They are based on the satisfaction of desires, too, but a kind of satisfaction through which the desire itself disappears.

The pleasure in a meal, to be sure, can have its esthetic side, as often the harmony of the tastes and odors and sights of a rich feast may be brought to a certain artistic perfection.

But mere pleasure in eating has no esthetic value, as the object is destroyed by the partaking and not only the cake disappears but also our desire for the cake when the desire is fulfilled and we are satiated.

The work of art aims to keep both the demand and its fulfillment forever awake.
But then this stirring up of interests demands more than anything else a careful selection of those features in reality which ought to be admitted into the work of art.

A thousand traits of the landscape are trivial and insignificant and most of what happens in the social life around us, even where a great action is going on, is in itself commonplace and dull and without consequences for the event which stirs us.