History of Art ? 11-12.
99. See Hegel, Asthetik, vol. 14, 127-28, trans. Hegel's Aesthetics, vol. 2, 517.
Cf. Hegel's claim in the 1823 lecture series, "The concept of beauty is 119. Ibid., 12.
realized in classical art; nothing can be more beautiful"; Hotho 120. Ibid., 38.
(1823), 179.
121. Ibid., 45.
100. "The classical ideal is cold, for itself, and self-contained [in sich abge
122. Arthur Danto first presented his version of Hegel's "end of art" thesis
schlossen\, its form is its own; it gives nothing away ... by contrast, the
external characteristics of romantic art do not exist for the ideal but in a paper entitled "The End of Art" (1984), reprinted in The Philo
sophical Disenfranchisement of Art (New York: Columbia University Press,
for others and possess a moment of surrender to others"; Hotho
(1823), 185. 1986), 81-116. Danto proposes that Hegel's arguments are best un
derstood not in relation to his own time but to the "pitch of self-con
101. For Hegel's account of the "destruction of the unity of the beautiful sciousness" achieved in the work of Pop and Conceptual artists in the
[Zertrummerung der Einheit des Schonen]," see Hotho (1823), 178. 1960s. The fullest statement of his position is to be found in After the
102. Donougho, "Art and History," 180, 191. End of Art: Contemporary Art and the Pale of History (Princeton: Prince
ton University Press, 1997). For an analysis of Danto's debt to Hegel,
103. Pippin, "The Absence of Aesthetics," 395.
see Jason Gaiger, "Art as Made and Sensuous: Hegel, Danto and the
104. For Hegel's description of Romantic art as "a progression of art be 'End of Art,' " Bulletin of the Hegel Society of Great Britain 41-42 (2000):
yond itself [ein Fortschreiten der Kunst uber sich selbst]," see Hotho 104-19.
(1823), 36. His claim that "in romantic art the content goes beyond
123. Beat Wyss, Hegel's Art History and the Critique of Modernity, trans. Caro
the form, demands more than the representational form of the art
work can achieve," is to be found in Hotho (1823), 119. See, too, his line Dobson Saltzwedel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1999), originally published as Trauer der Vollendung: Von der Asthetik des
claim that "classic [art] attained the highest as art; what is lacking in
Deutschen Idealismus zur Kulturkritik an der Moderne (Munich: Matthes
it belongs to the limitation of the sphere of art itself, or to art as art,"
und Seitz, 1985).
in Pfordten (1826), 68.
124. Wyss, Hegel's Art History, 104.
105. Hotho (1823), 11. Hegel claims both that art is "a product of the sen
suous world that is addressed to the senses [aus dem Sinnlichen fur den 125. Sheehan, Museums in the German Art World, 83—137, dates the begin
Sinn]" and that it is "a product of the mind that is addressed to the ning of the "museum age" to 1830, the year in which the Altes Mu
mind [aus dem Geist und fur den Geist]"', Hotho (1823), 7, 11. seum in Berlin and the Glyptothek in Munich opened.
106. Ascheberg (1820-21), 37. 126. I owe these formulations to Karen Lang, whose comments helped to
107. Pippin, "The Absence of Aesthetics," 411. refine the argument as it is presented here.
127. Frederick Beiser, "Introduction: The Puzzling Hegel Renaissance," in
108. The final section of Hegel's Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences in
Outline (Enzyklopadie der philosophischen Wissenschaften in Grundrisse), idem, The Cambridge Companion to Hegel, 1-14, at 6-7.
entitled "Absolute Spirit," encompasses art, revealed religion, and phi 128. Pinkard, German Philosophy, 1760-1860, 367.

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