of art consists in the perfect use of an imperfect medium.
No artist desires to prove anything. Even things that are true
can be proved. No artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical
sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style.
No artist is ever morbid. The artist can express everything.
Thought and language are to the artist instruments of an art.
Vice and virtue are to the artist materials for an art.
From the point of view of form, the type of all the arts is the art
of the musician. From the point of view of feeling, the actor's
craft is the type. All art is at once surface and symbol.
Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril.
Those who read the symbol do so at their peril.
It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.
Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work
is new, complex, and vital. When critics disagree,
the artist is in accord with himself. We can forgive a man
for making a useful 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.

OSCAR WILDE


CHAPTER 1

The studio was filled with the rich odour of roses, and when
the light summer wind stirred amidst the trees of the garden,
there came through the open door the heavy scent of the lilac,