e offering of the artist shall
really awaken interests, as only a constant stirring up of desires
together with their constant fulfillment keeps the flame of esthetic
enjoyment alive. When nothing stirs us, when nothing interests us, we
are in a state of indifference outside the realm of art. This also
separates the esthetic pleasure from the ordinary selfish pleasures of
life. They are based on the satisfaction of desires, too, but a kind of
satisfaction through which the desire itself disappears. The pleasure in
a meal, to be sure, can have its esthetic side, as often the harmony of
the tastes and odors and sights of a rich feast may be brought to a
certain artistic perfection. But mere pleasure in eating has no
esthetic value, as the object is destroyed by the partaking and not only
the cake disappears but also our desire for the cake when the desire is
fulfilled and we are satiated. The work of art aims to keep both the
demand and its fulfillment forever awake.

But then this stirring up of interests demands more than anything else a
careful selection of those features in reality which ought to be
admitted into the work of art. A thousand traits of the landscape are
trivial and insignificant and most of what happens in the social life
around us, even where a great action is going on, is in itself
commonplace and dull and without consequences for the event which stirs
us. The very first requirement for the artistic creation is therefore
the elimination of the indifferent, the selection of those features of
the complex offering of nature or social life which tell the real story,
which express the true emotional values and which suggest the interest
for everything which is involved in this particular episode of the
world. But this leads on to the natural consequence, that the artist
must not only select the important traits, but must artificially
heighten their power and increase their strength. We spoke of the
landscape with the tree on the rock and the roaring surf, and we saw how
the scientist studies its smallest elements, the cells of the tree, the
molecules of the seawater and of the rock. How differently does the
artist proceed! He does not care even for the single leaves which the
photographer might reproduce. If a painter renders such a landscape with
his masterly brush, he gives us only the leading movements of those
branches which the storm tears, and the great swing in the curve of the
wave. But those force