Some people say that art is made for art sake. Oscar Wilde, in his preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray, said “all art is quite useless. He later expounded on this main principle of his throughout the book. I disagree. I do not believe, as he put it, that “To reveal art and conceal the artist is art's aim.” I think it is the opposite. First of all, I do not believe in art made for art’s sake. Art that is made for art’s sake is not art. The only true art is art that was made for a different reason than what is in the end done with it. Furtherly, I do not believe that to “conceal the artist is art’s aim.” Rather, I believe the opposite, that to reveal the artist is art’s aim. Art is a continuous, though abstract and conceptual, autobiography. Not so much a life story, but an emoting of one’s soul. Art without soul is quite useless indeed.
The way I see it, is that this book is terribly dated to the time it was written, the 1890s. This decade was the last one of the nineteenth century, and undoubtedly one of grotesque decadence. Of such elite Wilde was a full participant. During this time, in terms of art, the big radical movement of the day was impressionism, which today is seen as so mainstream as to be seen as dull. At that time, it was lumped into romanticism (Romanticism is a right brained movement, the opposite of realism, the more left brained art movement). And yet, the only radical thing about it was that it was not realistic painting. But it was still a visual aesthetic at the root of all art. It would not be another fifteen years of so when that would change, and art would start to be looked at for its meaning first and aesthetic beauty second. Because of this, I find Wilde’s views on art and on the world to be tedious and vapid. Of course, I do place my point of view entirely on the one book we have been reading by him, but I can’t say I agree with him from what I’ve read, when reading him deeply. Don’t get me wrong, I do adore his wit, maybe I’m just taking it too seriously.
I completely agree that art reveals the artist rather than hides him. This is true in any art form. While I dabble in many art forms, I would say I am a true artist in music. Throughout my life I have performed many pieces as well as watched many others. In every performance of a piece of music (or any good performance) something about the artist is exposed. And that is what makes it beautiful. Watching a musician perform with no emotion or vulnerability is boring. In fact, this is proven in Dorian Gray! When Sybil takes her soul out of her performance, she bores the audience to tears. She finds real emotion and loses the emotion she produced in her acting. Even Dorian can no longer appreciate her art.
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