On the contrary, I am often wrong--a luxury no critic can
afford. And so, invading as I was the realm of others, I advanced with a
light pen, feeling that none, and least of all myself, need expect me to
be right.
What then--I thought--is Art? For I perceived that to think about it I
must first define it; and I almost stopped thinking at all before the
fearsome nature of that task. Then slowly in my mind gathered this group
of words:
Art is that imaginative expression of human energy, which, through
technical concretion of feeling and perception, tends to reconcile the
individual with the universal, by exciting in him impersonal emotion.
And the greatest Art is that which excites the greatest impersonal
emotion in an hypothecated perfect human being.
Impersonal emotion! And what--I thought do I mean by that? Surely I
mean: That is not Art, which, while I, am contemplating it, inspires me
with any active or directive impulse; that is Art, when, for however
brief a moment, it replaces within me interest in myself by interest in
itself. For, let me suppose myself in the presence of a carved marble
bath. If my thoughts be "What could I buy that for?" Impulse of
acquisition; or: "From what quarry did it come?" Impulse of inquiry; or:
"Which would be the right end for my head?" Mixed impulse of inquiry and
acquisition--I am at that moment insensible to it as a work of Art.
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