Georg Hegel

Whereas Kant believes if a piece of art is deemed beautiful (following the Critique of Judgement) it makes us experience beauty, believed to be an experience of freedom. The image is having a direct effect on us.

Hegel however, believes beauty is an objective property of things. We must be shown exactly what freedom looks like to achieve true beauty. True beauty is the result of a free spirit. Depiction must have formal qualities eg. unity, harmony, symmetry, organic. Clearest visible embodiment of free spirit is human form. eg. Gods, Jesus

Contemporary artists try to argue art can have any content it likes and in some cases no content at all. Hegel would completely disagree with this concept.