no interpreters, no dictionaries; and it
has told him the fact, the fact depending on no previous knowledge,
irrefutable and eternal, that it is beautiful. And as our eyes follow
his, and we listen to his simple, unaffected, unpoetical exclamations
of admiration at this combination of lines, or that bend of a limb, we
recognise that if poetry has its unchangeable effects, its power which,
in order to be felt, requires only the comprehension of words; art also
has its unchangeable effects, its power, its supreme virtue, which all
can feel who have eyes and minds that can see. The bas-relief does not
necessarily tell us the story of Orpheus and Eurydice, as Virgil's lines
do, that is not inherent in its nature as in theirs; but it tells us the
fact of its beauty, and that fact is vital, eternal, and indissolubly
connected with it.

To appreciate a work of art means, therefore, to appreciate that work
of art itself, as distinguished from appreciating something outside it,
something accidentally or arbitrarily connected with it; to appreciate
Virgil's lines means to appreciate his telling of the story of Orpheus,
his choice of words and his metre; to appreciate the bas-relief means to
appreciate the combination of forms and lights and shades; and a person
who cared for Virgil's lines because they suggested the bas-relief or
for the bas-relief because it suggested Virgil's lines, would equally be
appreciating neither, since his pleasure depended on something separate
from the work of art itself.

Yet this is what constantly happens, and happens on account of two very
simple and legitimate movements of the mind: that of comparison and that
of association. Let us examine what we have called, for want of a more
definite word, the movement of comparison. You are enjoying a work of
art, plastic and musical; what you enjoy is the work of art itself, the
combination of lines, lights and shades and colours in the one case,
the combination of modulations and harmonies in the other; now, as
this enjoyment means merely the pleasing activity of your visual and
aesthetic, or acoustic and aesthetic organism, you instinctively wish to
increase the activity in order to increase the pleasure; the increase
of activity is obtained by approximating as much as possible to the
creative activity of the original artist, by going over every step
that he has gone over, by creating the work of art over again in the
intensity of appreciation. If it be