Excerpt from On Art and Artists<br><br>There exists a school of aestheticism which laughs contemptuously at the mere sight of this superscrip tion. Art having a mission! What utter nonsense. A person must be a rank Philistine to connect with the idea Of art the conception of a non-artistic mission, be it social or otherwise. Has a work of art any other mission than to give pleasure by beauty? It strives to attain no goal that lies out side of itself. It is its own Object, and whoever assigns to it another, sins against the sanctity Of art.<br><br>About the Publisher<br><br>Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com<br><br>This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.