relief for ourselves. Just so, Aristotle recognized the cathartic or
healing influence of art, both in music and the drama--"through pity
and fear effecting the proper purgation of these emotions." [Footnote:
_Poetics,_ 6, 2. _Politics,_ 5, 7.]

The delightsomeness of the work of art and its self-sufficient freedom,
standing in contrast with the drab or difficult realities of nature
and personal striving, serve also to make of beauty a consoler and
healer. In place of a confused medley of sense impressions, art offers
orderly and pleasant colors or sounds; instead of a real life of duties
hard to fulfill and ambitions painfully accomplished, art provides an
imagined life which, while imitating and thus preserving the interest
of real life, remains free from its hazards and burdens. I would not
base the value of art on the contrast between art and life; yet it is
unlikely, I think, if life were not so bound and disordered, that art
would seem so free and perfect; and it is often true that those who
suffer and struggle most love art best. The unity of the work of art,
in which each element suggests another within its world, keeping you
there and shutting you out momentarily from the real world to which
you must presently return, and the sensuous charm of the medium,
fascinating your eyes and ears, bring forgetfulness and a temporary
release.

To sum the results of the last two chapters. Art is expression, not
of mere things or ideas, but of concrete experience with its values,
and for its own sake. It is experience held in a delightful, highly
organized sensuous medium, and objectified there for communication and
reflection. Its value is in the sympathetic mastery and preservation
of life in the mind.