The Preface
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 an immoral book. Books are
well written, or badly written. That is all.
The nineteenth century dislike of 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 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 virtue are to the artist materials for an art.
From the point of view of form, the type of all the arts is the
art of the musician. From the point of view of feeling, the actor's
craft is the type.
All art is at 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.
signature
Oscar
Wilde
