Page:The World as Will and Idea - Schopenhauer, tr. Haldane and Kemp - Volume 3.djvu/151

Rh state of tension and activity, do the colours and forms of things appear in their true and full significance. Thus it is from such comprehension alone that genuine works of art can proceed whose permanent worth and ever renewed approval arises simply from the fact that they express the purely objective element, which lies at the foundation of and shines through the different subjective, and therefore distorted, perceptions, as that which is common to them all and alone stands fast; as it were the common theme of all those subjective variations. For certainly the nature which is displayed before our eyes exhibits itself very differently in different minds; and as each one sees it so alone can he repeat it, whether with the pencil or the chisel, or with words and gestures on the stage. Objectivity alone makes one capable of being an artist; but objectivity is only possible in this way, that the intellect, separated from its root the will, moves freely, and yet acts with the highest degree of energy.

To the youth whose perceptive intellect still acts with fresh energy nature often exhibits itself with complete objectivity, and therefore with perfect beauty. But the pleasure of such a glance is sometimes disturbed by the saddening reflection that the objects present which exhibit themselves in such beauty do not stand in a personal relation to this will, by virtue of which they could interest and delight him; he expects his life in the form of an interesting romance. "Behind that jutting cliff the well-mounted band of friends should await me, – beside that waterfall my love should rest; this beautifully lighted building should be her dwelling, and that vine-clad window hers; – but this beautiful world is for me a desert!" and soon. Such melancholy youthful reveries really demand something exactly contradictory to themselves; for the beauty with which those objects present themselves depends just upon the pure objectivity, i.e., disinterestedness of their perception, and would therefore at once be abolished by the relation to his own will which the youth painfully misses,