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 Reference
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.