All art is quite useless.
Yes that's what Oscar wilde wrote in the preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray and this line has puzzled me ever since. I just couldn't figure out why on earth will he say that, well infact I still don't know the answer ... but after 2 years I can give an explanation.. I know its nothing but a consolation prize for there are so many faults in my explanation but who cares, here is what I think.
First of art is not worthless its useless and there is a difference a worthless thing is not valuable while a useless thing can be valuable. This is where I first saw the light at the end of the tunnel. I thought Oscar Wilde never said art is not valuable its just that its value is not realised or it can not be used in any useful way. The question arises what makes art valuable if at all.
Artistic people argue art is creativity. It is imagination at its best and hence art never depicts life as it is. An artist always adds his perception to a scenery .. and why does he do so .. its to make it the way it should be, he recognizes that there is something missing in nature and tries to compensate it and make it as he thinks it should be rather than painting or writing about is as it is. In a way art to a observant eye shows what is lacking in nature and indirectly in himself .. everyone sees an art piece from his own eyes and hence they see a particular piece of art differently according to what they think is lacking in them or is more important to them. Hence driving them to be perfect and achieve what a painter achieved in that small piece of art and hence art is valuable for it helps us introspect ourselves it makes us see how should a society and human beings and everything else be like. It urges us to move towards perfection and hence art is very very Valuable. But at the same time its useless since inspite of having such rich history of great artists and art we have not reached perfection .. infact in many ways our society and we humans have moved away from it(perfection) and rendering art utterly useless although very valuable.
I think this might be one of the reasons he wrote that .. but I would like to know other views on it and figure out why on earth is ALL ART QUITE USELESS!!!
First of art is not worthless its useless and there is a difference a worthless thing is not valuable while a useless thing can be valuable. This is where I first saw the light at the end of the tunnel. I thought Oscar Wilde never said art is not valuable its just that its value is not realised or it can not be used in any useful way. The question arises what makes art valuable if at all.
Artistic people argue art is creativity. It is imagination at its best and hence art never depicts life as it is. An artist always adds his perception to a scenery .. and why does he do so .. its to make it the way it should be, he recognizes that there is something missing in nature and tries to compensate it and make it as he thinks it should be rather than painting or writing about is as it is. In a way art to a observant eye shows what is lacking in nature and indirectly in himself .. everyone sees an art piece from his own eyes and hence they see a particular piece of art differently according to what they think is lacking in them or is more important to them. Hence driving them to be perfect and achieve what a painter achieved in that small piece of art and hence art is valuable for it helps us introspect ourselves it makes us see how should a society and human beings and everything else be like. It urges us to move towards perfection and hence art is very very Valuable. But at the same time its useless since inspite of having such rich history of great artists and art we have not reached perfection .. infact in many ways our society and we humans have moved away from it(perfection) and rendering art utterly useless although very valuable.
I think this might be one of the reasons he wrote that .. but I would like to know other views on it and figure out why on earth is ALL ART QUITE USELESS!!!
posted by Siddharth at 10:56 PM
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