But how
should it be even possible for him to do this? Without great general
enthusiasm there are only sects--no public opinion; not an established
taste, not the great ideas of a whole people, but the voices of a few
arbitrarily-appointed judges, determine as to merit; and Art, which
in its elevation is self-sufficing, courts favor, and serves where it
should rule.
To different ages are given different inspirations. Can we expect none
for this age, since the new world now forming itself, as it exists in
part already outwardly, in part inwardly and in the hearts of men, can
no longer be measured by any standard of previous opinion, and since
everything, on the contrary, loudly demands higher standards and an
entire renovation?
Should not the sense to which Nature and History have more livingly
unfolded themselves, restore to Art also its great arguments? The
attempt to draw sparks from the ashes of the Past, and fan them again
into universal flame, is a vain endeavor. Only a revolution in the
ideas themselves is able to raise Art from its exhaustion; only new
Knowledge, new Faith, can inspire it for the work by which it can
display, in a renewed life, a splendor like the past.
An Art in all respects the same as that of foregoing centuries, will
never return; for Nature never repeats herself. Such a Raphael will
never be again, but another, who shall have reached in an equally
original manner the summit of Art.
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