Entry Wk 13.2

The Picture of Dorian Gray was written by Oscar Wilde in 1891. In the Preface Wilde discusses his definition of art. I have provided it here for your convenience.

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.

 OSCAR WILDE

This view of art isn’t held only by Wilde. Even 121 years later I know people who would agree with this description. Over the past several months I have come to understand art as being a form of expression that is meant, at a minimum, to illicit an emotional or intellectual response from the viewer. With in “what art is”, there is a virtual cornucopia of “what is art”.

That is a more daunting question which I am still working on defining. In a recent conversation with a fellow art student about how anything that defines a culture can be defined as Art. He stumped with asking is sports was art.

For more on this subject, refer to the topic: Jordan Tate.