The sullen murmur of the bees shouldering their way through the long unmown grass, or circling with monotonous insistence round the dusty gilt horns of the straggling woodbine, seemed to make the stillness more oppressive. 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.įrom the corner of the divan of Persian saddle-bags on which he was lying, smoking, as was his custom, innumerable cigarettes, Lord Henry Wotton could just catch the gleam of the honey-sweet and honey-coloured blossoms of a laburnum, whose tremulous branches seemed hardly able to bear the burden of a beauty so flamelike as theirs and now and then the fantastic shadows of birds in flight flitted across the long tussore-silk curtains that were stretched in front of the huge window, producing a kind of momentary Japanese effect, and making him think of those pallid, jade-faced painters of Tokyo who, through the medium of an art that is necessarily immobile, seek to convey the sense of swiftness and motion. The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely. We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it. When critics disagree, the artist is in accord with himself. Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex, and vital. It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors. Those who read the symbol do so at their peril. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril. From the point of view of feeling, the actor's craft is the type. From the point of view of form, the type of all the arts is the art of the musician. Vice and virtue are to the artist materials for an art. Thought and language are to the artist instruments of an art. An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style. 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. The nineteenth century dislike of romanticism is the rage of Caliban not seeing his own face in a glass. The nineteenth century dislike of realism is the rage of Caliban seeing his own face in a glass. Books are well written, or badly written. There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only beauty. Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. The highest as the lowest form of criticism is a mode of autobiography. The critic is he who can translate into another manner or a new material his impression of beautiful things. To reveal art and conceal the artist is art's aim. The artist is the creator of beautiful things.
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