Before everything stands an eternal
idea, formed in the Infinite Understanding; but by what means does
this idea pass into actuality and embodiment? Only through the
creative science that is as necessarily connected with the Infinite
Understanding, as in the artist the principle that seizes the idea
of unsensuous Beauty is linked with that which sets it forth to the
senses.
If that artist be called happy and praiseworthy before all to whom
the gods have granted this creative spirit, then that work of art will
appear excellent which shows to us, as in outline, this unadulterated
energy of creation and activity of Nature.
It was long ago perceived that, in Art, not everything is performed
with consciousness; that, with the conscious activity, an unconscious
action must combine; and that it is of the perfect unity and mutual
interpenetration of the two that the highest in Art is born.
Works that want this seal of unconscious science are recognized by
the evident absence of life self-supported and independent of the
producer; as, on the contrary, where this acts, Art imparts to its
work, together with the utmost clearness to the understanding, that
unfathomable reality wherein it resembles a work of Nature.
It has often been attempted to make clear the position of the artist
in regard to Nature, by saying that Art, in order to be such, must
first withdraw itself from Nature, and return to it only in the final
perfection.
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