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Full Idea
Unlike his predecessors (including Kant), Hegel does not focus on aesthetic pleasure, nor on good taste, nor even on the nature and criteria for beauty. Instead he focuses on the meaning of artworks and their role in forming mankind's self-consciousness.
Gist of Idea
Hegel largely ignores aesthetic pleasure, taste and beauty, and focuses on the meaning of artworks
Source
report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Lectures on Aesthetics [1826]) by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 11
Book Ref
Pinkard,Terry: 'German Philosophy 1760-1860' [CUP 2002], p.299
A Reaction
Personally I dislike over-intellectualising art. The aim of a work of art is to give a certain experience, not to generate an ensuing sequence of theorising. I doubt whether Vermeer had any 'meaning' in mind in his obsessive work.
| 22043 | Hegel largely ignores aesthetic pleasure, taste and beauty, and focuses on the meaning of artworks [Hegel, by Pinkard] |
| 22042 | Natural beauty is unimportant, because it doesn't show human freedom [Hegel, by Pinkard] |
| 20413 | For Hegel the importance of art concerns the culture, not the individual [Hegel, by Eldridge] |
| 20394 | The purpose of art is to reveal to Spirit its own nature [Hegel, by Davies,S] |
| 21794 | The main purpose of art is to express the unity of human life [Hegel] |
| 18549 | Nineteenth century aesthetics focused on art rather than nature (thanks to Hegel) [Hegel, by Scruton] |
| 21795 | What I hold true must also be part of my feelings and character [Hegel] |
| 21793 | Genuine truth is the resolution of the highest contradiction [Hegel] |
| 20415 | Art forms a bridge between the sensuous world and the world of pure thought [Hegel] |