Philosophy of the Spirit - lecture 2 -

The Absolute as Art

By Robbert A. Veen

Introduction
Let's take a look at this painting. Van Gogh painted a Bible, opened at Isaiah 53, a candle and a
book by Emile Zola. What does that tell us?
In a realist mode, it's a representation of a reality that was there once. Van Gogh looked at it, saw
it and painted it. The value of the painting is dependent upon its accuracy in depicting reality.
We can also approach like formalists: only the shape and the colors in themselves have any
'meaning' not the picture or the representation. Then art becomes absolute in itself.
We can also approach it as expressivists: the painting expressed a worldview, or has a 'story
behind it' that is enclosed within Van Gogh's autobiography. The Bible then represents his father, or
the Christian church that he once belonged to. (Van Gogh even was a missionary in France.) The
book by Zola represents the other way of life that he found as a painter, for Zola was a staunch
advocate of naturalism, in which God or religion played no role whatsoever. Was Van Gogh torn
apart by these two different ways of life? And is that the reason that the candle - the only source of
light - is not lighted? 'There is no light that can shine on these options' he might be saying.
Those seem to be the options: realism, formalism and expressivisme. Where does Hegel stand? I
think he draws on all three of them.
Realism is correct in ascribing high value to the representational value of a work of art.
Formalism is correct by stressing the fact that a work of art is an enclosed entity, obeying inner
laws, and that it is its own frame of reference.
Expressivism is correct when he see the work of art as an expression of the subjective Spirit.
Let's find out in more detail how Hegel understands the concept of Art.

We will examine first of all the general meaning of Hegel's theory of Art within the Philosophy of
Spirit. Then we will paraphrase the introductory paragraph 556 in the Encyclopedia of
Philosophical Sciences. So our goal today is just to introduce the topic, gain an overview of Hegel's
position and then try and read some more text to get a feel for how he expresses himself. Hopefully
this is not overly ambitious for the hour or so that we will devote to this topic today.
1. Hegel's Theory of Art

1.1 The Absolute Spirit and Art

1. We have already talked about par. 553, that started with this enigmatic proposition, that the
'Concept of the Spirit has its reality in the Spirit.' It means that what we know and what we are, are
now identical - we are what we understand and we understand what we are. There is no difference
between the reality of the Spirit and our concept of the Spirit. This is certainly not true of the other
basic forms of Spirit, the Subjective and the Objective Spirit.
Subjective Spirit deals with the reality of human beings in so far as they know the world. It is
therefore divided in anthropology, phenomenology and psychology. The end result is the free spirit
(par 481) - human beings acting on their knowledge in the world - free will that knows itself to be
free. In Subjective Spirit however we understand ourselves from the outside: our understanding
ourselves is not identical to what we understand. We talk about ourselves as souls, as practical
intellects that strive to realize our freedom. Okay! But our understanding all of that is not identical
to what we are. Striving to be free, taking one's own freedom as the goal of all actions and
understanding ourselves to be free are different.

2. And the same is true for the Objective Spirit. That is the concrete reality of the free spirit, the
world of institutions that allow his freedom and realize his freedom, like the institution of property,
or the market-economy, it's the world of laws and politics and morality. Freedom is bound by it as if
from the outside (objective) but it is also an expression or organization of that very same freedom -
it is therefore Spirit and not like a natural limitation to our freedom. (par. 483)
The highest expression of Objective Spirit is the State and it is active in world history - not just in
the social life of a people but beyond that. But the state as such does not fully express the Spirit and
does not coincide with its history. It is an actor on a stage but not the playwright.
Nevertheless, in the State we have the highest realization of the human community and we can say
it is the highest form of human life in a sense. But our understanding of the State is not identical to
the State. The State is not its own understanding, its concept is not identical to its reality, it is a
practical institution, a realization of our common humanity, and organization of our social life. But
it not rational self-understanding. It is a stage way for the Spirit in order to become a fully
developed understanding of itself. That means that the State is involved in the self-development of
the Spirit, it means also that the State is a prerequisite of that self-understanding - e.g. the State
organizes universities and allow its citizens to engage in cultural and intellectual pursuits. Without
the State there would be no art, no organized religion and no science. But the State does not control
or should not control the contents of culture, religion and science. As a matter of fact, those pursuits
move beyond the limitations of the State toward the Absolute Spirit, which is the self-understanding
of the Spirit as such.

3. And that is why Hegel argues that the concept of the Spirit is now, as absolute spirit, become
identical to the reality of the Spirit. To understand oneself as Spirit is exactly what is happening in
the reality of the Spirit: in works of art, in religious practices and in scientific and philosophical
knowledge. (Par. 553)

4. What we are into now, this concept and reality of the Absolute Spirit, is a mode of
consciousness that is a consciousness of the whole, of the Absolute, of the essence of all things.
This reality is expressed in our concept of the Absolute reality, and our concept (our actual
understanding) of the Absolute Spirit is exactly the reality of it. But even this consciousness moves
in stages. There are three such stages:
• the immediate consciousness of the Absolute in Art,
• the objectified self-consciousness of the Absolute in religion
• and the mediated form of the self-understanding of the Spirit as philosophy.

5. Of course all of these are modes of human consciousness but at the same time one must
understand that it is impossible to see them as mere subjective viewpoints. In our actual
understanding, the reality of the Spirit is expressed, it is there, it is nowhere else. In our
understanding we find the highest and final realization of the Spirit, for that sake of which
everything else is and happens. It is, as Hegel puts it, the Absolute "result of everything."

1.2 Hegel's concept of Art as expression of the Absolute

6. It is the first mode of the Absolute Spirit. Works of art are expressions of the Absolute Spirit in
a particular, still immediate form. That form is consciousness as representational, as 'depicting' the
world in stead of conceptualizing it. Both religion and Art are linked to this form of representation,
Hegel explains, but particularly Art uses it. Art is a sensuous representation of the Idea, which is
the concept in its fully developed form. BTW let not the word 'Idea' take you astray here. In logical
terms Hegel speaks of the Absolute as the Idea , in metaphysical terms he talks about the Absolute
as the Spirit. He also uses the word Ideal to refer to the Idea in Art. So that's the terminology we
need to understand here.
So Spirit and Idea refer to the same reality from slightly different perspectives. And Art represents
the Idea in sensuous forms or representations. That defines first of all what we mean by the beauty
of a work of art. Beauty is the manifestation of the Idea which is embodied in a work of art. When
we say that a painting by Rembrandt is beautiful, Hegel thinks that this is what we mean by that.
Beauty is the 'sensible manifestation of the Idea". What does that mean? It means that the sensuous
experience itself, the aesthetic experience, is not primary in establishing what the beauty of a thing
is. Hegel goes beyond Kant here who understood beauty to mean the "harmony between a
representation and my faculties." So if something is pleasing to the eyes, it is beautiful. Beauty
would then reside in the observer. Not so Hegel. Beauty is an objective quality of a work of art. In
that sense Hegel is part of a long tradition of 'aesthetic objectivism'. That tradition was also 'realist'
in the sense that the beauty of a painting is derived from the beauty of that reality that it displays. Is
that true for Hegel as well?

7. It isn't even though Hegel does accept beauty to be an objective quality. That does not make
Hegel a 'realist' in the appreciation of art. Hegel does not say that a work of art is "representation of
reality". He is not being realist, like in the ordinary tradition of mimesis, where a work of art is
always a representation of a reality, mixed with a particular appreciation of that reality. Remember
that in Greek art, the idea of mimesis, the copying of reality, was basic to an understanding of Art
and that remained the case up to our present day despite the phenomenon of modern art that after
impressionism was no longer about representing natural beauty. The beauty of a work of art lies in
its being expressive of the Idea.

8. Hegel also does not say, that "Art is a representation of the sensuous." It is not an object that
provokes an aesthetic experience as such, that is beyond our conceptual understanding. One might
think that Art works like that, on the level of imagination and a sense of pleasure that we may have
in viewing a picture of sculpture. According to Immanuel Kant, our aesthetic experience was
beyond or outside the concept.

9. When Hegel argues that "Art is a Representation of the absolute Spirit in its being in itself as the
Ideal" he means something different. Art is not a description, or a copy of the Idea (or the Absolute
Spirit in its being in itself as Ideal), It is a mode of consciousness in which the Absolute is grasped,
without being depicted. We should move beyond the word 'representation' (which emphasizes the
reference contained in the perception) and move beyond that to the word "presentation" which is a
perfect translation of the German Vor-stellung - to put before one, i.e. a presentation, a making
present.

10. Now what is the difference between a representation and a presentation? Let's say - with an
example introduced by Charles Taylor - that we see a picture of a man praying. We could think the
praying man is now in a way copied or described - that is not the case however. The prayer is not in
there. It cannot be a representation in the sense of a copy or reference to a reality. Something in it
presents, makes present, the whole idea of prayer, of the relationship between the Absolute as the
divine and man as a religious being, and the concrete practices in which exercises or acts out this
relationship. The painting does not become prayer - it is not the self-expression of that relationship -
and it does not merely represent prayer as an outside reality. The reality of the prayer is neither in
the painting itself nor in its concrete contents. But the idea of prayer is made present to us.

11. Let's take another example. Here you see a famous picture of shoes made by Van Gogh. Now
it represents or describes just two sensuous objects. It has a representational quality like any image.
But what does it present to us? Martin Heidegger, thinking from quite a different set of principles,
described the painting by talking about the life world of the farmer. The painting presents that way
of life: when you look at the dirt on the shoes, the fact they are worn out, you can imagine that way
of life, the fatigue, the persistence with which the farmer does his work every day etc.

12. That is not to say that the work of art actually 'says' all of this. It does not use concepts, or
propositions to express a truth. One might say that a work of art embodies my awareness in an
external object. It is a concrete realization of my consciousness. The Spirit is present in sensuous
objects, the whole of its reality is reflected in everything that is - and the work of Art shows that,
presents that reality to us. Without analyzing it and stelling a story about it.

13. Finally, what one needs to understand is the fact that all the sensuous elements in a work of art
- the quality of its colors and shapes, the way it depicts something from our experience - is in itself
now part of a language. As Hegel states: 'the natural immediate is now just a sign of the idea', and
when a painting is nothing but this sign of the idea, we experience it as beautiful. If the form does
nothing else. A picture that is there to entice us to buy something, or is just there to remind us of a
reality - like a holiday snapshot - does not have this full integrity of the work of Art. Integrity is an
older term for the notion that a work of art should be organized in such a fashion, that all of it is
expressive of its idea. The work of art thereby becomes a totality, has an enclosed quality. It is as if
any real painting (or sculpture or piece of music, it goes for all the forms of art) becomes a world on
its own, - and for those of you who know their history, it's like a monad in the philosophy of
Leibniz: a self enclosed substance reflecting the whole of reality within itself. (That was the basis of
formalism.)
2. The Shape of Beauty - Par. 556 explained
Let's turn now finally to the text of par. 556. What is Hegel saying? Let's paraphrase the text, using
what we discussed before.

Art is a form of conscious knowledge. The particular shape of this knowledge is defined on the
one hand by its immediacy. On the other hand by its being a presentation of the idea.
That immediacy includes the fact that a work of art is a common thing in our perception. It is a
canvas, a couple of pieces of wood stuck together, and a surface covered in paints of different
chemical composition and therefore colors, and all of that has a particular weight and size etc. Of
course it is not a natural thing, but an artifact. There is a subject, an artist, that produced it, had a
specific intention in using it, and there are observers, people who look at it and appreciate it. All of
that however does not make it a work of art, as if the artist and the observer, or the properties of the
thing in itself make it so.
There is another side to it, and that is the fact that this whole thing is at the same time a
representation or rather a presentation of the spiritual, of the idea, that we will call the ideal within
the sphere of Art. If we look at a work of Art in that way, we take it up to another level. The natural
object with its properties now becomes a sign, or a symbol of a content, a concept. What is the
status of this sign? Can we maintain that it is merely subjective? It does require human intelligence
- the subjective spirit- with its memory and imagination and perception etc. to appreciate art. No
animal can understand a work of art. But even though only the subjective spirit allows for this act of
appreciation and awareness of a work of art, the meaning of Art is not restricted to that. The
subjective element is required for the appreciation, but not for the reality of art. We have to
remember: the reality of the spirit is identical to the concept of the spirit. In fact, when we
experience a work of art as beautiful we are fully aware that that is not just about the pleasure it
gives. We 'see' the beauty in the painting, and not within ourselves. Beauty can therefore be defined
as the objective harmony between the work of art as a sign, and the ideal to which that sign refers.
In the work of art the spirit - as knowledge and as reality - is present(ed).

Summary
So that is what par. 556 tells us about Art. It is a presentation of the idea
• It uses sensuous representations - realism
• It expresses the subjective spirit of the maker and it is perceived subjectively by its observers -
expressivism
• It has a reality enclosed on its own - formalism
• But it only becomes Art when it is experienced as expressive of the Idea - when the natural
properties become a sign for something else.

Robbert Veen © 2010

www.hegelcourses.com