The one thing that the public dislike is novelty. The vitality and progress of art depend in a large measure on the continual extension of subject-matter, and it is extremely distasteful to the public … The public dislike novelty because they are afraid of it. It represents to them a mode of Individualism, an assertion on the part of the artist that he selects his own subject, and treats it as he chooses
A fresh mode of Beauty is absolutely distasteful to the public, and whenever it appears they get angry, and bewildered. When they say a work is grossly unintelligible, they mean that the artist has said or made a beautiful thing that is new; when they describe a work as grossly immoral, they mean that the artist has said or made a beautiful thing that is true. The former expression has reference to style; the latter to subject-matter.
A practical scheme is either a scheme that is already in existence, or a scheme that could be carried out under existing conditions that one objects to.
linked mentions for "public beauty and novelty":
conformity and artistic novelty Most people go through their lives in a sort of coarse comfort, like petted animals, without ever realising that they are probably thinking other
change conformity, disobedience, and novelty original virtue through disobedience art as mode of individualism to create for the artistic joy public beauty and novelty change predictable human
picaresque mode parody of the individuation the realm of picaresque reflection, of seeing through every established stance, yet without moral implication … to the society which to the