Vincent Smarkusz

Undiscovered American Genius in Modern Art

Oscar Wilde Quote

For the artists, like the Greek gods, are revealed only to one another ....

.... as Emerson says somewhere; their real value and place time only can show.  In this respect also omnipotence is with the ages.  The true critic addresses not the artist ever but the public only.  His work lies with them.  Art can never have any other claim but her own perfection: it is for the critic to create for art the social aim, too, by teaching the people the spirit in which they are to approach all artistic work, the love they are to give it, the lesson they are to draw from it.
All these appeals to art to set herself more in harmony with modern progress and civilization, and to make herself the mouthpiece for the voice of humanity, these appeals to art 'to have a mission,' are appeals which should be made to the public.  The art which has fulfilled the conditions of beauty has fulfilled all conditions: it is for the critic to teach the people how to find in the calm of such art the highest expression of their own most stormy passions.  'I have no reverence,' said Keats, 'for the public, nor for anything in existence but the Eternal Being, the memory of great men and the principle of Beauty.'
~ Oscar Wilde
 
 
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