Hegel’s Last Lectures on Aesthetics in Berlin 1828/29 and the Contemporary Debates on the End of Art

Résumé En

The thesis of the “death of art” or the “end of art” is both a central and a structural thesis in Hegel’s Aesthetics and one of the most discussed of his philosophy. One can wonder, nevertheless, how the End-of- Art is compatible, even constitutive of a theory of contemporary art. The problem is both a current and a historical one. In this paper, I try to consider this paradox while returning to the very sources of Hegel’s philosophy, i.e. to what is deemed the origin of the “rumour” of an “end of art” thesis, namely in the letters written by his student and composer Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy. I take then into account how the thesis appears in the last lecture on aesthetics given by Hegel at the Berlin University in 1828/29, in order to clarify to what extent the thesis is compatible or not with the possibility of modern art, and if Arthur Coleman Danto’s and Dieter Henrich’s assumptions for example are tenable regarding the new sources.