Synopsis
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Excerpt from book:
cause art, for the sake of which the labor of millions, the lives of men, and, above all, love between man and man, are being sacrificed, — this very art is becoming something more and more vague and uncertain to human perception. Criticism, in which the lovers of art used to find support for their opinions, has latterly become so self- contradictory, that, if we exclude from the domain of art all that to which the critics of various schools themselves deny the title, there is scarcely any art left. The artists of various sects, like the theologians of the various sects, mutually exclude and destroy themselves. Listen to the artists of the schools of our times, and you will find, in all branches, each set of artists disowning others. In poetry the old romanticists deny the parnassiens and the decadents; the parnassiens disown the romanticists and the decadents ; the decadents disown all their predecessors and the symbolists; the symbolists disown all their predecessors and les mages; and les mages disown all, all their predecessors. Among novelists we have naturalists, psychologists, and " nature-ists," all rejecting each other. And it is the same in dramatic art, in painting, and in music. So that art, which demands such tremendous labor-sacrifices from the people, which stunts human lives and transgresses against human love, is not only not a thing clearly and firmly defined, but is understood in such contradictory ways by its own devotees that it is difficult to say what is meant by art, and especially what is good, useful art, — art for the sake of which we might condone such sacrifices as are being offered at its shrine. CHAPTER II For the production of every ballet, circus, opera, operetta, exhibition, picture, concert, or printed book, the intense and unwilling ...