The Religion of Art in the Hegelian aesthetic thought

Abstract

The concept of the «Religion of Art» (Kunstreligion) occupies an eminent place within the Hegelian aesthetic thought, forming a thematic-speculative core that, despite its successive terminological transformations, is preserved and maintained throughout his philosophical work. Hegel uses this concept, for the first time and under this denomination, in the Phenomenology of the Spirit, but its evolution has its roots in the author’s earliest philosophical speculations and continues, through different revisions and variations, until the mature thought that we find in the aesthetic courses in Berlin. The Kunstreligion would be, in its ultimate significance, one of the core elements that allows us to sustain a «nuanced» continuity among the different periods of the Hegelian aesthetic thought.