Apropos the Cynic
He wrote with an assumption of extreme heartlessness, and the public said, "How tender his heart must be when he hides it under such a disguise!" But what he was hiding all the time was his lack of heart.
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Artist and Philosopher
In all ages the philosophers have pardoned the artists their lack of depth, on account of their divine love of the beautiful. In our time, however, this only reason for pardoning them has disappeared, and they are now entirely deserving of condemnation. For the realists abjure equally thought—interpretation, and beauty—selection. To be an eye, with a fountain pen attached to it; that is their aim, successfully attained, alas! A single eye and not a single thought: the definition of the realist.
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An Evil
Art is at the present day far too easy for comprehension, far too obvious. Our immediate task should be to make it difficult, and the concern of a dedicated few. Thus only shall we win back reverence for it. When it is reverenced, however, it will then be time to extend its sway; but not until then. Art must be approached with reverence, or not at all. A democratic familiarity with it—such as exists among the middle classes, not among the working classes, in whom reverence is not yet dead—is an abomination.
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Modern Art Themes