He begins by telling one R. Clegg, whom the editors have been unable to identify, that “Art is useless because its aim is simply to create a mood. It was a fitting place for Oscar Wilde to lecture on the decorative arts, donning a black velvet suit, dark stockings, and lace ruffles that burst from his shirt. Summary of Art for Art's Sake. We begin another chapter in the life of Oscar Wilde, the year 1888, many things have taken place, Oscar has been married and bore two children, Vyvyan and Cyril and his touring of the United States and other countries have brought forth success to the literary giant. Oscar Wilde on Art for Art's Sake n a letter that Wilde's editors assign to April 1891, he clearly and unequivocally states the doctrine of art of art's sake, several times inadvertently revealing the essential incoherence and lack of intellectual rigor in the notion (one really can't call it a theory). Art for Art’s sake. I think a serious study of the matter would demonstrate that in writing The Soul of Man Wilde summed up long-held anticapitalist views. In fact, flowers exist in a complex network of relations with their environment that includes other organisms. [Victorian Web Home —> Oscar Wilde is regarded as the emblematic figure of Aestheticism and Art for Art’s sake and thus of the autonomisation of the arts in late nineteenth-century Britain. Nor, of course, does the outlook of Stalinism, which fed ignorantly off existing radical-populist traditions and turned them, at gunpoint, into something quite monstrous: “Socialist Realism,” “art” produced by toadies in the service of a counterrevolutionary bureaucracy. Books are well written, or badly written. I believe it raises a number of critical issues. We gain a moment of joy by looking at it. Of course anyone has the right to challenge the depth of Wilde’s convictions. Yes, it is, but Wilde here doesn't manage to rise above naive sentimentalism, for flowers do not blossom for their “own joy” — the very notion lapses into what Ruskin called the Pathetic (that is, emotional) Fallacy. Oscar Wilde was carried to the zenith of his career by a series of successful comedies which were produced betwen 1892 and 1895: Lady Windermere’s Fan, A Woman of No Importance, The Ideal Husband and The Importance of Being Earnest. Later in their history, millions of years after they first evolved, they engaged human beings who worked hard to cultivate and develop flowers for their beauty. Postmodernism, for example, entirely rejects art’s cognitive and disruptive power, viewing it merely as a form of ruling class ideological cement. There is a heated debate on the subject of arts for art's sake and arts for morality or life's sake. Oscar Wilde wasn't the originator of the concept, l'art pour l'art; translated as "art for art's sake," which expresses a philosophy that the intrinsic value of art, and the only 'true' art, is divorced from any didactic, moral or utilitarian function. Merlin Holland and Rupert Hart-Davis. Wilde continues: “It is superbly sterile, and the note of its pleasure is its sterility.” Wilde, as in so much of his writing, here follows John Ruskin, who argued against both didactic art and the commonplace eighteenth-century theory that beauty in art and nature derive from utility. It is not part of its essence. Walsh’s article appears to have a major discrepancy with this recurring principle. Moralists believe that a writer can and should influence his readers through his writing. Walsh consistently reinforces this principle through shady personalities such as Edouardo Roditi (a critic of Wilde) and Plekhanov, who voiced a pathetic and illogical statement where “ ... art for art’s sake naturally arises among artists wherever they are out of harmony with the society around them.” The Petty-Bourgeois position taken by these so-called appreciators of art is blatantly obvious and Oscar Wilde’s work was definitely not among them. The worn-out phrase “Art for Art’s Sake” repeated throughout this article is an expression that is particular to the Petty Bourgeois of society, where Art is seen without any deep significance, where purpose in Art is cast aside for the sake of mild leisure, where Art is simply feeding off Art. Oscar Wilde and “art for art’s sake” A Critical Comment on the article “Oscar Wilde’s lasting significance” 8 November 1997 €€€On July 28, 1997 we published an article by David Walsh on Oscar Wilde and his contribution to twentieth century cultural and political life (see article, Oscar Wilde’s lasting significance). If these last comments disturb you, I’m sorry of course, but I think one has to consider the conditions of contemporary cultural life. Robert Brustein, The Theatre of Revolt, 1991 (Elephant Paperback reprint), Chicago, p. 184. The question remains: what is our own attitude toward the phrase “art for art’s sake” and the outlook it seems to imply? I agree fully with Wilde that the “real artist ... does not first conceive an idea, and then say to himself, ‘I will put my idea into a complex metre of fourteen lines’” ( The Critic as Artist). Throughout their history flowering plants entered into complex symbiotic relationships with insects. Let us assume then, if only for the sake of argument, that Wilde was a serious thinker and sincere in his socialism, however he may have understood it. ‘Art for art’s sake’ became identified with the energy and creativity of aestheticism – but it also became a shorthand way of expressing the fears of those who saw this uncoupling of art and morality as dangerous. Philistine critics simply write off The Soul of Man Under Socialism as an aberration or an act of insincerity, or labor to prove that Wilde’s notion of “socialism” had nothing in common with the Marxist conception, etc. This is a statement which resembles closely to the work of Oscar Wilde, yet it contradicts Walsh, where apparently no ethical consideration should be allowed to interfere in the appreciation of Art whatsoever. And I get the impression that there are some people in this world like D. Walsh who need to seriously learn their history, particularly when it concerns the principles of artists and playwrights like Oscar Wilde and G. Bernard Shaw. I also find it difficult to believe, incidentally, that Wilde, had he lived another few decades, would have developed an infatuation, as Shaw did, first for Mussolini and later Stalin. His conscious emphasis on the active role of the human subject placed Wilde in opposition to the general intellectual tenor of his times and enabled him to discern processes that were less obvious to those who, like Shaw, adapted themselves to a greater degree to the surface of social life. What are those purposes? London: Fourth Estate, 2000. December 12, 1999. A flower blossoms for its own joy. Shaw, like Wilde, opposed the focus of aesthetics [an attentive study of the beautiful] in art, declaring that “beauty is a snare which draws men from the truth.”2 Instead, Shaw’s writings were driven by the purpose of “social utility”--to promote social change. Oscar Wilde The last photo taken of Wilde before his trials. Our view is that when art is truest to its own, distinct purposes it cuts a path closest to that of the social revolution. Saturday, May 1, 1PM US Eastern Time. Denouncing any tendency or personality you don’t like as “Petty Bourgeois” seems equally unproductive. Let’s consider the second matter first. “Here,” as Trotsky wrote in Literature and Revolution, “we must bring in a little dialectics.”. Should science merely pursue immediate social aims, no matter how pressing? There are those, and I don’t believe you would deliberately place yourself in their company, who write or speak about “art” and mean, in fact, a political or moral message attractively packaged. The ghost’s existence appears to serve little purpose. Let me recall once again the words of Trotsky and Breton in the 1938 manifesto, referred to above: “Our conception of the role of art is too high to refuse it an influence on the fate of society. In this regard, let me speak frankly about an aspect of your letter that I found troubling. Life is not so simple. Aesthetes, Decadents, and the Idea of Art for Art's Sake. It did not convince me that you have given sufficient thought to what is peculiar to art as a form of human activity. I believe a critical examination of artistic tendencies in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, before Stalinism discredited socialism in the minds of masses of people, would verify this contention. Shaw and Wilde were contemporaries and acquaintances, but they were by no means cothinkers. On July 28, 1997 we published an article by David Walsh on Oscar Wilde and his contribution to twentieth century cultural and political life (see article, Oscar Wilde’s lasting significance). Colette Smith. We believe that the supreme task of art in our epoch is to take part actively and consciously in the preparation of the revolution. You cite the views of G.B. Interpreted as a personification of art, the ghost in Wilde’s “The Canterville Ghost,” relates to Pater’s idea of “the love of art for its own sake,” and delves into the threats and creators of art. Historical facts must be worth something. "I don't at all like knowing what people say of me behind my back. Yes their slogan is “Art for Art’s Sake” or ARS GRATIA ARTIS. He feels it is his duty to haunt Canterville and he takes… These are some of the issues I believe ought to be considered in response to the questions you raised in your letter. On hearing of the death of Walter Pater (1839-1894), Oscar Wilde, who knew him, is said to have asked, "Was he ever alive?" Oscar Wilde. Such works are sometimes described as autotelic, a concept that has been expanded to embrace "inner-directed" or "self-motivated" human … I believe that Wilde was the considerably more farsighted and (in the best sense of the word) radical personality of the two, and that he left a richer legacy. I must admit, however, that I’m a little surprised at your tone. I think that Wilde was correct as well when he said that in the “mere loveliness of the materials employed [by artists] there are latent elements of culture,” and that “Technique is personality” ( The Critic as Artist). Beyond the well-known dictum of art for art’s sake, Wilde’s originality lays argument for the equality of criticism and art. The standpoint of populism or vulgar radicalism does not have anything in common with genuine Marxism either, in my view, with its insistence, in the manner of a small shopkeeper, on the immediate utilitarian value of any artistic tendency or work. But the subject is a long one” (478-79). 1. Is science merely politics or philosophy in a lab coat? Where Art is just there for its own sake and has no ethical involvement or sociopolitical function? In a sense, Wilde’s phrase, “Art never expresses anything but itself,” is a truism. It is true that great style depends on the perfect matching of content and form, so that the literary expression… It meant prising the sensual qualities of art and the sheer pleasure they provide. Wilde in his preface to the novel, quote- “ All art is quite useless “, alluding to the famous French slogan “ l’art pour l’art “ (art for art’s sake… It is also the case, in my opinion, that artistic form has an independent and objectively significant power, an ability to enrich spiritual experience and refine feeling, which ought not to be underestimated. As such, he firmly believed in the gospel of doing ‘art for art’s sake’ and befriended many prominent decadents, among them Oscar Wilde – but he also had a habit of making enemies. Rosa Luxemburg regarded Wilde as simply a drawing-room socialist. In any event, in his Literature and Revolution Trotsky remarked that the quarrels about “pure art” and tendentious art “do not become us. Wilde characteristically continues by asserting that “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 realise the complete artistic impression” (478). Art for Art’s Sake: Fredric Lei ghton – Mother and Child (Cherries) 1865. Wilde espoused precisely the “art for art’s sake” outlook to which you object. In our view art is a relatively autonomous field of human activity, with its own history and laws, and concerns. Wilde’s aesthetic was just as fanciful as the theater’s, and he was the likely the most eccentric lecturer to have ever graced the stage of the Academy of Music. A study of John Ruskin and Oscar Wilde’s Views on Art In the late nineteenth century a movement known as “Art for Art’s Sake” occurred, which consists of the appreciation of art for what it truly is; just art. Art cannot be reduced to the reformulation, in verse or on canvas, of political and philosophical themes. Marxists view art as an objective form of cognizing reality, and, moreover, as “an expression of man’s need for a harmonious and complete life, that is to say, his need for those major benefits of which a society of classes has deprived him.” (Trotsky, Art and Politics in Our Epoch.) The central task, I believe, is to provide the basis for a Marxist-critical reading of Wilde, by which I mean separating out, to the best of one’s ability, the objectively-truthful elements from what was historically limiting and limited in his work. Authors —> At first glance, this catch-phrase seems quite antithetical to Marxism. It is accidental, It is a misuse. I should point out as well that my original article did not suggest, nor am I suggesting now, that you are obliged to subscribe uncritically to Wilde’s outlook. Of course man may sell the flower, and so make it useful to him, but this has nothing to do with the flower. One of the problems with your letter, in my view, is that you tend to operate with formal categories. It stems from his role in the Aesthetics Movement, in which he advocated that art needed no justification or purpose. If you truly believe that the Workers News is “an otherwise fine newspaper,” don’t you think you might have given its editors the benefit of the doubt and assumed that the motives that go into producing 15 of its pages also go into the production of its arts page? The famous motto ‘art for art’s sake’ encapsulates this view. Or the influence of a Shakespeare, or a Van Gogh, or, for that matter, of a Wilde? Art provides opportunity for every individual who is desperate for change in an oppressive society to contribute towards such, to oppose a society which demands the complete conformity and subservience of its “citizenry.” If D. Walsh is correct in his explanation of Wilde as being “Socialist” with an artistic vision towards Utopia, then this principle of “Art for Art’s Sake” is a complete contradiction. Art exists only for the sake to be beautiful, and to be admired at. Does it make use of distinct materials? This view, which I take to be the position held by the classical exponents of scientific socialism, does not accord with what passes today for “Marxism” or left-wing thought on the university campuses and elsewhere. Aesthetes and Decadents —> The Aesthetic Movement was an artistic expression of “art for art’s sake.” Disavowing notions of literature’s societal necessity, Oscar Wilde wrote in opposition to Dickensian literature—and influenced generations. The English essayist Walter Pater, an advocate of "art for art's sake," helped to form Wilde's humanistic aesthetics in which he was more concerned with the individual, the self, than with popular movements like Industrialism or Capitalism. Wilde at Oxford Wilde's Influences Other Influences O S C A R W I L D E The Aesthetic Movement The Peacock Wall designed by James Abbott McNeill Whistler, "Dante Gabriel Rossetti in his drawing room", by Henry Treffry Art, it seems to me, navigates freely between the inner and the outer worlds, between the world dominated by the striving, in Trotsky’s phrase, for “a harmonious and complete life” and the world of immediate reality. We have been attempting for a number of years to revive a Marxist attitude toward art, which was suppressed and severely damaged by Stalinism and its intellectual hangers-on. If not, if its role overlaps substantially with, or can even be replaced by other forms of social consciousness, why does art exist? It has an independent life, just as Thought has, and develops purely on its own lines.” In the preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray, he formulated his well-known view: “There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. ...Ivette M. López The Value of Art: A study of John Ruskin and Oscar Wilde’s Views on Art In the late nineteenth century a movement known as “Art for Art’s Sake” occurred, which consists of the appreciation of art for what it truly is; just art.At that time many critics tried to find moral and intellectual meanings within works of art. Its advocates would consider outrageous the notion that art has an objective, universal significance, a significance that can be separated from the individual--a helpless object, virtually a construct of bourgeois influences--who produces it. Streamed at wsws.org/mayday. Liteary relations]. Art for art's sake—the usual English rendering of l'art pour l'art, a French slogan from the early 19th century—is a phrase that expresses the philosophy that the intrinsic value of art, and the only 'true' art, is divorced from any didactic, moral, political, or utilitarian function. After a lecture by Wilde, Whistler believed the dandy was poking fun at him, resulting in a lasting feud. Oh Oscar Wilde—my birthday twin :) Aestheticism is one of the most fascinating movements of Art history. So the term is simply an epithet. Shaw and suggest, by association, that they must have been Wilde’s as well. For him, criticism is not subject to the work of art, but can in fact precede it: the artist cannot create without engaging his or her critical faculties first. Analysis will reveal that nearly all artistic tendencies emanate from the petty-bourgeois intelligentsia. Oscar Wilde, author of The Picture of Dorian Gray, makes Basil"s life change drastically by having him paint a portrait of Dorian Gray and express too much of himself in it, which, in Wilde"s mind, is a troublesome obstacle to circumvent. D. Walsh’s article “Oscar Wilde’s lasting significance,” concerning some of the beliefs in the life and work of Oscar Wilde, has given me some reason to question the perspective and integrity of the Arts in Workers’ News, an otherwise fine newspaper. This naturally leads the serious artist to reject the oppressive, antihuman conditions of class society, to “the total negation of that reality,” in Breton’s words ( Marvelous versus Mystery). Let’s leave aside the name-calling, and consider the issues involved. There is much in him that is self-consciously paradoxical, modish or merely irritating. Would anyone challenge the notion of science for science’s sake? The question that follows is: yes, but what is art? They also say that art can be either a food or a poison. Here are some quotes from the writer. I read your letter of August 29, 1997, with considerable interest. I don’t take the matter personally, but I can’t see how, for example, referring to Georgi Plekhanov--one of the extraordinary figures of Russian and international Marxism--as a “shady personality” can possibly contribute to a serious discussion. Cite Oscar Wilde: The Picture of Dorian Gray The work of literature I chose to analyze is called The Picture of Dorian Gray. We publish below a letter from a reader in Australia, and a reply by Walsh. All this is very obscure. "A thing is, according to the mode in which one looks at it." It represents a distinct, aesthetic approach to the world that has to be understood on its own terms and its products have to “be judged by its own law, that is, by the law of art” ( Literature and Revolution). If we set aside, however, the historical associations of the phrase “art for art’s sake” and consider it on its own merits, the question becomes somewhat more complex. 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