Friedrich Nietzsche
Now and Formerly
Of what consequence is all our art in artistic products, if that higher art, the art of the festival, is lost by us? Formerly all artistic products were exhibited on the great festive path of humanity, as tokens of remembrance, and monuments of high and happy moments. One now seeks to allure the exhausted and sickly from the great suffering path of humanity for a wanton moment by means of works of art ; one furnishes them with a little ecstasy and insanity.