There always had been a handful of discussions on the art, its forms, expressions, its usages, et al throughout my life until some years ago. Well, nobody, including myself, ever felt or expected the heated arguments would or should lead us anywhere or yield anything towards any sort of conclusion. In fact, most of the times, the contestations were fought only for the sake of themselves.
I, in those tilts, had tried to render diverse statements (which, I would fairly expect, should not necessarily be mingled up with whatsoever opinions I have about the subject matter) putting on all the theatrical skills I had and creating all the hoax I could, and managed to reel under the feel of a exultant jubilant, only until I had the (ever famous - world famous in my town, so to say) rendezvous with the Superpower of oxymoronic and splendiferous arguments, called Oscar Wilde.
Then I devolve into silence.
Forever.
(Presenting here one of his masterpieces - preface to “The Picture of Dorian Gray”)
I, in those tilts, had tried to render diverse statements (which, I would fairly expect, should not necessarily be mingled up with whatsoever opinions I have about the subject matter) putting on all the theatrical skills I had and creating all the hoax I could, and managed to reel under the feel of a exultant jubilant, only until I had the (ever famous - world famous in my town, so to say) rendezvous with the Superpower of oxymoronic and splendiferous arguments, called Oscar Wilde.
Then I devolve into silence.
Forever.
(Presenting here one of his masterpieces - preface to “The Picture of Dorian Gray”)
The artist is the creator of beautiful things. To reveal art and conceal the artist is art’s aim.
The critic is he who can translate into another manner or a new material his impression of beautiful things. The highest, as the lowest, form of criticism is a mode of autobiography.
Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault. Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope. They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only beauty.
There is no such thing as a moral or am immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.
The nineteenth-century dislike if realism is the rage of Caliban seeing his own face in a glass. The nineteenth-century dislike of Romanticism is the rage of Caliban not seeing his own face in a glass.
The moral life of a man forms part of the subject-matter of the artist, but the morality of art consists in the perfect use of an imperfect medium.
No artist desires to prove anything. Even things that are true can be proved. No artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style.
No artist is ever morbid. The artist can express everything.
Thought and language are to the artist instruments of an art.
Vice and virtues are to the artist material for an art. From the point of view of form, the types of all the arts is the art of the art of the musician. From the point of view of feeling, the actor’s craft is the type.
All art is once surface and symbol.
Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril.
Those who read the symbol do so at their peril. It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.
Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex, and vital.
When critics disagree the artist is in accord with himself.
We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it. The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely.
All art is quite useless.
