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.
The studio was filled with the rich odour of roses,
and when the light summer wind stirred amidst the
trees of the garden, there came through the open door
the heavy scent of the lilac, or the more delicate
perfume of the pink-flowering thorn.
