What transcendental philosophies appear in Hawthorne's "The Artist of the Beautiful"?

The notion of creating a spiritual machine seems both at odds with transcendentalism and in agreement with its philosophies. On one hand, the idea of controlling nature or of mastering it is at odds with transcendental themes of respecting nature. On the other hand, engaging spirit with the physical world is exactly what the transcendentalists were after. 

One of the main themes of transcendentalism is espoused in Emerson's essay "Self-Reliance." In this essay, he encourages...

The notion of creating a spiritual machine seems both at odds with transcendentalism and in agreement with its philosophies. On one hand, the idea of controlling nature or of mastering it is at odds with transcendental themes of respecting nature. On the other hand, engaging spirit with the physical world is exactly what the transcendentalists were after. 

One of the main themes of transcendentalism is espoused in Emerson's essay "Self-Reliance." In this essay, he encourages the individual to be skeptical of social institutions. In Hawthorne's story, Owen is skeptical of the social institution of buying and selling. He would much rather pursue the exotic boundlessness of his own imagination than succumb to a mechanical life of fixing watches. Another theme of this essay is to "trust thyself." Everyone in Owen's life (with the exception of Annie) mocks him for spending so much time on his art. Owen has spells of melancholy and depression when he abandons his art. But he continually returns to it, thus remembering his individuality and thereby, he ignores the naysayers who mock him. He always returns to his own subjective intuition, to his own inner voice. This is a hallmark of Transcendentalism and Romanticism, which had some similar beliefs. 

Own also claims that he has given his spirit to the mechanized butterfly. As this is his art, one could say the same of an accomplished poet who has put his soul into his poem. Then that poem will live on for others to read and that spirit, although interpreted differently in subsequent generations, will have a life of its own. Owen's machine is destroyed, so it does not live on in the same way. But for Owen, the magic was in the making. The transcendental effect on him had been the process of giving his spirit to the art of creation. (One might criticize him for not giving his spirit to Annie and sharing his life with her. Owen himself might share this criticism, but in the end, he doesn't let this affect his pride in having achieved his self-described "purpose.") 

Owen also strayed from his teacher, Peter Hovenden. This idea of being bold enough to stray from previous masters, authorities, and tradition is a transcendentalist theme as well. Lastly, Owen's fascination with actual butterflies illustrates his Romantic and Transcendental sensibilities. Both the Romantics and the Transcendentalists stressed the importance of nature and of the individual communing with nature, often in solitude. Owen, despite the prospect of loneliness, pursued his art in order to "live a life of purpose." This phrase comes from Walden, another famous work of Transcendentalism.