We all know from our own experience that certain films, novels or paintings capture social and psychological truths more effectively, more indelibly than a thousand pages of political or scientific analysis. What the character of Clyde Griffiths in Dreiser's American Tragedy says about the illusions and fantasies of the American petty bourgeoisie, its pathos and tragedy, has never been equaled or surpassed in all the literature of the Marxist movement. If one were to cut oneself off from literature and art merely as a source of knowledge of social life one would be restricting oneself dangerously. But clearly the realm of art is not simply the realm of objective knowledge of historical or social processes. Artistic creation should not be confused with a scientific discipline, although there is not a Chinese wall between art and science.
Science seeks to attain knowledge of objects in their universality.
The concrete sense object is transformed in science into abstract subject matter. Think of the opening chapter of Capital . In art the universal takes the form of a concrete sense object. Moreover, this difference in approach to the world, this formal difference, brings art nearer, as Hegel points out, to our sensitive and emotional life. The art image is an objectively necessary means of preserving, summing up and enriching this experience.