Introduction, Summary, and Questions

1. THE CRITIC
AS ARTISTAS ARTIST
Oscar Wilde
1854-1900

2. Oscar Wilde
«To live is the rarest thing in the
world. Most people exist, that is all»
Oscar Wilde in a photo by Napoleon Sarony.

3. • Born in Dublin in 1854.
• He became a disciple of Walter
Pater, the theorist of aestheticism.
1. Life
Oscar Wilde
Pater, the theorist of aestheticism.
• He became a fashionable dandy.
Oscar Wilde and Lord Alfred Douglas in the 1890s

4. 1. Life
Oscar Wilde
• He was one of the most successful
playwrights of late Victorian
London and one of the greatest
celebrities of his days.
• He suffered a dramatic downfall
and was imprisoned after been
convicted of “gross indecency” for
homosexual acts.
• He died in Paris in 1900. Oscar Wilde and Lord Alfred Douglas in the 1890s

5. • «I have nothing to declare except my genius».
Oscar Wilde
1. Life
Some famous quotations of Wilde’s:
• «Experience is simply the name we give our
mistakes».
• «A man can be happy with any woman as
long as he does not love her».
Oscar Wilde, 1889

6. • «One should always be in love.
Oscar Wilde
1. Life
Some famous quotations of Wilde’s:
That is the reason why one
should never marry».
• «Art is the most intense form of
individualism that the world has
known».
Oscar Wilde, 1889

7. • Poetry: Poems, 1891
The Ballad of Reading Gaol, 1898
• Fairy tales: The Happy Prince and other Tales, 1888
The House of Pomegranates, 1891
2. Works
Oscar Wilde
• Novel: The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891
• Plays: Lady Windermere’s Fan, 1892
A Woman of no Importance, 1893
The Importance of Being Earnest, 1895
Salomé, 1893
THE DEVOTED FRIEND?

8. • Oscar Wilde adopted the aesthetical
ideal: he affirmed “my life is like a
work of art”.
3. Wilde’s aestheticism
Oscar Wilde
work of art”.
• His aestheticism clashed with the
didacticism of Victorian novels.
• The artist = the creator of beautiful
things.
A contemporary edition of The Picture of Dorian Gray.

9. 3. Wilde’s aestheticism
Oscar Wilde
• Art  used only to celebrate beauty
and the sensorial pleasures.
• Virtue and vice  employed by the• Virtue and vice  employed by the
artist as raw material in his art: “No
artist has ethical sympathies. An
ethical sympathy in an artist is an
unpardonable mannerism of style”.
(“The Preface” to The Picture of Dorian Gray).
A contemporary edition of The Picture of Dorian Gray.

10. The Critic As
Artist
• The criticism is much higher than arts
• Criticism is itself an art
• Artistic creation not possible without critical
facultiesfaculties
• Artistic skills depend upon critical skills
• Criticism and critical skills are both
independent and creative in itself

11. INTENTIONS
Collection of Essays
May 1891
Aesthetic Philosophy of WildeAesthetic Philosophy of Wilde

12. The Critic as
Artist
Mathew arnold & walter Pater
"The Critic as Artist" was one of the essays included"The Critic as Artist" was one of the essays included
in Wilde's only book of
criticism, Intentions (1891). Written in the three
years after Matthew Arnold's death and praised
by Pater, Wilde's book of criticism clearly echoes
and builds upon the ideas of both men.

13. The Critic as
Artist
• "The Critic as Artist" is a written dialogue
between two friends, Ernest and Gilbert, in
two acts. Generally, Ernest asks questions of
Gilbert; thus, Gilbert seems Wilde'sGilbert; thus, Gilbert seems Wilde's
spokesperson for his philosophy of criticism.
(Occasionally, Ernest also summarizes what
Gilbert has said, proving himself a crucial tool
for getting across Wilde's ideas as well).

14. Part (1)
• In the first part of the dialogue (subtitled
"with some remarks upon the importance of
doing nothing"), Gilbert is playing the piano,
and Ernest has been perusing a book. Theyand Ernest has been perusing a book. They
soon get into a conversation about the use of
"art-criticism," wherein Ernest asks why the
artist might not be left alone. Gilbert launches
into an invective against art criticism which
seeks too much to explain.

15. Conti….
• On a tangent inspired by his disdain for
explanatory societies like the Browning Society,
Gilbert praises Robert Browning as a
Shakespearean writer because of his capacity to
enter into so many different characters' voices.
Ernest soon stops Gilbert and states that "in the
enter into so many different characters' voices.
Ernest soon stops Gilbert and states that "in the
best days of art there were no art-critics."
Following from this question Gilbert once again
offers a long answer--this time, vehemently
contradicting Ernest by telling him the Greeks
were in fact the best critics of all in that they
embodied the "critical spirit" in their arts.

16. Conti….
• Ernest is soon convinced that Gilbert is right,
and he then moves on to his next statement
(this is the controlling pattern of both
dialogues), that the creative faculty must be
higher than the critical, to which Gilberthigher than the critical, to which Gilbert
replies that it is the critical spirit which most
crucially innovates. Gilbert believes in the
power of the individual to innovate--indeed,
he says that "it is not the moment that makes
the man, but the man who creates the age."

17. Conti….
• It is the critical spirit that "rewrites history,"
showing a new way of understanding life. Like
Arnold, Gilbert critiques the Victorian "man of
action"who is tediously self-denying and
industrious: in contrast, the critic is the individual
who will move the world forward through his
industrious: in contrast, the critic is the individual
who will move the world forward through his
ideas. While Arnold suggests that such ideas will
then fuel correct action, Gilbert seems to go even
further by casting aside action as "puppetry," and
embracing entirely the mind-world of criticism as
"poetry.

18. Conti….
• In elaborating on his point, Gilbert makes his
statements on the "critic as artist": "the critic
occupies the same relation to the work of art
that he criticises as the artist does to the
visible world of form and colour, or thevisible world of form and colour, or the
unseen world of passion and of thought." In
other words, the critic and what is
traditionally understood as an artist are
equivalent, and differ only in the material
which inspires their works.

19. Conti….
• In fact, criticism is the highest art according to Gilbert
because the critic forms a creation within a creation, and
hence is removed from the problems and trap of realistic
representation: the "shackles of verisimilitude." Ultimately,
as Pater also says, Gilbert says that the critic's subject is
autobiographic in the sense that it "chronicle[s] his own
impressions." Individual impressions may vary, and Gilbert
autobiographic in the sense that it "chronicle[s] his own
impressions." Individual impressions may vary, and Gilbert
announces that it completely doesn't matter if Pater's
impressions of the Mona Lisa are "untrue" insofar that
Pater's impressions don't truly reflect Leonardo da Vinci's
intents because the primary aim of the critic, in chronicling
his own impressions, is really "to see the object as in itself
it really is not."

20. Conti….
• This clever reversal of Arnold, of course, is not
a real reversal, as Gilbert basically identifies
the same kind of innovative critical spirit of
Arnold's. Finally, like Pater, Gilbert closes theArnold's. Finally, like Pater, Gilbert closes the
first part of the dialogue with his valuation of
music for its formal identity and absence of
subject matter.

21. Major
Questions
The Essay attempts to remove the differences
between fine art criticism
Importance of Doing NothingImportance of Doing Nothing

22. Major
Questions
• Well, while you have been playing, I have been turning over
the pages with some amusement, though, as a rule, I dislike
modern memoirs. They are generally written by people
who have either entirely lost their memories, or have never
done anything worth remembering; which, however, is, no
doubt, the true explanation of their popularity, as the
English public always feels perfectly at its ease when a
doubt, the true explanation of their popularity, as the
English public always feels perfectly at its ease when a
mediocrity is talking to it
• There is much virtue in that If, as Touchstone would say. But
do you seriously propose that every man should become
his own Boswell? What would become of our industrious
compilers of Lives and Recollections in that case?

23. Major
Questions
• But, seriously speaking, what is the use of art-criticism? Why
cannot the artist be left alone, to create a new world if he wishes it,
or, if not, to shadow forth the world which we already know, and of
which, I fancy, we would each one of us be wearied if Art, with her
fine spirit of choice and delicate instinct of selection, did not, as it
were, purify it for us, and give to it a momentary perfection. It
seems to me that the imagination spreads, or should spread, aseems to me that the imagination spreads, or should spread, a
solitude around it, and works best in silence and in isolation. Why
should the artist be troubled by the shrill clamour of criticism? Why
should those who cannot create take upon themselves to estimate
the value of creative work? What can they know about it? If a man's
work is easy to understand, an explanation is unnecessary.. . .
• Simply this: that in the best days of art there were no art-
critics.(long descritptions of arts/fine arts when artists created
great things, referring Greek Time when there were no art critic)

24. Conti….
• But what is the difference between literature and
journalism?
• Asking whether Greek were art critics? Surprised
by Gilberts Explanationby Gilberts Explanation
• You are horribly wilful. I insist on your discussing
this matter with me. You have said that the
Greeks were a nation of art-critics. What art-
criticism have they left us?
• But what are the two supreme and highest arts?

25. Conti….
• I am quite ready to admit that I was wrong in
what I said about the Greeks. They were, as you
have pointed out, a nation of art-critics. I
acknowledge it, and I feel a little sorry for them.acknowledge it, and I feel a little sorry for them.
For the creative faculty is higher than the critical.
There is really no comparison between them.
• I should have said that great artists work
unconsciously, that they were `wiser than they
knew,' as, I think, Emerson remarks somewhere.

26. Conti….
• I see what you mean, and there is much in it. But surely you
would admit that the great poems of the early world, the
primitive, anonymous collective poems, were the result of
the imagination of races, rather than of the imagination of
individuals? (Gilbert Asnwers: And what I want to point out
is this. An age that has no criticism is either an age in which
art is immobile, hieratic, and confined to the reproduction
is this. An age that has no criticism is either an age in which
art is immobile, hieratic, and confined to the reproduction
of formal types, or an age that possesses no art at all. There
have been critical ages that have not been creative, in the
ordinary sense of the word, ages in which the spirit of man
has sought to set in order the treasures of his treasure-
house, to separate the gold from the silver, and the silver
from the lead, to count over the jewels, and to give names
to the pearls.

27. Conti….
• You have been talking of criticism as an essential part
of the creative spirit, and I now fully accept your
theory. But what of criticism outside creation? I have a
foolish habit of reading periodicals, and it seems to me
that most modern criticism is perfectly valuelessthat most modern criticism is perfectly valueless
• But, my dear fellow---excuse me for interrupting you---
you seem to me to be allowing your passion for
criticism to lead you a great deal too far. For, after all,
even you must admit that it is much more difficult to
do a thing than to talk about it.

28. Conti….
• Gilbert, you sound too harsh a note. Let us go
back to the more gracious fields of literature.
What was it you said? That it was more difficult
to talk about a thing than to do it?
• Yes; I see now what you mean. But, surely, the• Yes; I see now what you mean. But, surely, the
higher you place the creative artist, the lower
must the critic rank.
• Criticism is, in fact, both creative and
independent (Gilbert). Independent (Ernest)?
• But is Criticism really a creative art?

29. Conti….
• No ignoble considerations of probability, that cowardly
concession to the tedious repetitions of domestic or public
life, affect it ever. One may appeal from fiction unto fact.
But from the soul there is no appeal (Gilbert). Soul (Ernest)
?
• I seem to have heard another theory of Criticism? (Cumnor• I seem to have heard another theory of Criticism? (Cumnor
cowslips, that the proper aim of Criticism is to see the
object as in itself it really is. But this is a very serious error,
and takes no cognisance of Criticism's most perfect form,
which is in its essence purely subjective, and seeks to reveal
its own secret and not the secret of another. For the
highest Criticism deals with art not as expressive but as
impressive purely) Gilbert

30. Conti….
• But is that really so?
• But is such work as you have talked about really
criticism?
• The highest Criticism, then, is more creative than
creation, and the primary aim of the critic is to see the
object as in itself it really is not; that is your theory, I
creation, and the primary aim of the critic is to see the
object as in itself it really is not; that is your theory, I
believe?
• Ernest Ah! you admit, then, that the critic may
occasionally be allowed to see the object as in itself it
really is. Gilbert I am not quite sure. Perhaps I may
admit it after supper. There is a subtle influence in
supper