黑格爾在《藝術哲學演講錄》中，依據精神與自然的尋求、找到、超出三種關係，清楚地演繹出「從象徵、經古典、到浪漫」藝術的精神發展過程。這個過程可以總結如下：「象徵藝術」中，理念與自然的關係是「異在性」，「象徵藝術」的工作，便是想要在自然之中尋求理念，然而「想尋求表示尚未找到」；「古典藝術」中，理念與自然的關係是「直接同一」，理念與自然符應一致，取得了「客觀性」。精神雖然已經在自然之中找到了理念，然而，精神以為自然是實體，不知道自己才是實體，自然不是獨立自存的，而是精神外在映現的產物；「浪漫藝術」的工作便是揚棄自然的外在性，以回復到精神的內在性。精神的特質是在外在化過程中產生失落，並且只有通過失落，才能夠真正獲得，因為「找到的地方就是原先尋求的地方」。

In his Lectures on the Philosophy of Art, Hegel deduces lucidly spirit's development from symbolic, via classical, to romantic art. This process can be summarized as follows. In symbolic art, the relationship between divine idea and nature is foreignness, spirit struggles to seek idea in nature. However, to seek implies not to have found; In classical art, the relationship between the two is immediate unity, spirit has already found adequate configuration of nature for the expression of idea and attained to objectivity. However, spirit assumes that nature is substance, it does not know that it itself is substance; Romantic art's work is to transcend externality of nature and restore to internality of spirit. It is the very characteristic of spirit to lose itself in externalization and find itself again through loss because what is sought has not yet been found, but the place has been found where is to be sought.