“ Beauty reveals everything, because it expresses nothing. ”
Oscar Wilde, Intentions (1891). copy citation
| Author | Oscar Wilde |
|---|---|
| Source | Intentions |
| Topic | beauty revealing |
| Date | 1891 |
| Language | English |
| Reference | |
| Note | |
| Weblink | http://www.gutenberg.org/files/887/887-h/887-h.htm |
Context
“To-morrow, like the music of which Aristotle and Plato tell us, the noble Dorian music of the Greek, it may perform the office of a physician, and give us an anodyne against pain, and heal the spirit that is wounded, and ‘bring the soul into harmony with all right things.’ And what is true about music is true about all the arts. Beauty has as many meanings as man has moods. Beauty is the symbol of symbols. Beauty reveals everything, because it expresses nothing. When it shows us itself, it shows us the whole fiery-coloured world.
Ernest. But is such work as you have talked about really criticism?
Gilbert. It is the highest Criticism, for it criticises not merely the individual work of art, but Beauty itself, and fills with wonder a form which the artist may have left void, or not understood, or understood incompletely.”
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