Hegel Study, The General Problem Of The Plastic Arts

This thesis is composed of seven parts, discussing Hegel's thoughts on several important basic issues of plastic arts. The introduction presents the writing purpose and the research methods. The second part expounds Hegel's perception of plastic arts obtained from his journey to Europe, which is deemed to have provoked Hegel's ardent love for the arts and have reinforced his perceptual foundations of the arts. The third one discusses Hegel's analyses, studies and discoveries of the development of the fine arts history, which mainly treats of Hegel's inheritance and development of the art history thoughts held by Schelling, Kant, Goethe, Winckelmann and others. Hegel has absorbed their thoughts into his own plastic arts theory system. The fourth part discusses Hegel's artistic classification principles and several basic characteristics in plastic arts. The fifth part elaborates the development of Hegel's theory of "idea", which is considered as the embodiment of Hegel's theory of plastic arts. The sixth part is a conclusion, commenting on Hegel's contribution to the art history. His contribution is mainly manifested in that he has enlarged the research scope and domain of the art history, and that he has regarded art as the subject's outward performance from the inside, as well as that he has adopted dialectic and historical sense of development in his researches. Thus the formation and development of Hegel's ideas of plastic arts are being studied systematically and thoroughly, and the construction principles of his theory of plastic arts and his contribution to the art history are being elaborated.