Didn Hegel declare that Art is Dead?
Not precisely. Hegel declared that Art, to be Art, must be Free. The main content of Art is Freedom. However, the economic conditions of the modern age put considerable pressure on artists compared with ancient, medieval and Renaissance times when artists were supported very well. In modern times artists must support themselves, and this obliges many artists to succumb to economic pressures and commercialism. This is the death of the Freedom of Art. At the same times, particularly in the classical period and at the time of the Greeks, Art represented a recognised form of knowledge and interpretation of reality. The consciousness of freedom has progressed ever since, and in modern times Spirit has found more appropriate ways to interpret itself, among which Philosophy. Nobody in modern times would give credit to Art only as an exclusive means to explain, in a detailed way, essential features of our reality (such as, for instance, the arm-race or the emerging of international terrorism).
