In the preface to Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde wrote: "All art is quite useless."
A student at Oxford named Bernulf Clegg was intrigued by that statement,
and he wrote to Wilde and asked him what he meant by it.
Wilde responded:
"My dear Sir,
Art is useless because its aim is simply to create a mood. It is not
meant to instruct, or to influence action in any way. It is superbly
sterile, and the note of its pleasure is sterility. If the contemplation
of a work of art is followed by activity of any kind, the work is
either of a very
second-rate order, or the spectator has failed to realize the complete
artistic impression.
A work of art is useless as a flower is useless. A flower blossoms for
its own joy. We gain a moment of joy by looking at it. That is all that
is to be said about our relations to flowers. Of course man may sell
the flower, and so make it useful to him, but this has nothing to do
with the flower.
It is not part of its essence. It is accidental. It is a misuse. All
this is I fear very obscure. But the subject is a long one.
Truly yours,
Oscar Wilde."
It's fortunate that Wilde writes the second paragraph, otherwise we might think he was serious about the first....
No comments:
Post a Comment