No philosopher has held a higher opinion of art than Hegel, yet nor was any so p
rofoundly pessimistic about its prospects despite living in the German golden ag
e of Goethe, Mozart and Schiller. For if the artists of classical Greece could f
ind the perfect fusion of content and form, modernity faced complicating and ult
imately disabling questions. Christianity, with its code of unworldliness, had c
ompromised the immediacy of man's relationship with reality, and ironic detachme
nt had alienated him from his deepest feelings.
