Thirdly: The procedures of one art are transferred to the realm of another; the object of art is confounded with that of science, with that of the Church, or with that of the interests of the race (nationalism), or with that of philosophy—a man rings all bells at once, and awakens the vague suspicion that he is a god.
Fourthly: Artists flatter women, sufferers, and indignant folk. Narcotics and opiates are made to preponderate in art. The fancy of cultured people, and of the readers of poetry and ancient history, is tickled.
825.
We must distinguish between the "public" and the "select"; to satisfy the public a man must be a charlatan to-day, to satisfy the select he will be a virtuoso and nothing else. The geniuses peculiar to our century overcame this distinction, they were great for both; the great charlatanry of Victor Hugo and Richard Wagner was coupled with such genuine virtuosity that it even satisfied the most refined artistic connoisseurs. This is why greatness is lacking: these geniuses had a double outlook; first, they catered for the coarsest needs, and then for the most refined.
826.
False "accentuation": (1) In romanticism, this unremitting "expressivo" is not a sign of strength, but of a feeling of deficiency;
(2) Picturesque music, the so-called dramatic kind, is above all easier (as is also the brutal scandalmongering and the juxtaposition of facts and traits in realistic novels);
(3) "Passion" as a matter of nerves and exhausted souls; likewise the delight in high mountains, deserts, storms, orgies, and disgusting details,—in bulkiness and massiveness (historians, for instance); as a matter of fact, there is actually a cult of exaggerated feelings (how is it that in stronger ages art desired just the opposite—a restraint of passion?);
(4) The preference for exciting materials (Erotica or Socialistica or Pathologica): all these things are the signs of the style of public that is being catered for to-day—that is to say, for overworked, absentminded, or enfeebled people.
Such people must be tyrannised over in order to be affected.