Flaubert's style

What seems beautiful to me, what I would like to write, is a book about nothing, a book without external links, that could hold itself up by the mere internal strength of its style, just as the world stands in the air without any support ... The most beautiful works are those with the least amount of matter ... I believe the future of art is in that direction ... That is why there are no ugly or beautiful subjects; from the perspective of pure Art, one could almost establish axiomatically that there is no subject at all, style being itself an absolute way of seeing things.

-- Gustave Flaubert Letter to Louise Colet 24 April 1852
Translated by Marina Van Zuylen