Works of art are inscribed by the artist on the surface of reality not for their own sake. They are created in order to produce in the spectator those precisely modulated feelings whose constituent elements are represented by the letters, words and sentences of the aesthetic alphabet. We go out of our way to experience such modified feelings, both positive and negative, because they can stand in for genuine phenomena in such a way that, in being contemplated, they give rise to genuine and subtle pleasure. This pleasure has the advantage that it is in a certain sense cut.
