Hegel and the Essentially Historicist Nature of Art History

Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, Grape and Melon Eaters (1645-6)Oil on Canvas, 145.9 × 103.6 cm. Alte Pinakothek, Munich, Bavaria

What’s the significance of the way in which Hegel’s philosophy is 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.

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[1]. Joseph Margolis The Unraveling of Scientism Cornell University Press, 2003 p. 11