The Will to Power · Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
824.
Modern counterfeit practices in the arts: regarded as necessary--that is to say, as fully in keeping with the needs most proper to the modern soul. The gaps in the gifts, and still more in the education, antecedents, and schooling of modern artists, are now filled up in this way:-- _First:_ A less artistic public is sought which is capable of unlimited love (and is capable of falling on its knees before a personality). The superstition of our century, the belief in "genius," assists this process. _Secondly;_ Artists harangue the dark instincts of the dissatisfied, the ambitious, and the self-deceivers of a democratic age: the importance of poses. _Thirdly:_ The procedures of one art are transferred to the realm of another; the object of art is confounded with that of science, with that of the Church, or with that of the interests of the race (nationalism), or with that of philosophy--a man rings all bells at once, and awakens the vague suspicion that he is a god. _Fourthly:_ Artists flatter women, sufferers, and indignant folk. Narcotics and opiates are made to preponderate in art. The fancy of cultured people, and of the readers of poetry and ancient history, is tickled. We must distinguish between the "public" and the "select"; to satisfy the public a man must be a charlatan to-day, to satisfy the select he _will_ be a virtuoso and nothing else. The geniuses peculiar to our century overcame this distinction, they were great for both; the great charlatanry of Victor Hugo and Richard Wagner was coupled with such genuine virtuosity that it even satisfied the most refined artistic connoisseurs. This is why greatness is lacking: these geniuses had a double outlook; first, they catered for the coarsest needs, and then for the most refined.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.