"Genius... consists... in the capacity for knowing, independently of the , not individual things, which have their existence only in their relations, but the Ideas of such things, and of being oneself the correlative of the Idea, and thus no longer an individual, but the pure subject of knowledge. Yet this faculty must exist in all men... for if not, they would be just as incapable of enjoying works of art as of producing them; they would have no susceptibility for the beautiful or the sublime... this power of knowing the Ideas in things, and consequently of transcending... personality for the moment... The man of genius... possessing this kind of knowledge... more continuously... [W]hile under its influence... presence of mind... enable[s] him to repeat in a voluntary and intentional work what he has learned... and this repetition is the work of art. Through this he communicates to others the Idea... unchanged... so that æsthetic pleasure is one and the same whether it is called forth by a work of art or directly by the contemplation of nature and life. ...That the Idea comes to us more easily from the work of art than directly from nature... arises from the fact that the artist... has reproduced in his work the pure Idea... abstracted... from the actual, omitting... disturbing accidents. The artist lets us see the world through his eyes. ...that he is able to lend us this gift... is acquired, and is the technical side of art."

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Added on April 10, 2026
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Original Language: English

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https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Sublime_(philosophy)