Art And Religion Are, Then, Two Roads

All Sensitive People Agree That There Is A Peculiar Emotion Provoked By Works Of Art.

We All Agree Now - By 'we' I Mean Intelligent People Under Sixty - That A Work Of Art Is Like A Rose. A Rose Is Not Beautiful Because It Is Like Something Else. Neither Is A Work Of Art. Roses And Works Of Art Are Beautiful In Themselves.

Let The Artist Have Just Enough To Eat, And The Tools Of This Trade: Ask Nothing Of Him. Materially Make The Life Of The Artist Sufficiently Miserable To Be Unattractive, And No-one Will Take To Art Save Those In Whom The Divine Daemon Is Absolute.

Art And Religion Are, Then, Two Roads By Which Men Escape From Circumstance To Ecstasy. Between Aesthetic And Religious Rapture There Is A Family Alliance. Art And Religion Are Means To Similar States Of Mind.

The Representative Element In A Work Of Art May Or May Not Be Harmful, But It Is Always Irrelevant. For To Appreciate A Work Of Art, We Must Bring With Us Nothing From Life, No Knowledge Of Its Affairs And Ideas, No Familiarity With Its Emotions.