CHAPTER III. (Continued).
THE CONCEPTION OF ARTISTIC BEAUTY.
Part II.—The End of Art.
3. The question then arises, what the interest or the End is which man proposes to himself when he reproduces such a content in the form of works of art. This was the third point of view which we set before us with reference to the work of art, and the closer discussion of which will finally make the transition to the actual and true conception of art.
If in this aspect we glance at the common consciousness, a current idea which may occur to us is—
(α) The principle of the imitation of nature. According to this view the essential purpose of art consists in imitation, in the sense of a facility in copying natural forms as they exist in a way that corresponds precisely to them; and the success of such a representation, exactly corresponding to nature, is supposed to be what affords complete satisfaction.
(α) This definition contains, prima facie, nothing beyond the purely formal[70] aim that whatever already exists in the external world, just as it is therein, is now to be made a second time by man as a copy of the former, as well as he can do it with the means at his command. But we may at once regard this repetition as—
(αα) A superfluous labour, seeing that the things which pictures, theatrical representations, etc., imitate and represent—animals, natural scenes, incidents in human life—are before us in other cases already, in our own gardens or our own houses, or in cases within our closer or more remote circle of acquaintance. And, looking more closely, we may regard this superfluous labour as a presumptuous sport which—