The Preface
The artist is the creator of beautiful things.
To reveal art and conceal the artist is art’s aim.
The critic is he who can translate into another manner or a new material his impression of beautiful things.
The highest, the lowest, form of criticism is a mode of autobiography.
Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault.
Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope.
They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only Beauty.
I like everything about this excerpt and I think it is worded in a very beautiful manner. It is unclear to me what the autobiography line was about, but my favorite part was the last line. So often do we see beautiful things and notice the beauty, but are more focused on its material value or the status that it gives us when perceived by others or feel pride at owning such a thing. Instead, this excerpt states that there is only hope for those who can see something beautiful, and not see anything else about the thing, not its worth or potential or faults but see only Beauty with a capital B.
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