He can be curiously
prosaic at the same time, and this is another proof of the infinite
complexity of the mind:--he can be inartistic and unpoetic so that he
almost staggers us, as in his unillumining remarks on Landscape Art.
Vegetation, according to Schopenhauer's theory, is on a lower grade of
Will Objectification or Manifestation, than men and animals are, and
landscape painting is, therefore, altogether on a different plane.
Through his theories he loses the power of seeing that art is
concerned with treatment, with conception and expression, that beauty
depends not on the object, but on the treatment of the object.
But if we turn to his mystical theory of the Unconscious, we do get a
beautiful description of the absorption, that is, of the essence of
the artistic nature. He shows how the artist loses his own personality
in the object of contemplation, so completely that he identifies
himself mentally with it. Schopenhauer describes the artistic mind
when it is affected by the beautiful and the sublime. By losing all
sense of individuality and personality the artist is so possessed by
his object of thought and vision that he is absorbed in it and feels
the Idea, which it represents.
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