Édouard Manet, A Bar at the
Folies-Bergère (1882)
Oil on canvas, 96 cm × 130 cm
(37.8 in × 51.2 in)
What exactly is “the end of art,” as Hegel understood it, and how
is it understood now? The Lectures on Aesthetics (1823, 1826, and
1828-9)[1]
develop a concept of art’s dissolution (Auflösung)
(usually called the “end of art”) which is elusive and contradictory, but which
nevertheless persists as one of the paradigmatic themes of today’s aesthetics
and philosophy of art.[2] For, although the “end of art” is discussed
with great interest, and although it’s a central concept for many of our
leading philosophers and critics, the precise meaning of the expression remains
unclear. As a result, despite numerous existing
treatments of art’s dissolution, and despite its
continued relevance for aesthetics and art criticism, there has as yet
been no adequate application of Hegel’s aesthetics to contemporary art. Hegel’s several statements to the effect that
“considered in its highest vocation, art is and remains for us a thing of the
past” (Hegel, 1828-9/1998:11) are variously interpreted and remain deeply
perplexing. Perhaps
the “end of art” is so resilient precisely because of its equivocal, protean
nature, its limitless flexibility: “The end of art could
develop its remarkably durable effectiveness…because already in Hegel it is so
densely surrounded by contradictions and inconsistencies that no consensus has
yet been reached on whether there even is
a Hegelian end of art.”[3]
[1]. G. W. F. Hegel Aesthetics:
Lectures on Fine Art, Vol. I Trans. T. M. Knox Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1998 p. vi (cited hereafter as Hegel:1828-9/1998).
[2]. See, for current examples, David
Carrier, “Warhol, Danto and the End of Art History” in Art US No. 26 (Fall, 2008) pp. 92-97 and Roger Kimball, “The End of
Art” in First Things: A Monthly Journal
of Religion and Public Life (Summer, 2008) No. 184 pp. 27-31
[3]. Eva Geulen The End of Art: Readings in a
Rumor After Hegel Trans. James Mc. Farland (California: Stanford University
Press, 2006) p. 8
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