Introductory Lectures on Aesthetics (Penguin Classics)

No philosopher has held a higher opinion of art than Hegel, yet nor was any so profoundly pessimistic about its prospects — despite living in the German golden age of Goethe, Mozart, and Schiller.

For Hegel, the contrast between the classical and modern worlds was stark:

• In classical Greece, artists achieved a perfect fusion of content and form.
• In modernity, however, complicating — and ultimately disabling — questions arose.

Key Challenges to Modern Art:

• Christianity's code of unworldliness: This had compromised the immediacy of man's relationship with reality.
• Ironic detachment: It had alienated humanity from its deepest feelings.

Hegel's Introductory Lectures on Aesthetics were delivered in Berlin in the 1820s. They remain a passionately argued work, challenging the ability of art to respond to the complexities of the modern world.