1.2 The burden of Hegel

In his eyes, the audience, and especially the critics among them, had made a serious mistake: they had failed to understand that art was more than just a service to a hungry audience and that true art should set itself goals that transcended far beyond the direct need of the listener. Schönberg considered his new works the necessary next step after having exhausted the late-Romantic music idiom and at the same time these works safeguarded the hegemony of German music. And there was an even bigger task for the true artist: to find the music that expresses true spirit of the time in music, and that music was definitely not to be found in the enormous musical cream cake that the audience had just applauded so passionately. And thus Schönberg did not bow to his admirers but went backstage with a long face.

Today, in times when artists are just as hungry for success as any CEO of a commercial enterprise, this demonstrative rejection is puzzling and forces us to study a world that is far behind us. And so we inevitably end up with the German philosopher Hegel.

1.2 THE BURDEN OF HEGEL21 It is impossible to know how many artists had actually read the works of the philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831), but around the year 1900 the core of his ideas was certainly well known within intellectual circles in German-speaking countries. Two of these are of special relevance to the arts: - Weltgeist (world spirit). With this notion, Hegel referred to the development towards absolute freedom and truth of a world spirit or soul endowed with reason. This collective-human development is characterised by struggle and world history being like a slaughterhouse in which everything takes place in order to reach this higher goal. The Weltgeist is a mission. The insight into this truth to arrive at is developed along the way. It is not a stationary pot of gold at the rainbow’s end. - Zeitgeist (essence of his time) The relevance of the arts in this development consists of its autonomy and freedom. Art is not serving, or just entertainment but a free expression representing the essence of his time. The appearance accompanying art is not an irrelevant, meaningless illusion but an appearance that is inherent to truth itself, not unlike the shadows in Plato’s cave. These appearances in art are essentially different from mere appearance and,

21 See A.A. van den Braembussche: Denken over kunst (1994), chapter 7. This book can be obtained in English as PDF: A.A. van den Braembussche: Thinking Art: chapter 7, The end of art: the contemporary interest in Hegel.