No artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style..
No artist is ever morbid. An artist can express everything.
thought and language are to the artist instruments of an art.
Vice and virtue are to the artists materials for an art.
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 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
