To us, who live in the nineteenth century, any century is a suitable subject for art except our own. The only beautiful things are things that do not concern us. – Oscar Wilde, “The Decay of Lying: A Dialogue,” in The Nineteenth Century: A Mont

The counterfeit and counterpart of Nature is reproduced in art. – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The work of art, just like any fragment of human life considered in its deepest meaning, seems to me devoid of value if it does not offer the hardness, the rigidity, the regularity, the luster on every interior and exterior facet, of the crystal. – Pope Paul VI