Any great work of art revives and readapts times and space, and the measure of its success is the extent to which it makes you an inhabitant of that world--the extent to which it invites you in and lets you breathe its strange, special air.

Bernstein argues that great art does more than represent reality; it reconstructs a lived environment. By “reviv[ing] and readapt[ing] time and space,” an artwork creates its own coherent world—historical, emotional, and sensory—into which the audience can enter. The criterion of success is therefore experiential rather than technical: the work’s power is measured by how fully it absorbs you, suspends ordinary time, and makes its internal logic feel inhabitable. The metaphor of “breath[ing] its strange, special air” emphasizes immersion and transformation: art changes the conditions of perception, inviting the listener or viewer to accept unfamiliar rules and to feel at home within them, at least for the duration of the encounter.