Sarah Firth, Hegel: On the Arts

When reading the book ‘Hegel: On The Arts, Milestones of Thought’ (translated by Henry Paolucci) there is a passage on the romantic art form that caught my interest. Hegel states that “ In the first stage of arts development…, spirit works imaginatively to give external spiritualized form to a content which is derived from the natural sphere either directly or through conceptual abstractions above its underlying substance. In the second stage the relation is reversed: spirit it self is recognized as arts proper content, and nature supplies, with the natural form of man, the sensuous shape most adequate for spirits manifestation. Art attains classical perfection here because spiritual individuality and bodily representation interpenetrate one another completely.” I interpret this as saying that first the artist attempts form a shape the spirit of the artist works to give life to that shape and turn it in to a piece of art. Then, like all artists, the creator puts a portion of his soul in to the artwork and the art work takes on a life and a meaning of its own either through the abstraction of the artists view or the translation of the idea to paper. Although this passage is only speaking of the representation of a human form in romantic art, I believe this philosophy of the creation of art pertains to all forms of art.