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
6 Comments:
u r ryt in ur explanation.... but u cover art as only paintings or drawings... whereas art covers a lot of spheres... like poetry, or even music...
and i feel art can be a useful form of expression.. it may seem useless to many... but to an artist, it is representing his dreams or aspirations or as he sees the world or as he wants his world to be... if u r a painter, some painting may be very close to heart... but to me mere colured lines... so i need to understand ur view point to understand the expression behind it..
i dont know if u will understand what i have written ;)
hi sid ... sorry i havent been regular at my blog so didnt see that there was comment .. anyways i took paintings as an example but my art covers all of art .. at least thats what i think :)
What he probably meant was that the art of the current generation is useless. Art is basically used to transfer knowledge, convey a message or show beauty, with the introduction of photography and all other forms of message delivery, pictorial depiction is practically useless.
A useless thing is worthless, but there seldom exists a thing which is useless, if not for anything, it can be used to hit someone with.
What he probably meant was that the art of the current generation is useless. Art is basically used to transfer knowledge, convey a message or show beauty, with the introduction of photography and all other forms of message delivery, pictorial depiction is practically useless.
A useless thing is worthless, but there seldom exists a thing which is useless, if not for anything, it can be used to hit someone with.
I was obsessed with this quote beginning in high school (which was a long time ago now). I discovered it again in grad school and realized how important the preceding words are:
"we can forgive man for making a useless 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."
All art is quite useless- Oscar Wilde explains the Quote. Oscar Wilde actually answered this question see link below
http://oscarwildefanclub.com/oscar-wilde-in-the-movies-and-tv/
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