Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1910 edition. Excerpt: ... XIV THE OBJECT OF ART In conclusion, let us focus all that has been said in the preceding chapters by getting a clear understanding of the true object of literary art. What is the central aim of all art, the main thing it seeks, the thing that justifies it and makes it live? Is its prime object to teach lessons? To preach goodness? To promulgate truth? To solve problems? To copy nature? To photograph life? To show how beautifully the artist can combine colors or the writer braid garlands of words? No, it is none of these, though there are mistaken people who imagine it to be one or more of them. These are all secondary objects of art, some of them essential means to an end; but not one of them is the chief end to be sought for its own sake. The supreme object of the artist should be to convey to us, through the medium of imaginative illusion, a great idea, impression, or emotion. Whether the art-product be a story, a poem, a drama, a painting, a statue, a symphony, or an opera, the idea at the heart of it is the vital thing, the soul of it, and the artist's mission is to express this idea as beautifully and impressively as possible. The novelist does it by creating an illusion of actual social life, -- of persons and scenes, -- a vision of reality so skillfully conjured that it stirs in us the emotions latent in reality itself. The greater the theme and the more perfect the art used in expressing it, the greater the novel will be, because the deeper will be its impression on the memory. We may define the object of all art, then, as the perfect emotional expression of a beautiful idea. Perfect technique, which creates the illusion, is the body of art, the form through which the idea, the soul, makes itself known to our hearts. The finest...
