The name is absent

The Breviary of Aesthetic 73
the artist arrives at purity of expression precisely by elimi-
nating the ugly which menaces to invade it; and this ugliness
is his tumultuous human passions striving against the pure
passion of art: his weaknesses, his prejudices, his conven-
ience, his laissez faire, his haste, his having one eye on art
and another on the spectator, on the editor, on the impre-
sario-all of them things that impede the artist in the phys-
iological bearing and normal birth of his image-expression,
the poet of the verse that rings and creates, the painter of
sure drawing and Irannonious colour, the composer of mel-
ody, and introduces into their work, if care be not taken to
defend themselves against it, sonorous and empty verses, in-
corrections, lack of harmony, discordances. And since the
artist, at the moment of producing, is a very severe judge of
himself from whom nothing escapes,—not even that which
escapes Others₃-Others also discern, immediately and very
clearly, in the spontaneity of contemplation, where the artist
has been an artist and where he has been a man, a poor man;
in what works, or in what parts of works, lyrical enthusiasm
and creative fancy reign supreme, and in what they have
become chilled and have yielded their place to other things,
which pretend to be art, and therefore (considered from
the aspect of this pretence) are called “ugly” What is the
use of the sentence of criticism, when the sentence has al-
ready been given by genius and by taste? Genius and taste
are legion, they are people, they are general and secular con-
sensus of opinion. So true is this, that the sentences of criti-
cism are always given too late; they consecrate forms that
have already been solemnly consecrated with universal ap-
plause (pure applause must not, however, be confounded
with the clapping of hands and with social notoriety, the
constancy of glory with the caducity of fortune), they con-

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