There is, I think, no more nutritive or suggestive truth... than that of the perfect dependence of the 'moral' sense of a work of art on the amount of felt life concerned in producing it. The question comes back thus, obviously, to the kind and the degree of the artist's prime sensibility, which is the soil out of which his subject springs.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- The moral value of art depends on the depth of life felt by the artist when creating it.
- In plain terms
- Art is only as meaningful as the real life experience the artist put into it.
- What can you take from it?
- Great art comes from the artist's deep sensitivity to life.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- How do you measure felt life in art?
- Does art need a moral purpose to be good?
Another view
It assumes all art has a moral sense which some modern works might reject.
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