How did Hegel arrange architecture, sculpture, painting, music, and poetry in his theory of art?

In his Lectures on Aesthetics, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel arranged the arts in a specific historical and intellectual sequence. This progression reflects the evolving capacity of art to give sensuous embodiment to the spirit (Geist), moving from the most material forms toward those that are increasingly inward and intellectual.1

Hegel’s hierarchy is ordered as follows:

• Architecture: The starting point, where the spirit is only half-articulate and expressed through purely symbolic, material forms.1
• Sculpture and Painting: These represent intermediate stages in the development of artistic expression.1
• Music: A further progression toward inwardness.1
• Poetry: Considered the true art of the Romantics, as it achieves the highest level of articulation within the realm of art.1

Hegel identified these stages with specific historical developments, suggesting that each art form expresses the Zeitgeist (spirit of the time) of its era. Ultimately, he argued that all art is destined to be superseded by philosophy, the domain in which the spirit achieves its final, most complete articulation as Idea.1