are fused together with the new in a single mass, in the same way as we
can cast into a smelting furnace formless pieces of bronze and most
precious statuettes. Those most precious statuettes must be melted in
the same way as the formless bits of bronze, before there can be a new
statue. The old expressions must descend again to the level of
impressions, in order to be synthetized in a new single expression.

[Sidenote] _Art as the deliverer._

By elaborating his impressions, man _frees_ himself from them. By
objectifying them, he removes them from him and makes himself their
superior. The liberating and purifying function of art is another aspect
and another formula of its character of activity. Activity is the
deliverer, just because it drives away passivity.

This also explains why it is customary to attribute to artists alike the
maximum of sensibility or _passion_, and the maximum insensibility or
Olympic _serenity_. Both qualifications agree, for they do not refer to
the same object. The sensibility or passion relates to the rich material
which the artist absorbs into his psychic organism; the insensibility or
serenity to the form with which he subjugates and dominates the tumult
of the feelings and of the passions.




III

ART AND PHILOSOPHY