80 The Rice Institute Pamphlet
and ugliness, as in logic they are called truth and error, in
economy gain and loss, in ethic good and evil. Thus the
whole criticism of art can be reduced to this briefest proposi-
tion, which further serves to differentiate its work from that
of art and taste (which, considered in themselves, are logi-
cally mute), and from exegetical erudition (which lacks logi-
cal synthesis, and is therefore also logically mute): “There
is a work of art a” with the corresponding negative: “There
is not a work of art a.”
It seems to be a trifle, for the definition of art as intuition
seemed to be neither more nor less than a trifle, but it has
on the contrary been since seen how many things it included
in itself, how many affirmations and how many negations:
so many that, although I have proceeded and proceed in a
condensed manner, I have not been able and will not be able
to afford more than brief mention of them. That proposition
or judgment of the criticism of art, “The work of art a is,”
implies, above all, like every judgment, a subject (the intui-
tion of the work of art a) to conquer which is needed the
labour of exegesis and of fantastic reproduction, together
with the discernment of taste: we have already seen how
difficult and complicated this is, and how many go astray in
it, through lack of fancy, or owing to slightness and super-
ficiality of culture. And it further implies, like every judg-
ment, a predicate, a category, and in this case the category
of art, which must be conceived in the judgment, and which
therefore becomes the concept of art. And we have also
seen, as regards the concept of art, to what difficulties and
complications it gives rise, and how it is a possession always
unstable, continually attacked and ambushed, and continu-
ally to be defended against assaults and ambushes. Criticism
of art, therefore, develops and grows, declines and reap-