Modernity with pictures: Hegel and Géricault

Debate about the so-called "end of art" has tended to dominate discussion of Hegel's aesthetics.¹ One consequence of this is that his remarks about the art of modern time (neuere Zeit) are interpreted in light of the historical thesis concerning art's decline or demise. It is possible, however, to examine what Hegel says about the art of modern time, understood to mean not just the art of his time but more generally art under conditions of modernity, without becoming entangled in the search for its end. Although Hegel's scattered remarks do not constitute a fully worked out theory of art, they contain important ideas about creative work under conditions of modern freedom. Furthermore, because Hegel's account of the distinctive challenges that confront modern artists is shaped by a vision of the world to which the artist belongs and from which he chooses his subject matter, it gives us access to a Hegelian perspective on modernity. This perspective is of value because it enables us to recover elements that are not habitually emphasized by prevalent interpretations.

Hegelian reconstructions of modernity take their cue from Hegel's frequently repeated claim that modern individuals realize their identity by making themselves "at home" in the world.² The banishment of what is alien does not describe a single project, cognitive, metaphysical, ethical, or political, but rather a cluster of projects that conjointly make it possible to encounter the world as a homely place.³ While it is possible to identify specific theses that make up this cluster, for instance that no such a thing as an unknowable substance that remains persistently beyond the realm of possible experience exists, the power of these reconstructions lies in their twining together several discrete elements into a broader progressivist narrative of humanity's coming of age. Modernity coincides with the attainment of a metaphorical maturity, as liberation from unknown forces and from expectations of heavenly rewards brings about gains in freedom and self-knowledge. In a critical discussion of Leo Strauss's account of modernity, Robert Pippin gives a succinct formulation of this view: "We 'tear ourselves apart' for Strauss . . . because we in essence don't know what we're doing, not, as in Hegel, because more and more gradually, we do."⁴ The aim of this paper is to recover the more nuanced image of emancipation—and of what we come to know "we're doing"—that can be obtained if we follow the clues that Hegel gives us in his remarks on the art of modern times.

Two features, commonly emphasized in philosophical reconstructions of Hegel's narrative of modernity, concern us here: first, the normative side of the idea of emancipation from nature, and from anything that can count as "nature," that is, as "externally given," and second, the assumption of normative authority by an intramundane subject.⁵ In particular I want to examine how emancipation from external authority hooks on to a process of internalization of cognitive and moral authority by a subject (often presented as a putative "we") which issues norms in its own name. I will be arguing that the compelling force of an authority that appears as external and alien retains a central role in Hegel's account of modern freedom. Failure to appreciate this leads to failure to appreciate the morally as well as epistemically ambiguous status of the telos of inhabiting a tamed, familiar world.

I approach these issues at first from the vantage point offered by Hegel's lectures on aesthetics. Hegel lectured on aesthetics and philosophy of art for several years, starting in 1818 in Heidelberg. The edition of the lectures that was prepared by H. G. Hotho and published after Hegel's death became the standard work of reference. However, recent scholarship indicates strongly that in editing Hegel's lectures Hotho imposed a more rigid and systematic structure on the material than is detectable in the extant student notes. In the present paper, while quotations are mainly from the Hotho edition of the lectures, references are given also to the student notes, including Hotho's own transcripts...