Lectures on Aesthetics

Hegel develops his account of art as a mode of absolute spirit that he calls "the beautiful ideal," which he defines most generally as Now when truth in this its external existence [Dasein] is present to consciousness immediately, and with the concept remains immediately in unity with its external appearance, the Idea is not only true but beautiful.

More than 4,000 pages of notes from Hegel's lectures at the Heidelberg University have been discovered in the library of the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising.

Vieweg argues that this material will help scholars resolve the issue relating to the authenticity of Hotho's transcriptions, which are so far the only source on Hegelian aesthetics.

These new notes are the only ones available dating back to Hegel's teaching period in Heidelberg and will be of absolute use in reconstructing the genesis of Hegelian thought on art and its relationship with religion and philosophy in general.

[7] Hegel's thesis about the historical dissolution of art has been the subject of much scholarly debate and influenced such thinkers like Theodor W. Adorno, Martin Heidegger, György Lukács, Jacques Derrida and Arthur Danto.

Hegel considered William Shakespeare as "standing at an unapproachable height" in his portrayal "on the infinite breadth of his 'world-stage'" of his characters as "free artists of their own selves" [ 2 ]
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel delivering a lecture at the Berlin University in 1828 (sketch after nature and lithograph by Franz Kugler )