The key new element in Hegel is the significance of history. Watch for this, but watch also for his relation to others you have read, especially Schiller and Schelling. Hegel’s system is presupposed and not explained in the selection in your anthology, so you should first read the editors’ introduction (HK 378-380) to get a sense of the context of his discussion of art and for an explanation of some of his terms.
The developing self-realization that the editors speak of there often takes the form of the resolution of contradictions or incompatibilities by moving to some kind of higher level. So the sort of resolution of contradiction that Schiller and Schelling find in art is something that, for Hegel, structures the whole of reality.
The bulk of what we will discuss in Hegel consists of his account of three types or stages of art and a corresponding tripartite classification of the arts. Because of the correspondence of these two series, we will look at them in parallel following the first two steps of each in one class and the third in the next.
• The first short selection (HK 424 first two paragraphs) is the closest Hegel comes here to a general characterization of art. You can understand the “truth” he says art reveals to be the “Idea” spoken of in the editors’ introduction (something you will find him referring to also as the “Absolute”). The specific antithesis or contradiction he refers to here is between, on the one hand, the free action according to laws of reason that Kant saw as being at the heart of morality and, on the other, action that is compelled by natural impulses. This contradiction is essentially the same as the ones Schiller and Schelling speaks of; but, for Hegel, its resolution represents not a problem or task but instead something that is already accomplished and indeed accomplishes itself. However, this resolution preserves the reality of the conflict rather disclosing it as merely apparent (as Kant does with his antinomies).
• The whole of the selection in your anthology comes from the general introduction to a course of lectures on the philosophy of art (compiled after Hegel’s death from his manuscripts and notes taken by his students). Beginning with the second paragraph of HK 428, he outlines the three parts of his lectures. This begins the last part of his general introduction, which provides an overview of the contents of each part.
• The first part of Hegel’s lectures concern the concept of the “Ideal” that he introduces on HK 428-30; this amounts to his account of beauty.
• The rest of your first assignment concerns the types of art Hegel calls “symbolic” and “classical” (HK 430-4 up to (c)) and the arts of architecture and sculpture (HK 437-40 through the first full paragraph). Don’t worry if his idea of symbolic art is not entirely clear when you read the section devoted to it; Hegel has more to say about it when he turns to classical art and more still when he speaks of architecture and sculpture since he sees architecture as an art especially appropriate for the symbolic type or period.
When Hegel discusses the various sorts of self-realization or unfolding of the Idea (and he did this for many topics besides art), his accounts are often semi-historical. That is particularly true here since his interest is in a philosophical understanding of the history of art as well as of its nature. But Hegel’s types of art are not simply historical periods; they are also kinds of art and, in principle, examples might be found in various periods. For example, although Hegel associates symbolic art especially with the cultures and periods he mentions in what you are reading, he also discusses metaphor and other figures of speech in the part of his lectures devoted to symbolic art. Nevertheless, he uses the terms “symbolic” and “classical” in a much narrower and more historically bound way than they would often be used now in discussing art.