And still further, that those
nations that have been or are preeminent on the earth, are preeminent
in art. Nay, more, that a nation cannot attain to and maintain
eminence without being proficient in art; and that to abstract from a
people its artists were not merely to pluck the flowers from its
branches; it were to cut off its-deep roots.
Who is the artist?
He who embodies, in whatever mode,--so that they be visible or
audible, and thus find entrance to the mind,--conceptions of the
beautiful, is an artist. The test and characteristic of the artistic
nature are superior sensibility to the beautiful. Unite to this the
faculties and the will to give form to the impressions and emotions
that are the fruit of this susceptibility, and you have the artist.
Whether he shall embody his conception in written verse, in marble, in
stone, in sound, on the canvas, that will depend on each one's
individual aptitudes. Generic, common, indispensable to all is the
superior sensibility to the beautiful. In this lies the essence of the
artist.
The beautiful and the perfect being, if not identical, in closest
consanguinity, the artist's is an important, a great function.
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