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versión impresa ISSN 2519-7320versión On-line ISSN 1990-8644

Conrado vol.16 no.76 Cienfuegos sept.-oct. 2020  Epub 02-Oct-2020

 

Artículo original

Educational analysis of the impact of Hegel’s thought on art with an approach to the romanticist movement in academic textbooks in the field of art

Análisis educativo del impacto del pensamiento de Hegel en el arte con un enfoque del movimiento romanticista en los libros de texto académicos en el campo del arte

1 Islamic Azad Universit. Tehran. Iran.

ABSTRACT

The aim of this study is analyzing educational of the impact of Hegel’s thought on art with an approach to the romanticist movement in academic textbooks in the field of art. Hegel was one of the most important German idealist philosophers who presented a new understanding of (aesthetics) in (art). From Hegel's perspective, each work of art consists of two parts: 1- The (spiritual) meaning 2- The (physical) form aspect. For this reason, this adaptation itself rises the basic types of art. In fact, the basic character (Romantic Art) is already provided and the (spirit) transcends (matter) and becomes an independent being. In this research, we seek to find new modes of expanding the aesthetic in the realm (art) by approaching art in the period of (romanticism) and getting assistance from (aesthetically) Hegel's perspective. The result is that if we call the work (art) beautiful since its creator is the (spirit) human being, it can be far superior to nature's yield. Hence, in his aesthetics, Hegel also discusses beauty and natural beauty, as he thinks the worst of human contemplation result is superior to nature, because there is always (the spirit), freedom and presence of the artist. So, (beauty) only benefits from the source of the ultimate truth and testifies to it.

Keywords: Aesthetics; art; spirit; physical beauty; Romantic Art

RESUMEN

El objetivo de este estudio es analizar el impacto educativo del pensamiento de Hegel en el arte con un enfoque del movimiento romántico en los libros de texto académicos en el campo del arte. Hegel fue uno de los filósofos idealistas alemanes más importantes que presentó una nueva comprensión de (estética) en (arte). Desde la perspectiva de Hegel, cada obra de arte consta de dos partes: 1- El significado (espiritual) 2- El aspecto de la forma (física), por esta razón, esta adaptación en sí misma da lugar a los tipos básicos de arte. De hecho, el personaje básico (arte romántico) ya está provisto y el (espíritu) trasciende (materia) y se convierte en un ser independiente. En esta investigación, buscamos encontrar nuevos modos de expandir la estética en el ámbito (arte) al acercarnos al arte en el período de (romanticismo) y obtener ayuda desde la perspectiva (estéticamente) de Hegel. El resultado es que si llamamos a la obra (arte) bella ya que su creador es el ser humano (espíritu), puede ser muy superior al rendimiento de la naturaleza. Por lo tanto, en su estética, Hegel también discute la belleza y la belleza natural, ya que piensa que el peor resultado de la contemplación humana es superior a la naturaleza, porque siempre hay (el espíritu), la libertad y la presencia del artista. Entonces, (belleza) solo se beneficia de la fuente de la verdad última y lo atestigua.

Palabras clave: Estética; arte; espíritu; belleza;, física; arte romántico

Introduction

An examination of Hegel's idea of art from an artistic approach with a Romanticist movement approach prompts us to refer first to the Romanticist movement. To do this, we need to take a brief look at the articles and books, although no articles or books have been written on the survey of Hegelian thought from art perspective with an approach to the Romanticist movement; The fact is that Western philosophical acquaintance of the Romantic mind is very limited and does not go beyond a few books and essays.

Among of the most important works in Farsi that provide a description of this intellectual movement that can be mentioned are the second issue of the Arghanon Quarterly and a brief and useful book, at the same time eloquent, the psychoanalysis of the roots of romanticism written by Berlin (2006). It goes without saying, however, that Romanticism is a great intellectual, cultural, artistic, economic, and political movement in response to the rationalism of the Enlightenment and Classicism. The book "German Romanticism" by Bizer (2014), translated by Sayed Masoud Azarfam, describes various aspects of the first phase of the development of German Romanticism and its complex relationship to movements such as "Enlightenment" and "Turbulence and Storm". He criticizes and advocates conventional approaches to the interpretation of German Romanticism, and considers the literary and aesthetic aspects of it to be fundamentally instrumental in the attainment of metaphysical, ethical, and political ends.

In another essay entitled "Aesthetic Evolution" in Hegel's Philosophy of Art, Ahmad Ali Akbar Mesgari and Seyyed Mohammad Saatchi while reviewing the subject have concluded that Hegel promotes art to the realm of truth which is in common with philosophy, and so, makes the transition from mere aesthetics to the philosophy of art possible. In another essay by Mahnaz Mahmoudi, entitled "Romanticism; the Epistemological Foundations and Its Representation in Art and Architecture"; the author concludes that despite the various definitions of romanticism, it is very difficult to provide the most complete definition.

Therefore, to achieve such a definition, all definitions must be provided. In another essay entitled "The Rise and Fall of Literary Schools" by Manouchehr Haghighi, he considers the commitment of writers and artists to the principles of various schools of thought as different. But he sees this difference as more dramatic in the school of Romanticism. Finally, according to Zia Shahabi's (2003), lectures on Hegel's philosophy of art, it is pointed out that at this time art science calls us to reflect, not on the intention of producing art again, but to know art prudently. For this reason, romanticism realizes that the human soul does not fit into any particular form, for it is always freeing itself from the bondage of forms and seeking refuge in its own mentality. And that's where a different kind of art emerges, the kind in which the soul is more willing than ever to tend to release itself and wants to circulate more freely than ever before, and be rescued from this confinement and lifting its material form and removing the veil. The material form is thus discarded, and the spirit conquers matter and the romantic art is born.

In fact, the Romanticist movement was born in Germany as one of the most important European movements of the late eighteenth century, although it was a reaction against the Enlightenment, whose most important thinkers were Descartes, Kant, Herder, Schiller and ... Bode. Although the founder of this movement was the disgruntled German youth, most of whom were of the disenfranchised middle class, it may be possible to state that all of their intellectual attitudes were due to the political and social conditions of their time, and unhappy with the result of the revolutions that they had which ended only for the benefit of the upper classes of the bourgeoisie. According to the basic concept of beauty, each work of art has two parts, namely: (a) the spiritual content or meaning; (b) the physical body or form of beauty. Absolute brilliance is through the sensory interface. The kind of absolute that shines through is the very meaning, and the material medium through which shines is the material body. The absolute nature can be described in a variety of ways; for example, it can be called mind, spirit, wisdom, thought or the whole. So the spiritual content can be of several types: it can be an image of the Absolute Being and move in any era or among any ethnicity or provide the foundation for religious concepts of any race, or any general spiritual image, or those general forces of the kind of love, dignity, and duty that governs one's heart, either any thought outside the wonders of human mind and desire or in other words, any character that is valuable and intrinsic to the inner self human and soul. But the important matter is that the absolute can be the center of unity that has influence and manifestation in all the components of the material body. We have seen that in order for the instance to manifest in a tangible medium, all the components of the work of art must be encompassed by a central and unified order of unity so that there is a whole, an organism in which unity is the life and multiplicity of the material form is the body. In the ideal work of art, these two parts, namely meaning and form, are in complete unity and reconciliation, so much so that the form or body is the perfect manifestation of meaning, and meaning in itself does not Find out sufficient mediator to express itself. But acquiring this unity and reconciliation is not always possible, and from the various relationships that exist between meaning and form, there emerge the basic types of art which are three-fold: matter (i.e., the form) dominates the spirit (i.e., the meaning).

Here the content of the soul strives to find a sufficient means of manifestation but does not reach its purpose; Meaning, however, failing to shine, does not dominate its own medium, but is defeated by the medium. The type of irony or crypto currency can be found in art here. In the latter case, there is a complete balance and unity between spirit and matter, and a classical kind of art emerges. In the third case, the soul dominates matter and expresses romantic art, therefore, Romantic Art, is "an art in which it has an appearance with a different manifestation on the inside, and because the intellectual aspect prevails over meaning and content, the superficial form is accidental or obligatory”. (Zarrin Koub, 1982)

The evolution of art in these three stages is essentially theoretical or rational evolution and has no relation to time. However, history shows that the real evolution of art in the world has followed to some extent its logical or intellectual evolution. Inclusively, primitive art is metonymic. And today's art, romantic and classical art, comes in between this and that. However, this point cannot be insisted on. All kinds of art can be found at all times. However, there are different kinds, especially those of different ethnicities. The art of the eastern tribes, especially the Egyptians and Hindus, is more of a cryptic character. Greek art was classical, and New European art was romantic. But from this point of view, all kinds of art have been more or less available to all ethnic groups.

"But in the age of the Enlightenment, with the overcoming of subjective thinking, new openings were flourished in the thought of philosophical aesthetics, one of which was the re-focusing on sensory and sensational perception. Due to the undoubted connection between art, taste and sensory experience, new reflections on art and beauty emerged in the Enlightenment, which, unlike past times, created beauty not in a sensible world but in subject thought and through perception of beauty which was being studied aesthetically and the innovation of Hegel's thought is something new and contemplative, which has led many scholars to interpret and study this viewpoint until now”. (Ramadan Mahi, 2016)

Romanticism, which refers to contemporary Hegelian art, is dominated by the art of painting, music, and poetry. Romantic art has so much to say that it cannot fit into one format; as a result, thinking in art leads to the emergence of philosophy and theology independent of art, and art is subject to philosophical and theological evaluations and others and it is not an absolute ultimate reference. As, from his point of view, Romantic art is neither symbolic nor does it have the harmonious character as in Greek art. As Stendhal wrote in Racine and Shakespeare's essay: "Romanticism is an art of today, and belongs to modern-day people, while classicism belongs to their ancestors". As a result, the art of Romanticism is, from Hegel's point of view, an art that refers to the deepest unimaginable and the hidden, which can only be discussed in philosophy and theology.

Development

"Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, along with Fichte and Schelling, form a triangle of idealistic German philosophers who base their ideas on Kant's ideas. Like the philosophers of the Enlightenment, he presented a subjective outline of his philosophical system that incorporated a new approach to collective thinking, religion, tradition, and history. The reflective point on Hegel's thought is his return to the question of taste as an important issue in the production of artwork that had become in relation to art and truth in prior philosophers' thought before him. By examining the course of art history, Hegel not only considered art alongside religion and philosophy as one of the manifestations of truth but also elevated the aesthetic aspect of art, giving the aesthetic value of art more than natural beauty and he provided the context for what emerged in the art of the next era as artifact and valuable art”. (Ramadan Mahi, 2016)

As noted above, Hegel was influenced by Kant in his thought, but he made a serious criticism that, in his view, "although Kant had realized that the aesthetics was going beyond the abstraction of understanding, but limiting it to the subjective has also been the reason that the intellect has failed to reach the absolute” (Hegel, 1975). Hegel was therefore opposed to Kant in two fundamental arguments and chose a different direction; first, contrary to Kant's belief, he believed that the way of knowing the world and human nature, is not only through pure knowledge (i.e., philosophy) but it is also possible through religion and art for humans. Second, unlike Kant and the Cartesian tradition of knowing cognition as an individual, Hegel believed in collective perception and influence, that is, though human beings perceive things through philosophy, religion, and art, this understanding evolves in historical developments. It was on this basis that Hegel devoted part of his philosophical thought to the history and process of its evolution, and its result was that, in addition to the formal features of the work, he also had to consider its content and meaning (Ramadan Mahi, 2016). "If Kant offers us less than we want to know about art, perhaps Hegel tells us more than we can verify". (Danto, 1998)

Although Hegel never wrote an independent book on art, his collection of "Lectures on Aesthetic Philosophy" after his death from his lectures and class instructions between 1818 and 1827 was compiled, but the subject of art is part of the system of Hegelian thought and can be considered an important part of his major work, "Psychological Phenomenology.". But what does the word "psyche" mean in Hegelian tradition? Anaximander called the principle of the beings, from which everything comes and returns to, "Apeiron", meaning infinite and unlimited; the same meaning has been called by Hegel, as the absolute, the psyche, the intellect, and God (Zia Shahabi, 2009). In fact, we can say that Hegel's aesthetics is a part of a whole, the parts of which are as a whole. Hegel calls this whole as the "system of science". (Ramadan Mahi, 2016)

Hegel has never intended, however, to pursue or reconstruct pre-classical or pre-critical romantic tendencies. Rather, according to Stephen Bangui, as in his book "Beauty and the Truth", he concluded from Hegel's aesthetics that there were "two major and pervasive approaches to eighteenth-century art theory that have disappeared in Hegel's thought and his followers; In the Hegelian tradition, no one has the expectation from art as moral discipline and education and no longer expects it to be the art of imitation of nature" (Bungay, 1984). As we read in the first pages of Hegel's Aesthetic Discourse Lesson: "What we set out to consider is the art that is free in both its purpose and its means. The fact that art can be marginalized and serve other purposes is a matter of thinking which is also true ... Fine art is only true art in its liberation, and it is only in this state that it can be placed in the similar realm like religion and philosophy and being transformed in such a way that the spiritual element, the deepest interests of mankind, and the most comprehensive truths of the soul are brought to consciousness and make it understandable.

Nations in their works of art give their richest insights and ideas to prominence, and art is often the key (and in some nations the only key) to understanding their religion and philosophy. In this sense, art is in line with religion and philosophy, but in its own way that explains the greatest issues in a comprehensive manner and makes them perceptible (Hegel, 1975). For this reason, the title of aesthetics is not entirely satisfying to Hegel, since the discussion of fine arts is not really limited to the science of feelings and perceptions (Hegel, 1975). However, Hegel had a keen multi-dimensional interest in the arts. No philosopher before him had such an interest. So, he traveled to visit art galleries and studied the literature of the world extensively. These artistic tendencies peak in Berlin (2006). That is, where he expresses a passionate and sensational interest in opera and theater and, ultimately, delivers the lessons of aesthetic discourse on several occasions. However, in presenting his lectures on aesthetics, he expresses what has been called the "Death of Art" theory (though somewhat inaccurately). He begins his lesson with the notion that art has exploited its potential and is at best status, a matter related to the past (Coope, 1992). But the fact that the age of art's reign is over only represents part of Hegel's system of thought about art.

In fact, this is where Arthur writes in an article entitled "Art Criticism After the End of Art": "I was not the first philosopher to proclaim the end of art on the one hand and to write art criticism on the other. Rather, the great German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel in 1828 also stated in his first lectures on aesthetics in Berlin (2006), that art "has always been something remained of the past in its highest status". What makes art dormant and its isolation philosophically is aesthetics in the context of sensory perception, for which offers a small scope, about where in Hegel's approach makes it possible to study art and artwork in a wider range of issues and themes related to the past, and to greater awareness. From this perspective, the artwork is the source of the richest intentions and ideas of the people and the spirit of an era, not the object of aesthetic judgment.

When the spirit realizes that the classical god is non-finite and confined, "form and content unite and intermingle" and Romantic art Emerges. As it is obvious, "the teachings of Kant, Schiller, and Hegel played a significant role in the emergence of the principles of the Romantic literary school". As a result, another aspect of Hegel's influence is the romantic approach. Undoubtedly, "the Romantics wanted to see the whole of human existence in the light of emotion and passion, and essentially to establish the meaning of the world in an emotion-based certainty, so far as Haman believed: "Nature works through senses and emotions”. (Bowie, 2006)

Perhaps the greatest criticism of the Romantic thinkers on the enlightened aesthetic and taste was precisely the fact that this aesthetics had been annihilated, in the light of totality and elegant transmissibility, the special affection and relevance and live experience of art. For the Romantics, true beauty and real meaning are not transferable in a cold, dry relationship. Haman believed: "Holistic approach is an illusion, as an attempt to reduce the rich diversity of the universe to a depressive monotony, itself is a form of non-confrontation with reality, and it seeks to enclose reality in a kind of arbitrary and pre-made logical fence”. (Berlin, 2006)

"Hegel, however, finds more affinity with the Romantic approach, although he claims to go beyond the romantic paradigm. The Romantic approach was more than an aesthetic judgment of art, and it also provided a concept of criticism that went much deeper than criticism in the aesthetic sense of the Enlightenment”. (Asgari & Saatchi, 2013, 140) Walter Benjamin in his doctoral dissertation (The Concept of Art Criticism in German Romanticism) (1920) believes that the critical theory of early Romanticism implies that literary and artistic work is a method parallel to philosophy and religion and the truth of being. This credit to art also extends the value of criticism.

Ultimately, for the Romantics, the important feature of the work of art in its ideal form that the work itself provides the opportunity for criticism (Stein, 2003). Although Hegel's aesthetics relies on the inner criticism of artworks, more than that, it relies on his theoretical and philosophical approach to analyzing the intrinsic and reinforcing element of the work of art that is a reflection of the absolute.

Therefore, in relation to the Romantic Movement, Hegel considers criticism to require stronger theoretical and philosophical support and, in addition, gives priority to philosophy. What is the source of the distinction between symbolic, classical, and romantic art is a philosophical theory based on an evolutionist approach to consciousness that helps to see how this philosophical approach contributes to a broader explanation of art and theories for our art criticism? Philosophy of art is not in the new sense of Hegel's claim (Stein, 2003). The beauty of art is superior to the beauty of nature, because the beauty of art is the birth of the soul and the reproduction of beauty, and in the sense that the soul and its manifestations are superior to nature and its phenomena, and the beauty of art is superior to the beauty of nature. In fact, even from the formative point of view (regardless of its content), even a bad idea that passes through the human mind is superior to anything that is a product of nature. For in thought, spirituality and freedom are hidden (Hegel, 1975).

Conclusions

The discussion of romantic art has been very challenging for philosophers. As a philosopher and thinker of German idealism, Hegel has always been deliberately pondering the thought of the Romantic art and since then his approach to the analysis of romantic art has made the thinkers to ponder. Romanticism as a movement is a movement of the second half of the eighteenth century.

The main feature of this movement is the huge conflict among its supporters. Romanticism was, in fact, a reaction to the Enlightenment's cold vision of enlightenment and the preacher of a passionate view of life against the Enlightenment's cold attitude. In fact, art conceptually means the unity of form and meaning. But romantic art implies that spirit and meaning are incompatible with each other and finds no form that is of its own scale except itself. Basically, romantic art is the essence of its great soul, and because in the art of romance it returns to its originality, the only thing that values is its dignity. As a result, romantic art displays its transition stage, in which the spirit of the art world takes on another dimension. From Hegel's point of view, human nature is recognizable and attainable through art. However, collective affective perception is evolved through historical developments.

So, In this regard, if an artist of today's world can connect with his evolving society through social and collective participation and create an artwork, that work will be able to link their collective memories together and share the content and meaning of the artwork, so as to reach a wider circle than the expressive concept of a work.

Bibliographic references

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Received: September 14, 2020; Accepted: October 28, 2020

*Autor para correspondencia. E-mail: nima_action_f@yahoo.com

Los autores declaran la no existencia de conflictos de intereses.

Los autores participaron de forma igualitaria en la concepción y elaboración del artículo.

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