One may well hope that art will continue to advance and perfect itself, but its form has ceased to be the highest need of spirit.
In all these relationships art is and remains for us, on the side of its highest vocation, something past.*
The judgment that Hegel passes in these statements cannot be evaded by pointing out that since Hegel's lectures on aesthetics were given for the last time during the winter of 1828-29 at the University of Berlin we have seen the rise of many new artworks and new art movements. Hegel never meant to deny this possibility. But the question remains: Is art still an essential and necessary way in which that truth happens which is decisive for our historical existence, or is art no longer of this character? If, however, it is such no longer, then there remains the question as to why this is so. The truth of Hegel's judgment has not yet been decided; for behind this verdict there stands Western thought since the Greeks. Such thought corresponds to a truth of beings that has already happened. Decision upon the judgment will be made, when it is made, from and about this truth of beings. Until then the judgment remains in force. But for that very reason the question is necessary as to whether the truth that the judgment declares is final and conclusive, and what follows if it is. {GA 5: 69}
Such questions, which solicit us more or less definitely, can be asked only after we have first taken into consideration the essence of art. We attempt to take a few steps by posing the question of the origin of the artwork. The problem is to bring to view the work-character of the work. What the word "origin" here means is thought by way of the essence of truth.
The truth of which we have spoken does not coincide with that which is generally recognized under the name and assigned to cognition and science as a quality, in order to distinguish from it the
* In the original pagination of the Vorlesungen, which is repeated in the Jubilaum edition edited by H. Glockner (Stuttgart: Frommanns Verlag, 1953), these passages occur at X, 1, 134; 135; 16. In the "Theorie Werkausgabe" (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1970) they are to be found in vol. 13, 141, 142, and 25.—Ed.