Abstract: This article provides a brief systemic analysis of the key concepts of the so-called new science of art developed by the Austrian art historian Hans Sedlmayr. The result of Seldmayr’s pursuits are reflected in creation of his own philosophy of art and culture based on a particular worldview. The cognition of the whole, along with individual and unique, underlies this science. Understanding is the goal of scientific knowledge for Sedlmayr. It suggests not only abstract knowledge, but peculiar existential experience as well. Sedlmayr interprets the understanding of artwork as its contemplation, which in turn, is identical to its actualization or presence. In Seldlmayr’s art of science, epistemologies and ontologies merge into each other. He interprets artworks simultaneously as the event and as the social organism, which overcomes the linearity of time and fragmentation of plurality. This artificial complex system, built on the paradoxical identity of the single and plenty, is both finite and infinite. Sedlmayr’s views encompass classical and nonclassical approach towards cognition of the whole. He relies on the principles of monism, seeking to reduce all concepts to a single basis, single point of singularity that designates the synthesis of all the moments of the whole and can be expressed by a single category. The main category, which resembles the center of the opposites, is the “midpoint” (Mitte). The aforementioned ideas are consistent and logical only in such scientific worldview that identifies ontology and epistemology, which implies the unity of contemplation and phenomenon of the artwork. Therefore, in Sedlmayr's constructions, actualization or revival of the artwork is identical with its comprehension. The systemic approach towards the artwork reflected in the theoretical works of Sedlmayr extends the boundaries of art science and converges with philosophy.

Abstract: This article analyzes the views of the Austrian historian of arts Hans Sedlmayr on the science about art, which main problem he believed was that it turns into science about art without art and is reduced to the external description. The reason lies in the fact that such science about art studies the universal and singular uncoupled from each other. The foundation of the second science about art in Seldmayr’s opinion must become the studying of separate works of art, under which, following the traditions of German classical philosophy, he understands not the external objects, but the phenomena that represent the unity between the subject and object. The scientific novelty consists in actualization of the views of Hans Sedlmayr upon the work of art. A holistic work of art, in his opinion, must be reconstructed according to certain orientation of a subject towards an object that forms the perception of such object. The attitude, defined by the cultural context, touches upon not only the conscious, but also unconscious scope of activity of a subject.