Introductory Lectures on Aesthetics

by Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich; Bosanquet, Bernard; Inwood, Michael; Inwood, Michael

• ISBN13: 9780140433357
• ISBN10: 014043335X
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1994-01-04
• Publisher: Penguin Classics

Summary

No philosopher has held a higher opinion of art than Hegel, yet nor was any so profoundly pessimistic about its prospects - despite living in the German golden age of Goethe, Mozart and Schiller. For if the artists of classical Greece could find the perfect fusion of content and form, modernity faced complicating - and ultimately disabling - questions. Christianity, with its code of unworldliness, had compromised the immediacy of man's relationship with reality, and ironic detachment had alienated him from his deepest feelings. Hegel's Introductory Lectures on Aesthetics were delivered in Berlin in the 1820s and stand today as a passionately argued work that challenged the ability of art to respond to the modern world.

Table of Contents

Introduction	ix	(28)
A Note on the Translation and Commentary	xxxvii
INTRODUCTORY LECTURES ON AESTHETICS
CHAPTER I The Range of Aesthetic Defined, and Some Objections against the Philosophy of Art Refuted	3-16	(13)
[(Alpha). Aesthetic confined to Beauty of Art	3	(2)
(Beta). Does Art merit Scientific Treatment?	5	(2)
(Gamma). Is Scientific Treatment appropriate to Art?	7	(3)
(Delta). Answer to (Beta)	10	(3)
(XXX). Answer to (Gamma)	13	(4)
CHAPTER II Methods of Science Applicable to Beauty and Art	17-26	(9)
[1. Empirical Method -- Art-scholarship	17	(8)
(a) Its Range	17	(1)
(b) It generates Rules and Theories	18	(5)
(c) The Rights of Genius	23	(2)
2. Abstract Reflection	25	(1)
3. The Philosophical Conception of Artistic Beauty, general notion of	25	(2)
CHAPTER III The Conception of Artistic Beauty	27-61	(34)
Part I--The Work of Art as Made and as Sensuous	27	(19)
1. Work of Art as Product of Human Activity	30	(7)
[(a) Conscious Production by Rule	30	(1)
(b) Artistic Inspiration	31	(2)
(c) Dignity of Production by Man	33	(2)
(d) Man's Need to produce Works of Art	35	(2)
2. Work of Art as addressed to Man's Sense	37	(9)
[(a) Object of Art -- Pleasant Feeling?	37	(1)
(b) Feeling of Beauty -- Taste	38	(1)
(c) Art-scholarship	39	(1)
(d) Profounder Consequences of Sensuous Nature of Art	40	(1)
(Alpha) Relations of the Sensuous to the Mind	40	(1)
(AlphaAlpha) Desire	41	(1)
(BetaBeta) Theory	42	(1)
(GammaGamma) Sensuous as Symbol of Spiritual	43	(1)
(Beta) The Sensuous Element, how Present in the Artist	44	(2)
(Gamma) The Content of Art Sensuous	46	(1)
Part II--The End of Art	46	(16)
3. [The Interest or End of Art	46	(16)
(a) Imitation of Nature?	47	(4)
(Alpha) Mere Repetition of Nature is -	47	(1)
(AlphaAlpha) Superfluous	47	(1)
(BetaBeta) Imperfect	47	(1)
(GammaGamma) Amusing merely as Sleight of Hand	48	(1)
(Beta) What is Good to Imitate?	49	(1)
(Gamma) Some Arts cannot be called Imitative	50	(1)
(b) Humani nihil - ?	51	(1)
(c) Mitigation of the Passions?	52	(8)
(Alpha) How Art mitigates the Passions	53	(2)
(Beta) How Art purifies the Passions	55	(1)
(AlphaAlpha) It must have a Worthy Content	55	(1)
(BetaBeta) But ought not to be Didactic	55	(2)
(GammaGamma) Nor explicitly addressed to a Moral Purpose	57	(3)
(d) Art has its own Purpose as Revelation of Truth	60	(2)
CHAPTER IV Historical Deduction of the True Idea of Art in Modern Philosophy	62-75	(13)
1. Kant	62	(5)
[(a) Pleasure in Beauty not Appetitive	64	(1)
(b) Pleasure in Beauty Universal	64	(1)
(c) The Beautiful in its Teleological Aspect	65	(1)
(d) Delight in the Beautiful necessary though felt	65	(2)
2. Schiller, Winckelmann, Schelling	67	(2)
3. The Irony	69	(7)
CHAPTER V Division of the Subject	76-97	(21)
[1. The Condition of Artistic Presentation is the Correspondence of Matter and Plastic Form	76	(4)
2. Part I--The Ideal	80	(2)
3. Part II--The Types of Art	82	(6)
(Alpha) Symbolic Art	82	(2)
(Beta) Classical Art	84	(1)
(Gamma) Romantic Art	85	(3)
4. Part III--The Several Arts	88	(8)
(Alpha) Architecture	90	(1)
(Beta) Sculpture	91	(1)
(Gamma) Romantic Art, comprising	92	(1)
(i) Painting	93	(1)
(ii) Music	94	(1)
(iii) Poetry	95	(1)
5. Conclusion	96	(2)
Commentary	98