For an educated person’s ideas of Art are drawn naturally from what Art has been, whereas the new work of art is beautiful by being what Art has never been
 Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man under Socialism (1891). copy citation

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Author Oscar Wilde
Source The Soul of Man under Socialism
Topic art work
Date 1891
Language English
Reference
Note
Weblink http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1017/1017-0.txt

Context

“And the more completely he can suppress his own silly views, his own foolish prejudices, his own absurd ideas of what Art should be, or should not be, the more likely he is to understand and appreciate the work of art in question. This is, of course, quite obvious in the case of the vulgar theatre-going public of English men and women. But it is equally true of what are called educated people. For an educated person’s ideas of Art are drawn naturally from what Art has been, whereas the new work of art is beautiful by being what Art has never been; and to measure it by the standard of the past is to measure it by a standard on the rejection of which its real perfection depends. A temperament capable of receiving, through an imaginative medium, and under imaginative p.” source