What is Art?

We think the feelings experienced by people of our day and our class are very importance and varied, but in reality almost all the feelings of people of our class amount to but three very insignificant and simple feelings: the feeling of pride, the feeling of sexual desire, and the feeling of weariness of life. These three feelings, with their outgrowths, form almost the only subject matter of the art of the rich classes. Such feelings as form the chief subjects of present-day art, say, for instance, honour, patriotism and amourousness, evoke in a working man only bewilderment and contempt, or indignation……if he did understand it, that which he understood would not elevate his soul, but would certainly, in most case, pervert. The business of art lies just in this – to make that understood and felt which, in the form of an argument, might be incomprehensible and inaccessible. Usually it seems to the recipient of a truly artistic impression that he knew the thing before but had been unable to express it.