The work of art is only a means of facilitating the knowledge in which this pleasure consists.
 Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation (1819). copy citation

add
Author Arthur Schopenhauer
Source The World as Will and Representation
Topic pleasure art
Date 1819
Language English
Reference
Note Translated by R. B. Haldane and J. Kemp
Weblink http://www.gutenberg.org/files/38427/38427-h/38427-h.html

Context

“Through this he communicates to others the Idea he has grasped. This Idea remains unchanged and the same, so that æsthetic pleasure is one and the same whether it is called forth by a work of art or directly by the contemplation of nature and life. The work of art is only a means of facilitating the knowledge in which this pleasure consists. That the Idea comes to us more easily from the work of art than directly from nature and the real world, arises from the fact that the artist, who knew only the Idea, no longer the actual, has reproduced in his work the pure Idea, has abstracted it from the actual, omitting all disturbing accidents.” source