Hegel on Egyptian Art

For Plato, the best art is didactic; it serves only to point to an idea. In Plato’s mind, symbolic art is the only art worth allowing in a republic. Hegel does not agree. In Hegel’s Aesthetics, symbolic art is described as the lowest form of art. (Though we should note that he still considers the symbolic art.)

According to Hegel, art must contain both concept and form; each of these which must be concrete in itself. In a truly successful artwork concept and form are perfectly melded. The symbolic meaning of the piece must be reflected in the form of its representation. Thus, the Idea points to the form and the form points back to the Idea. If concept and form are both viable and well-executed, then the work becomes entirely self-contained producing a message outside the viewer independent of the viewer’s individual perspective. This self-containment is art’s bridge to universality. And only in being entirely self-referential can art be timelessly and universally relevant.

Hegel describes the composition of symbols as: “(i) the meaning, and (ii) the expression thereof” (304). This sounds identical to the argument posed in his Aesthetics, where content and form combine to create an Idea. So, I believe Hegel is saying that fine art is a symbol within itself. Symbolic art, then seems to be something different. Symbolic art spears to be a misuse or misunderstanding of the true nature of symbolism, in which form and content are disjointed and largely unsuccessful in communicate a deeper Idea.

Hegel’s Aesthetics explains that symbolic art is not very successful in the blending of concept and form. The form is often overly simplistic and the ideas encompassed in the composition are too large to be conveyed through the Egyptians’ simple style. Though they concept is much more powerful than the form in symbolic art, it is the form that is notable. It is immediately apparent in viewing the form of Egyptian art, that there is a large and important concept behind everything they created. But the external obviousness that there exists an grander idea has none of fine art’s required subtlety. This means the simplicity of the form in comparison to the idea does not highlight the idea, but rather, by too directly referencing its existence, emphasizes form and obfuscates the idea. It is for this reason that Hegel declares symbolic art, which is epitomized in Egyptian architecture, to be the least successful of all the arts.

Hegel’s primary example of Egyptian symbolism is the Pyramids because they “put before our eyes the simple prototype of symbolic art itself” (356). The fascination the Pyramids ceaselessly engender is evidence of the imbalance of concept and form in their construction. Had these two symbolic elements been balanced, there would be no question of the meaning or purpose of the Pyramids. However, “they are prodigious crystals which conceal in themselves an inner meaning” (356). The Pyramids have frustrated and fascinated generations because their enigmatic form clearly hints at a definite meaning within their structure, yet their impressive form reveals little about what that meaning might be. As Hegel says, “the shape for such an inner meaning still remains just an external form and veil for the definite content of that meaning” (356). The inharmonious blend of idea and form ensures that “inner meaning rests concealed” (356). So, as fine art, Hegel would declare the Pyramids unsuccessful.

Hegel goes on to compare Egyptian art to riddles: “we regard the Egyptian works of art as containing riddles, the right solution of which is in part unattained not only by us, but generally by those who posed these riddles to themselves” (360). He clearly thinks that the failure of attaining true symbolism within Egyptian art is due to an incomplete grasp of what the artists were hoping to convey, meaning that their art cannot help us grasp at a more concrete understanding of these concepts, merely suggest their existence. So, “Egyptian symbols, as we saw at the very beginning, contain implicitly much, explicitly nothing,” thus making them relatively unvalued in aesthetic terms (360).

From his brief talk of riddles, Hegel naturally progresses to the Sphinx, a mythical creature famously associated with the Egyptians. Hegel claims the sphinx “the symbol of the symbolic itself” (360). For this reason, I would claim that the sphinx is a symbol in Hegel’s highest sense of the word. Like fine art, the sphinx is both a formal and ideological representation of an Idea, in this case, a riddle. Hegel’s original description of “the symbol is no purely arbitrary sign, but a sign in which externality comprises in itself at the same time the content of the idea which it brings into appearance” (305). 

A riddle cannot be art, because the answer is evident only externally. For example, the riddle the Sphinx gives Oedipus requires him to look within himself for the answer. He must follow the command to “Know thyself”. This is in accordance with Kant’s ideals of art, where the nature of art must echo with something inside of us. It is completely contrary to Hegel’s aesthetics for the same reason. For Hegel, all art must have a self-contained meaning. Though the riddle does not represent this to Hegel, I would argue that the sphinx does.