The Zeitgeist (spirit of the age or spirit of the time) is the intellectual fashion or dominant school of thought which typifies and influences the culture of a period. For example, the architecture and other art of the twentieth century was much influenced by the idea of modernism. The German word Zeitgeist is often attributed to the philosopher Georg Hegel but he never actually used the word. In his works such as Lectures on the Philosophy of History, he uses the phrase der Geist seiner Zeit (the spirit of his time)—for example, "no man can surpass his own time, for the spirit of his time is also his own spirit." Other philosophers who were associated with such ideas include Herder and Spencer and Voltaire. The concept counters the Great Man theory popularised by Thomas Carlyle, which sees history as the result of the actions of heroes and geniuses.
Hegel believed that art reflected, by its very nature, the time of the culture in which it is created. Culture and art are inextricable because an individual artist is a product of his or her time and therefore brings that culture to any given work of art. Furthermore, he believed that in the modern world it was impossible to produce classical art, which he believed represented a "free and ethical culture", which depended more on the philosophy of art and theory of art, rather than a reflection of the social construct, or zeitgeist in which a given artist lives.
In the analysis of the arts and culture the concept of a "spirit of the age" or zeitgeist may be problematic as a tool for analysis of periods which are socially or culturally fragmented and diverse.