CHAPTER XX.

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