After the Avant-Gardes
- One might, by the way, regard this as a quite peculiar version of a l’art pour
l’arttheory of art.
- For a defense of this idea of Schlegel’s in terms of current hermeneutic and
deconstructive aesthetic theory, see R. Sonderegger, Für eine Ästhetik des Spiels,
Frankfurt, 2000, Part II.
- See, for example, A.W. Schlegel’s “Sonnet,” which is a poem about itself, about
sonnets and about poetry.
- Compare, for example, Hegel’s famous attack on romantic irony in his Lectures
on Aestheticswith the following unfriendly remark of Schelling’s: “Poetry can... have
poetry as such and in abstractoas its object—[it can] be poetry about poetry. Some of our
so-called romantic poets have never gotten any further than to such a glorification of
poetry by poetry. But nobody has recognized this poetry about poetry as real poetry.” (Zur
Geschichte der neueren Philosophie, Darmstadt, 1953, 123; the translation is mine.)
- Cf. Kivy, Philosophies of Arts: An Essay in Differences, Cambridge University
Press, 1997.
- At least in Hotho’s later version of the Lectures on Aesthetics. In the earlier
Lectures on the Philosophy of Art, the theory of art history is spelled out in the second
section of the first, or general, part. And this fits nicely with Hegel’s thesis that art is
essentially historical. But this point is brought home in the later version as well. So this
difference turns out to be a matter of presentation rather than content.
- Cf., among many, R. Schmücker, Was Ist Kunst?, Munich, 1998, 27–32.
- Hegel often speaks of a ‘system of needs’ that characterise and partly determine
his being in the world. Human needs reach far beyond basic animal needs for food, shel-
ter, and sexual propagation, although they include these. Moreover, even these basic
human needs are informed by culture, man’s second nature. This is to be acknowledged
by any philosophical anthropology whatsoever.
- The art-historical thesis that ancient Egypt, ancient Indian and Chinese art are
symbolic in this sense is more than problematic, of course. But even if one believes, as I
do, that Hegel himself betrays a remarkable lack of understanding here, this does not affect
the distinction between symbolic, classical, and romantic art on the conceptual level.
- I simplify a lot here, more than Hegel does, who knows too much about ancient
tragedy to claim that classical art is always immediately concerned with ideals of human life.
- See, for example, Hegel’s remarks about the role of talent and learning in the
arts in his Lectures on the Philosophy of Art, 22–24.
- The Humanizing Function of Art: Thoughts on
an Aesthetic Harm Principle
- See the special issue, “Arte Hoy: La Crisis Permanente,” in Revista de Occidente
261 (February 2003).
- Arthur Danto’s claims about the end of art have been tremendously influential.
For his tale of the end of art, see Danto, The Philosophical Disenfranchisement of Art
(New York, 1986), After the End of Art (Princeton, 1997), and The Abuse of Beauty.
Aesthetics and the Concept of Art (Chicago: Open Court, 2003).
- “The End of Art: A Philosophical Defense,” History and Theory37:4 (1998),
127–143, at 128. This is a special issue, entitled, Danto and his Critics: Art, History, and
Historiography after the End of Art.
Notes to Pages 69–75 209
