  To the extent that works of humor do not give body to true self-determining freedom and life—or afford “the supreme idea of depth”—but merely manifest the power of arbitrary, subjective wit to subvert the settled order, such works, in Hegel’s view, no longer count as genuine works of art. Consequently, “when the subject lets itself go in this way, art thereby comes to an end [so hört damit die Kunst auf]” (PKÄ, 153). In this respect, Hegel does after all proclaim that art comes to an end in modernity. This is not because art no longer performs a religious function and so no longer fulfills the highest vocation of art; it is because there emerge in modernity certain “art works” that are no longer the expressions of true human freedom and life and so no longer genuine art works at all.