According to this conception of art as a mode of reflection, the function of a work of art is to present humans with the totality of the objective, historical reality within an “homogeneous medium” (such as pure visibility in painting or poetic language in poetry, see GW 11: 642). The employment of such a medium makes it possible for art to single out and represent the universal aspects of a given form of human reality as a “closed world-in-itself” or as an “intensive totality” (GW 11: 238, 461, 774; GW 12: 232). As Lukács argues (GW 11: 660), the medium of each specific form of art establishes strict laws that allow the work of art to adequately present the whole world of humanity from a specific standpoint. For this reason, such works of art allow us to comprehend the universal aspects of our existence and to consciously participate in the collective life of humanity (GW 11: 519–530). This effect of art Lukács describes as “defetishization” (GW 11: ch. 9), anticipating the ethical demand of overcoming alienation that he formulates in the Ontology. A successful work of art can thus have the effect of “catharsis” (GW 11: 811), transforming the “whole person” of everyday life (the person who is entangled in their diverse relationships) into a “person as a whole” (the person who realizes their humanity by acquiring a sense of self-consciousness regarding the richness of human relations that constitute the historical development of humankind).