All art constantly aspires towards the condition of music. For while in
all other works of art it is possible to distinguish the matter from the
form, and the understanding can always make this distinction, yet it is
the constant effort of art to obliterate it. That the mere matter of a
poem, for instance--its subject, its given incidents or situation; that
the mere matter of a picture--the actual circumstances of an event, the
actual topography of a landscape--should be nothing without the form,
the spirit, of the handling; that this form, this mode of handling,
should become an end in itself, should penetrate every part of the
matter:--this is what all art constantly strives after, and achieves in
different degrees.
This abstract language becomes clear enough, if we think of actual
examples. In an actual landscape we see a long white road, lost suddenly
on the hill-verge. That is the matter of one of the etchings of M.
Legros: only, in this etching, it is informed by an indwelling solemnity
of expression, seen upon it or half-seen, within the limits of an
exceptional moment, or caught from his own mood perhaps, but which he
maintains as the very essence of the thing, throughout his work.
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