What’s
the significance of the historical fact that Hegel’s philosophy was essential
to the formation of art history? There
are two answers to this question. First,
on this account, Hegel represents a certain intimacy between philosophy and art
history, since the latter springs from the former. Art history is yielded by historicized
philosophical reflection on art as an expression of human culture. Secondly, we should recall that analytic
philosophy was originally designed to shut down Hegelian thought; Russell and
Moore “were to launch English-language analysis against the prevailing Hegelian
currents.”[1] So, from the viewpoint of the history of
philosophy, the Anglo-American tradition is for the most part inimical to the
Hegelian (and therefore historicist) core of art history as it’s been
traditionally practiced. Analytic
philosophy and art history, on this genealogical reading, are mutually
antithetical. And it’s not art history
that should be required to yield.
For example, an especially talented critic notes:
“One consequence of Hegel’s approach is to suggest that each culture must have
its own independent artistic ideas.
Wölfflin (nd [1908]) develops this idea.
The classical and the baroque are distinct artistic cultures, each with
its own values, but neither reducible to the other. The art historian’s task is to explain how
and why the classical evolved into the baroque without making value
judgments…‘[they] are like two languages, in which everything can be said,
although each has its strength in a different direction.’”[2] The quoted passage recalls Hegel’s remark on
the impossibility of composing an epic from within the context of the modern
state;[3]
discussing elements of modernism, Schapiro writes an essay on “that art which
is fresh and original and could not have been done in a previous age.”[4]
Interestingly, Danto absorbed this concept of historical impossibility, despite its deep conflict with his own philosophical loyalties. Once we admit that artworks are deeply historical in this sense, we have to give up the attempt to treat art historical knowledge on a model derived from physics or chemistry, disciplines in which historical periods have no place. We are also required by historicism to try and analyze art using criteria different from our own, and to make judge artworks from within the aesthetic systems of their times. In the understanding of any particular artwork, are obliged to address an entire culture. For Hegel, the “task and vocation” of art history
Interestingly, Danto absorbed this concept of historical impossibility, despite its deep conflict with his own philosophical loyalties. Once we admit that artworks are deeply historical in this sense, we have to give up the attempt to treat art historical knowledge on a model derived from physics or chemistry, disciplines in which historical periods have no place. We are also required by historicism to try and analyze art using criteria different from our own, and to make judge artworks from within the aesthetic systems of their times. In the understanding of any particular artwork, are obliged to address an entire culture. For Hegel, the “task and vocation” of art history
consists in the aesthetic appreciation of individual works of art and in a knowledge of the historical circumstances which condition the work of art externally; it is only an appreciation, made with sense and spirit, and supported by the historical facts, which can penetrate into the entire individuality of a work of art.[5]
[1]. Joseph Margolis The
Unraveling of Scientism Cornell University Press, 2003 p. 11
[2]. David Carrier, “Art History” in A Companion to Aesthetics [eds?] Blackwell, 1995 p. 15 Carrier
Refers to Wolfflins’ Principles of Art
History: The Problem of the Development of Style in Later Art M. D. Hottinger,
trans. Dover, 1950
[3]. Brian K. Etter, “Hegel’s Aesthetics and the
Possibility of Art Criticism” in Maker, 2000:39
[4]. Meyer Schapiro, “The Value of Modern Art” in Worldview and Painting-Art and Society
(Selected Papers Vol. V) George Brazillier, 1999 p. 134
[5]. G. W. F. Hegel Aesthetics:
Lectures on Fine Art (Vol. I) T. M. Knox, trans. Oxford University Press,
1998 p. 21
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