Hegel, Heidegger, Adorno and the Ends of Art

Abstract

Hegel's famous thesis of the»End of Art« has often been misunderstood. His statement that »art, considered in its highest vocation, is and remains for us a thing from the past« not so much claims that art as such has been replaced by philosophical reflection (on art) - as has been asserted (for example, by Danto) - but rather that the time of beautiful art (that is: art as the sensuous resemblance of the Idea) is over. On the contrary, post-sensuous - that is: Romantic - art is characterised by an unprecedented expansion: it has become post-beautiful, post-figurative, post-concrete, post-fictional, even post-artistic art. This does not imply that art has come to an end - on the contrary, it implies that the ends of art have multiplied: »In this way romantic art is the self-transcendence of art within its own sphere and in the form of art itself.« Taking Adorno's and Heidegger's reflections on art as examples, I shall argue that Hegel's notion of Romantic art enables us to develop a deeper and more adequate understanding of modern and post-modern (philosophies of) art.