almost flawless with respect to craft and aesthetics. It is based on a very
demanding script, it has a gifted director and excellent actors, and it is
beautifully filmed and cut. But nevertheless it is a pompous, presump-
tuous, and empty work, because it fails to treat adequately the meta-
physical and moral questions that are raised by the plot. There is a lack
or loss in the sphere of Geist. Hegel’s description of periods of symbolic
art turns out to be instructive here. Remember that the reason for art
being merely symbolic, in Hegel’s view, is a failure to grasp human
nature adequately. For Hegel, both classical and romantic art share a
more adequate conception of human life. But this does not imply that
such a level of understanding can never be lost; in fact, we may already
have lost it. We may have embraced the wrong sort of naturalism too
hastily. We moderns might be thrown back to the level of symbolic art
for that reason. If one looks at things this way, one will see that it is
highly unfair to blame modern, avant-garde art because of this develop-
ment. Avant-garde art is just a way of expressing the modern condition.
It cannot be blamed for having caused this condition.
Art today can be seen as the adequate expression of our common but
inadequate conception of ourselves. Therefore, if art does not matter to
us any more this may be because it makes us feel uneasy. It makes us
feel uneasy because it reminds us that we are in an uneasy situation.
Such a diagnosis would be even more troubling than Danto’s claim con-
cerning the end of art.
A Prophecy Come True? Dante and Hegel on the End of Art 73