It is difficult for an artist to live without romanticism; if he doesn’t put it into his art, he puts it into his life; if he doesn’t put it into his life, he keeps it in his dreams. All that we fictitiously draw from cold reality is tainted with romanticism.
So one must choose between the dullness and vulgarity of a sentimental sensual life and a full heroic religion, or else slip into the dupery of dreams. Resembling a pitiful screen enclosing a single glimmer of a nonexistent jewel. Often the glimmer itself dies and then the screen only appears all the more pathetic.
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Someone wanted to kill romanticism. He had a hard life, he needed to kill it.
But it came back under all kinds of other names and even in primitive naturalism.
Upon getting rid of romanticism one generally falls into a miserable apathy.
So, what one must do, which is very simple but extremely difficult, is to focus on the lyricism of reality. And to that art should limit its role, being unable to compete with reality but up to the task of capturing its lyricism, which artists alone are able to do. From this the following definition could be drawn: art is the collection of means used to capture the moving and touching lyricism of reality.