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THE PREFACE

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 s

The highest as the lowest forlychar This is a fault

Those who find beautiful s are the cultivated For these there is hope They are the elect to whos mean only beauty

There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book Books are ritten, or badly written That is all

The nineteenth century dislike of realislass

The nineteenth century dislike of ro 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 i 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 e 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 , the actor's craft is the type All art is at once surface and syo 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, coree, the artist is in accord with hi as he does not ad is that one admires it intensely

All art is quite useless

OSCAR WILDE

CHAPTER 1

The studio was filled with the rich odour of roses, and when the light suarden, there cah the open door the heavy scent of the lilac, or thethorn