resemble each other more and more, in the action
which they exercise on the mind. At its highest degree of ennobling,
music ought to become a form, and act on us with the calm power of an
antique statue; in its most elevated perfection, the plastic art ought to
become music and move us by the immediate action exercised on the mind by
the senses; in its most complete development, poetry ought both to stir
us powerfully like music and like plastic art to surround us with a
peaceful light. In each art, the perfect style consists exactly in
knowing how to remove specific limits, while sacrificing at the same time
the particular advantages of the art, and to give it by a wise use of
what belongs to it specially a more general character.

Nor is it only the limits inherent in the specific character of each kind
of art that the artist ought to overstep in putting his hand to the work;
he must also triumph over those which are inherent in the particular
subject of which he treats. In a really beautiful work of art, the
substance ought to be inoperative, the form should do everything; for by
the form the whole man is acted on; the substance acts on nothing but
isolated forces. Thus, however vast and sublime it may be, the substance
always exercises a restrictive action on the mind, and true aesthetic
liberty can only be expected from the form. Consequently the true search
of the matter consists in destroying matter by the form; and the triumph
of art is great in proportion as it overcomes matter and maintains its
sway over those who enjoy its work. It is great particularly in
destroying matter when most imposing, ambitious, and attractive, when
therefore matter has most power to produce the effect proper to it, or,
again, when it leads those who consider it more closely to enter directly
into relation with it. The mind of the spectator and of the hearer must
remain perfectly free and intact; it must issue pure and entire from the
magic circle of the artist, as from the hands of the Creator. The most
frivolous subject ought to be treated in such a way that we preserve the
faculty to exchange it immediately for the most serious work. The arts
which have passion for their object, as a tragedy for example, do not
present a difficulty here; for, in the first place, these arts are not
entirely free, because they are in the service of a particular end (the
pathetic), and then no connoisseur will deny that even in this class a
work is p