_Kosmon._ And, to me, it appears hypercriticism to object to
pictures, poems, and statues, calling them not works of art--or fine
art--because they have no higher purpose than eye or ear-delight. If
this law be held to be good, very few pictures called of the English
school--of the English school, did I say?--very few pictures at all,
of any school, are safe from condemnation: almost all the Dutch must
suffer judgment, and a very large proportion of modern sculpture,
poetry, and music, will not pass. Even "Christabel" and the "Eve of
St. Agnes" could not stand the ordeal.
_Christian._ Oh, Kalon, you hardly need an answer! What! shall the
artist spend weeks and months, nay, sometimes years, in thought and
study, contriving and perfecting some beautiful invention,--in order
only that men's pulses may be quickened? What!--can he, jesuit-like,
dwell in the house of soul, only to discover where to sap her
foundations?--Satan-like, does he turn his angel of light into a
fiend of darkness, and use his God-delegated might against its giver,
making Astartes and Molochs to draw other thousands of innocent lives
into the embrace of sin? And as for you, Kosmon, I regard purpose as
I regard soul; one is not more the light of the thought than the
other is the light of the body; and both, soul and purpose, are
necessary for a complete intellect; and intellect, of the
intellectual--of which the fine arts are the capital members--is not
more to be expected than demanded.
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