“Art is above and before all supposed to beautify life, thus make us ourselves endurable, if possible pleasing to others: with this task in view it restrains us and keeps us within bounds, creates social forms, imposes on the unmannerly rules of decency, cleanliness, politeness, of speaking and staying silent at the proper time. Then, art is supposed to conceal or reinterpret everything ugly, those painful, dreadful, disgusting things which, all efforts notwithstanding, in accord with the origin of human nature again and again insist on breaking forth: it is supposed to do so especially in regard to the passions and psychical fears and torments, and in the case of what is ineluctably or invincibly ugly to let the meaning of the thing shine through. After this great, indeed immense task of art, what is usually termed art, that of the work of art, is merely an appendage.”
– Friedrich Nietzsche, Assorted Opinions and Maxims, 174
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