This demand
seems to arise from a way of thinking, according to which not Truth,
Beauty, Goodness, but the contrary of all these, is the Actual. Were
the Actual indeed opposed to Truth and Beauty, it would be necessary
for the artist, not to elevate or idealize it, but to get rid of and
destroy it, in order to create something true and beautiful. But how
should it be possible for anything to be actual except the True; and
what is Beauty, if not full, complete Being?
What higher aim, therefore, could Art have, than to represent that
which in Nature actually _is_? Or how should it undertake to excel
so-called actual Nature, since it must always fall short of it?
For does Art impart to its works actual, sensuous life? This statue
breathes not, is stirred by no pulsation, warmed by no blood.
But both the pretended excelling and the apparent falling short show
themselves as the consequences of one and the same principle, as soon
as we place the aim of Art in the exhibiting of that which truly is.
Only on the surface have its works the appearance of life; in Nature,
life seems to reach deeper, and to be wedded entirely with matter.
But does not the continual mutation of matter and the universal lot
of final dissolution teach us the unessential character of this union,
and that it is no intimate fusion? Art, accordingly, in the merely
superficial animation of its works, but represents Nothingness as
non-existing.
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