The Philosophy of Fine Arts by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Hegelism is a belief that consciousness determines the matter. Hegel, a German idealist, believes in idea or organic unity or "Geist" (his own word) in which every part is dependent on and is definable in terms of every other part and of the whole itself. Man is a part of this whole, and a concrete definition of man must be made in its terms. There always exists the conflicting situation between the two; Marxism and Hegelism.

In this essay he insists that art must be made not in terms of its use as a mere part time in the service of pleasure and entertainment; instead it must be considered a mode like realism and philosophy, through which the idea is made available to consciousness. Art presents its matter in sensuous forms. The beautiful in art is carried in to concrete form. Despite the attention, he lavishes on art, however, he does not consider it to be the highest manifestation of idea. It is limited by media and finally proves less satisfactory to man than in religion and philosophy.

Every society or an individual possesses consciousness that determines “being” or matter. An individual forms society, which emerges spirit or Geist. Since every human being and his products are nothing but the product of consciousness, society moves dialectically. Hegel claims that conflict is that inevitable thing for any social progress. The conflicts occur between thesis and antithesis resulting synthesis. Synthesis is a must in society because every progress is the progress of consciousness. However, synthesis transforms in to thesis countering with anti- thesis resulting again to synthesis: indeed, it continues forever such a continuous phenomenon is called dialectical idealism. Here his thesis is like "being" antithesis like becoming.

Hegel believes in the progress of history similarly to Marx. Thus, dialectism is a phenomenon that enhances direct conflict, which occurs due to the consciousness. He says consciousness gives birth to every matter, which is abstract and art is one of the modes like religion and philosophy to reach the idea (consciousness). Art should be concentrated on idea and it should be free from matter and should be universal. Such art could lead us to the world of idea. Since art has the quality of turning the dead matters alive in to the life of idea through philosophy, it is ideal. Idea is more important than matter. Idea becomes content of art, which is one of the manifestations of absolute mind, of which religion and philosophy are other two.

There are fundamentally three kinds of art symbolic, classical, and romantic.

Symbolic art (art with more matter): Symbolic art is like thesis. He calls symbolic art as inferior and levels them with eastern art in which there is the domination of matter, not idea. The art is sub- humanized in that there is the loss of humanity. He calls it monkey art or animalistic art. Easterners always have external things as primary instead of idea. Idea for them is the abstraction. They look for the idea in outer matter like architecture, which is nothing but a material product.

Classical Art: In this art these is much more appropriate relationship between idea and embodiment. For example, the human form in a classical is a natural shape appropriate to the representation of the mind. In this art form and contend are blended. It can be taken as antithesis (Greek art). It is better than symbolic art because here is the equal representation of idea and matter. Here, art is humanized and objected just because it is not free from matter. All the ideas are humanized and personified from the eastern monkey stage to Greek human stage, e.g. sculpture.

Romantic Art: It is European or Christian art for Hegel, there is no matter attached with idea. We notice the glorification of divinity. The idea themselves are self- sufficient so there is no need of object and matter. Such art is realized through painting, music and poetry in ascending order of freedom. Painting is more ideal the sculpture, which is more ideal than architecture. Music is more ideal than painting as in music objects are not represented and a temporal order alone exists. The words in the poetry are most free. Its sensuousness is created by the mind, not by the materials of the art.

Despite giving much worth on art, he does not consider art to be the highest manifestation of the idea. Its media limits it and finally he proves it less satisfactory to man than religion and philosophy.