Truth in art is not any correspondence between the essential idea and the accidental existence
 Oscar Wilde, De Profundis (1905). copy citation

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Author Oscar Wilde
Source De Profundis
Topic truth existence
Date 1905
Language English
Reference
Note
Weblink http://www.gutenberg.org/files/921/921-h/921-h.htm

Context

“but sorrow is the ultimate type both in life and art. Behind joy and laughter there may be a temperament, coarse, hard and callous. But behind sorrow there is always sorrow. Pain, unlike pleasure, wears no mask. Truth in art is not any correspondence between the essential idea and the accidental existence; it is not the resemblance of shape to shadow, or of the form mirrored in the crystal to the form itself; it is no echo coming from a hollow hill, any more than it is a silver well of water in the valley that shows the moon to the moon and Narcissus to Narcissus.” source