What Is Art?

How art for pleasure has come into esteem—Religions indicate what is considered good and bad—Church Christianity—The Renaissance—Scepticism of the upper classes—They confound be...

Who have adopted it?—Real art needful for all men—Our art too expensive, too unintelligible, and too harmful for the masses—The theory of “the elect” in art 67

Loss of comprehensibility—Decadent art—Recent French art—Have we a right to say it is bad and that what we like is good art?—The highest art has always been comprehensible to no...

=The quality of art, considered according to its subject-matter=—The better the feeling the better the art—The cultured crowd—The religious perception of our age—The new ideals...

Results of absence of true art—Results of perversion of art: Labour and lives spent on what is useless and harmful—The abnormal life of the rich—Perplexity of children and plain...

The connection between science and art—The mendacious sciences; the trivial sciences—Science should deal with the great problems of human life, and serve as a basis for art 200

For the production of every ballet, circus, opera, operetta, exhibition, picture, concert, or printed book, the intense and unwilling labour of thousands and thousands of people...

According to Baumgarten,[10] the object of logical knowledge is Truth, the object of æsthetic (_i.e._ sensuous) knowledge is Beauty. Beauty is the Perfect (the Absolute), recogn...

To what do these definitions of beauty amount? Not reckoning the thoroughly inaccurate definitions of beauty which fail to cover the conception of art, and which suppose beauty...

What is art, if we put aside the conception of beauty, which confuses the whole matter? The latest and most comprehensible definitions of art, apart from the conception of beaut...

But how could it happen that that very art, which in ancient times was merely tolerated (if tolerated at all), should have come, in our times, to be invariably considered a good...

From the time that people of the upper classes lost faith in Church Christianity, beauty (_i.e._ the pleasure received from art) became their standard of good and bad art. And,...

But if art is a human activity having for its purpose the transmission to others of the highest and best feelings to which men have risen, how could it be that humanity for a ce...

The unbelief of the upper classes of the European world had this effect, that instead of an artistic activity aiming at transmitting the highest feelings to which humanity has a...

In consequence of their unbelief the art of the upper classes became poor in subject-matter. But besides that, becoming continually more and more exclusive, it became at the sam...

Becoming ever poorer and poorer in subject-matter and more and more unintelligible in form, the art of the upper classes, in its latest productions, has even lost all the charac...

In our society three conditions co-operate to cause the production of objects of counterfeit art. They are—(1) the considerable remuneration of artists for their productions and...

To what an extent people of our circle and time have lost the capacity to receive real art, and have become accustomed to accept as art things that have nothing in common with i...

The scene represents a wood, and in the wood there is a cave. At the entrance of the cave sits a third actor in tights, representing another gnome. It dawns. Enter the god Wotan...

I know that most men—not only those considered clever, but even those who are very clever and capable of understanding most difficult scientific, mathematical or philosophic pro...

Art, in our society, has been so perverted that not only has bad art come to be considered good, but even the very perception of what art really is has been lost. In order to be...

Art, like speech, is a means of communication, and therefore of progress, _i.e._ of the movement of humanity forward towards perfection. Speech renders accessible to men of the...

Art is one of two organs of human progress. By words man interchanges thoughts, by the forms of art he interchanges feelings, and this with all men, not only of the present time...

The cause of the lie into which the art of our society has fallen was that people of the upper classes, having ceased to believe in the Church teaching (called Christian), did n...

People talk of the art of the future, meaning by “art of the future” some especially refined, new art, which, as they imagine, will be developed out of that exclusive art of one...

I have accomplished, to the best of my ability, this work which has occupied me for 15 years, on a subject near to me—that of art. By saying that this subject has occupied me fo...

command his gnomes to bring them all the gold. The gnomes bring it. Alberich gives up the gold, but keeps a magic ring. The gods take the ring. So Alberich curses the ring, and...

to whom they shall award the victory. Wotan, approving of Siegmund’s incest with his sister, wishes to spare him, but, under pressure from his wife, Fricka, he orders the Valkyr...

Brünnhilda arrives on horseback, bringing Siegmund’s body. She is flying from Wotan, who is chasing her for her disobedience. Wotan catches her, and as a punishment dismisses he...

advice. Siegfried appears, quarrels with Wotan, and they fight. Suddenly Siegfried’s sword breaks Wotan’s spear, which had been more powerful than anything else. Siegfried goes...

sister in marriage. Hagen, the king’s wicked brother, advises him to marry Brünnhilda, and to give his sister to Siegfried. Siegfried appears; they give him a drugged draught, w...

Siegfried comes, tells how he has obtained a bride for Gunther and spent the night with her, but put a sword between himself and her. Brünnhilda rides up, recognises the ring on...

Siegfried, who has lost his way, appears. The nymphs ask him for the ring, but he won’t give it up. Hunters appear. Siegfried tells the story of his life. Hagen then gives him a...