The Introduction to Hegel's Philosophy of Fine Art

THE RANGE OF ÆSTHETIC DEFINED, AND SOME OBJECTIONS REFUTED.

The present course of lectures deals with “Æsthetic.” Their subject is the wide realm of the beautiful, and, more particularly, their province is Art—we may restrict it, indeed, to Fine Art.

The name “Æsthetic” in its natural sense is not quite appropriate to this subject. “Æsthetic” means more precisely the science of sensation or feeling. Thus understood, it arose as a new science, or rather as something that was to become a branch of philosophy for the first time, in the school of Wolff, at the epoch when works of art were being considered in Germany in the light of the feelings which they were supposed to evoke—feelings of pleasure, admiration, fear, pity, etc. The name was so inappropriate, or, strictly speaking, so superficial, that for this reason it was attempted to form other names, e.g. “Kallistic.” But this name, again, is unsatisfactory, for the science to be designated does not treat of beauty in general, but merely of artistic beauty. We shall, therefore, permit the name Æsthetic to stand, because it is nothing but a name, and so is indifferent to us, and, moreover, has up to a certain point passed into common language. As a name, therefore, it may be retained. The proper expression, however, for our science is the “Philosophy of Art,” or, more definitely, the “Philosophy of Fine Art.”