As we saw, if we consider the problem accurately, it is impossible to dispense with either factor, and they have indeed no aesthetic existence apart. Yet the idea for example that in music we have the pure type of expressiveness, that towards which every art is bound to aspire, does appear to indicate an inherent impulse of the art-spirit towards a mode of utterance which is not loaded with the weight of representation.[1] We have only to say, that we have attempted to display the necessary root of this apparent conflict, and to explain how the representative factor, while having no independent justification, is nevertheless essential, in its place, to the full development of the aesthetic attitude.
After all, we can relive the character and conflicts of man, as we express them for instance in the drama, with a necessity which not only covers a wider and deeper world, but which also is more unmistakable
- ↑ Cp. what Pater said of colour, that it is “a spirit upon things, by which they become expressive to the spirit.”
