The Picture of Dorian Gray
by Oscar Wilde
From: *Project Gutenberg's The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde*
The Picture of Dorian Gray
by Oscar Wilde
October, 1994 Etext #174
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.
OSCAR WILDE
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Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde*
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