July 2

In no other sphere is the word abused so much as in the evaluation of works of art—especially false art.

1

We are only wholly satisfied by our impression of a work of art when it leaves behind something that, despite applying all our mental effort, we cannot fully clarify.

— Schopenhauer

2

Art influences people’s souls in a way that makes the mysterious obvious, the vague clear, the difficult easy, the accidental necessary. A true artist always simplifies.

— After Amiel

3

If the whole world, as representation, is only an appearance, then art is a clarification of this appearance, a camera obscura that shows us a clearer view of objects, helping us to better observe and perceive them. Art is a spectacle within a spectacle, a scene within a scene, like in “Hamlet.”

— Schopenhauer

4

A person, endowed with ordinary senses, conforms his thoughts to things; an artist conforms things to his thoughts. An ordinary person considers nature to be invariably fixed and constant; an artist considers it fluid and flowing, and he puts on it a mark of his own being. For him, the unruly world is obedient and malleable; he gives human attributes to dust and stones, turning them into expressions of the mind.

— Emerson

5

Remember that nothing is ever done beautifully which is done in rivalship: or nobly, which is done in pride.

— John Ruskin

6

The sciences and the arts can only be necessary to ordinary people when those who live among the people and like the people, without declaring any rights, offer them their scientific and artistic services, the acceptance or rejection of which would depend on the will of the people.

7

There are two unquestionable signs of true science and true art: the first is internal, which is that the servant of science or art fulfills his calling selflessly and not for profit; the second is external, which is that everyone can understand his work.

8

Science is as tightly connected to art as the lungs are to the heart, so that if one organ is corrupted, the other cannot work properly.

True science studies and introduces into people’s consciousness those truths of knowledge that the people of a particular time and society consider most important. Art translates these truths from the sphere of knowledge into the sphere of feeling.

Although artistic pursuits are not as high an activity as the people who are engaged in them generally think, this work is good and useful if it brings people together and evokes good feelings in them; but to pursue art that is approved by the wealthy classes of our world—art that divides people and evokes bad feelings in them—is work that is not just useless, but harmful.