Try, dear reader, in this magical realm full of marvels, which inspire both supreme joy and deepest horror, where, indeed, the solemn goddess lifts her veil so that we imagine we can see her face – though often a smile shimmers through the solemn expression, and that is the mischief that plays with us in all kinds of confusing magic, just as a mother will often tease her favorite child – yes! try, dear reader, in this realm which the spirit so often opens up for us, at least in our dreams, to recognize the figures you know so well from seeing them go about their daily business, as they say in the ordinary world. You will come to believe that magnificent realm is closer than you used to think.

– E. T. A. Hoffman

Romantic art deals with the particular. The particularization of Bewick about a bird’s wing, of Turner about a waterfall or a hill town, or of Rossetti about Elizabeth Siddal, is the result of a vision that can see in these things something significant beyond ordinary significance: something that for a moment seems to contain the whole world; and when the moment is past, carries over some comment on life or experience beside the comment on appearances.

– John Piper

A portion of Schopenhauer’s system by which its pessimism is considerably mitigated is his theory of the Beautiful and of Fine Art. The characteristic of aesthetic contemplation is, he finds, that intellect throws off the yoke and subsists purely for itself as clear mirror of the world, free from all subjection to practical purposes of the will. In this state of freedom, temporary painlessness is attained.

– Thomas Whittaker