Myth readers discussion

This may sound like DE JA VU What is art

I have always liked James Joyce's answer to that question. In Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man, he says that Art is that thing that holds the reader in static arrest, unable to move, simply taking in the relationship of part to part.

He contrasts art with pornography (anything that moves the viewer to desire, not just of sex, put to be like someone or to have something) and didacticism (anything that pushes the viewer away, making them hate someone or something, want to rid the world of something, or not be like someone). True art holds the tension between these 2 extremes and holds the viewer there with them.