Abstract

The paper challenges A. Danto's claim that his theory of the history of art is 'Hegelian'. It does so by re-contextualizing Hegel's views about 'the end of art' within romantic philosophy and earlier German idealism. Hegel's aesthetics is reconstructed as a systematic answer both to Schlegel's idea of a 'Kunstreligion' and to Schelling's philosophy of art. Eventually, Hegel and Danto can be seen as having radically different views on artistic progress.