The artist loves his limitations: they constitute the _thing_ he is doing.

The painter is glad that the canvas is flat.
The sculptor is glad that the clay is colourless.
In case the point is not clear, an historic example may illustrate it.
The French Revolution was really an heroic and decisive thing, because the Jacobins willed something definite and limited.

They desired the freedoms of democracy, but also all the vetoes of democracy.

They wished to have votes and _not_ to have titles.

Republicanism had an ascetic side in Franklin or Robespierre as well as an expansive side in Danton or Wilkes.