Beauty is truth, truth beauty

Keats seems to be saying in this line that the only thing that can be deemed virtuous in life is art; that art is, in its essence, the creation of beautiful things. Keats is a poet who seems to be greatly concerned with mortality; death is an omnipresent force ready to strike at any minute. How then, can a person transcend mortality, and flourish in spite of the limitations imposed by human existence? The answer lies in art and beauty. Art is also the only thing created that really endures, and the creation of art is the only endeavor worth striving for. Everything else ages and goes to waste- the human body, the great societies of Greece and Rome- but a piece of art, like the Grecian urn, has the capacity for immortality.