lly in the _fact_, and would perish
whenever interest in the fact should cease. It is not the _fact_, nor
even the able expression of the fact, which makes a work of art a
thing of interest and delight centuries after the bearing of the fact
has been forgotten. The perennial interest of a work of art lies in
the way in which the artist has used his ostensible theme, and all the
facts and objects appertaining to it, as a part of the material with
which he expresses those ideas which are purely aesthetic; which do not
rest on material things. These have to do with material things only by
rendering them beautiful, giving to them an interest which they
themselves could not otherwise have.

=Theory.=--Does this sound unpractical? Well, it is unpractical. Does
it seem mere theory? It is theory. I want to impress it on you that it
is theory. For it is the theory which underlies art, and if you do not
understand it, you only understand art from the outside. Consciously
or unconsciously every artist works to express these purely aesthetic
qualities, and to a greater or less extent he expresses himself
through them.

=Art for Art's Sake.=--This is the real meaning of the much-debated
phrase, "Art for art's sake." The mistake which leads to the
misconception and most of the discussion about it, is in confounding
"art for art's sake" with "technique for technique's sake," which is a
very different thing. Certainly every painter will work to attain the
most perfect technique he is capable of. But not for the sake of the
technique, but for what it will do. The better the technique the
better the control of all the means to expression. If you take
technique to mean only the understanding and knowledge of all the
manipulations of art, technique is only a means, and it is so that I
mean it to be understood here. If you broaden its meaning to include
all the _mental_ conceptions and means, that is another thing, and one
likely to lead to confusion of idea. So I use the word technique in
its strictest sense.

=The AEsthetic Elements.=--What, then, are these aesthetic qualities I
have spoken of? Will you consider the quality of "line"? Not _a_ line,
but line as an element, excluding all the possible things which may be
done with lines in different relations to themselves and to other
elements. Now will you consider also the other elements, "mass" and
"color"? Do you see that here are three terms which suggest
possibilities of combinati