problem is too vague, so the representative problem is too simple.

Every artist must choose his own problem. He may take it from wherever
he likes, provided he can make it the focus of those artistic emotions
he has got to express and the stimulant of those energies he will need
to express them. What we have got to remember is that the problem--in a
picture it is generally the subject--is of no consequence in itself. It
is merely one of the artist's means of expression or creation. In any
particular case one problem may be better than another, as a means, just
as one canvas or one brand of colours may be; that will depend upon the
temperament of the artist, and we may leave it to him. For us the
problem has no value; for the artist it is the working test of absolute
"rightness." It is the gauge that measures the pressure of steam; the
artist stokes his fires to set the little handle spinning; he knows that
his machine will not move until he has got his pointer to the mark; he
works up to it and through it; but it does not drive the engine.

What, then, is the conclusion of the whole matter? No more than this, I
think. The contemplation of pure form leads to a state of extraordinary
exaltation and complete detachment from the concerns of life: of so
much, speaking for myself, I am sure. It is tempting to suppose that the
emotion which exalts has been transmitted through the forms we
contemplate by the artist who created them. If this be so, the
transmitted emotion, whatever it may be, must be of such a kind that it
can be expressed in any sort of form--in pictures, sculptures,
buildings, pots, textiles, &c., &c. Now the emotion that artists express
comes to some of them, so they tell us, from the apprehension of the
formal significance of material things; and the formal significance of
any material thing is the significance of that thing considered as an
end in itself. But if an object considered as an end in itself moves us