Heinrich Gustav Hotho Bücher

Heinrich Gustav Hotho (1802-1873) is known primarily today as the editor of Hegel‹s aesthetics. His autobiography, which was published under the descriptive title ‹Vorstudien für Leben und Kunst‹ (Preliminary Studies for Life and Art), is in two respects an historical and a conceptual link. On the one hand, it acts as an intermediary between Hegel‹s aesthetics and its transformation in Hegelianism, and on the other hand between philosophical aesthetics and research on art history. For Kierkegaard, the ‹Preliminary Studies‹ became a source of information for creating an aesthetic approach to life. This work, in which Hotho tried out his method of a »speculative art history» for the first time, not only provides insight into Hotho‹s interests in aesthetics and cultural policy but also into the beginnings of the German history of art, literature and music. This new edition contains a detailed introduction, written by the editor, indexes of names and subjects and a comprehensive bibliography which also lists current research literature on this subject.

In the 19th century, there were a number of attempts to use Hegel‹s aesthetics for research on art history. Heinrich Gustav Hotho was one of the main proponents of this project of linking philosophical foundations and empirical knowledge. The lecture on aesthetics in this work, which he held in 1833 at the same time as he was working on the edition of Hegel‹s ‹Aesthetics‹, is particularly revealing for Hotho‹s understanding of the science of art. Based on Hegel, but with a more dialectical reasoning, in this work he created the structure of aesthetics. This volume contains a detailed transcript of Hotho‹s lecture on aesthetics, written by Hegel‹s son Immanuel, whose comments in the margins have also been reproduced. There is an introduction by the editor, detailed annotations, an index of names as well as a comprehensive bibliography on the subjects dealt with in the volume.