Hegel’s Art History and the Critique of Modernity

In this study, Beat Wyss provides a critical analysis of Hegel’s theories of art history. Analogous to his philosophy of history, Hegel viewed the history of art in dialectical terms: with its origins in the Ancient Near East, Western art culminated in Classical Greece, but began its decline already in the Hellenistic period. Yet, as Wyss posits, art refuses its programmed demise. He highlights the political dimension of this contradiction, showing the implication of theories which subordinate art to the will of absolute rule. Wyss follows his analysis of Hegel’s theories with a discussion of the work of four modern successors - Nordau, Spengler, Sedlmayr, and Lukacs - all of whom adapted Hegel’s dialectical model, in an effort to demonstrate the central contradictions of twentieth-century aesthetics.

• This is ‘Hegel for non-philosophers’: such as art historians and cultural theorists • Considers political implications of Hegel’s aesthetics

Part I. Hegel’s Last Walk Through his Museum: 1. Morning: Oriental symbolism; 2. Noon; 3. Evening: the West; 4. The fourth chapter of the dialectics; Part II. An Unholy Alliance: 5. Degeneration; 6. Decline; 7. Loss of the centre; 8. Decadence; Part III. Reason Outschemed: Epilogue.