He is also no more the product of civilisation than is the scientific truth asserted dependent upon the wisdom of a period. The assertion itself requires the man to make it. The truth was from the beginning.
So Art is limited to the infinite, and beginning there cannot progress.
A silent indication of its wayward independence from all extraneous advance, is in the absolutely unchanged condition and form of implement since the beginning of things.
The painter has but the same pencil—the sculptor the chisel of centuries.
Colours are not more since the heavy hangings of night were first drawn aside, and the loveliness of light revealed.
Neither chemist nor engineer can offer new elements of the masterpiece.
False again, the fabled link between the grandeur of Art and the glories and virtues of the State, for Art feeds not upon nations, and peoples may be wiped from the face of the earth, but Art is.
It is indeed high time that we cast aside the weary weight of responsibility and co-partnership, and know that, in no way, do our virtues minister to its worth, in no way do our vices impede its triumph!
How irksome! how hopeless! how superhuman the self-imposed task of the nation! How sublimely vain the belief that it shall live nobly or art perish.
Let us reassure ourselves, at our own option is our virtue. Art we in no way affect.