Oscar Wilde quote about art from The Soul of Man under Socialism - Now Art should never try to be popular. The public should try to make itself artistic.
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Now Art should never try to be popular. The public should try to make itself artistic.
 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 popularity public
Date 1891
Language English
Reference
Note
Weblink http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1017/1017-0.txt

Context

“They are continually asking Art to be popular, to please their want of taste, to flatter their absurd vanity, to tell them what they have been told before, to show them what they ought to be tired of seeing, to amuse them when they feel heavy after eating too much, and to distract p. 43their thoughts when they are wearied of their own stupidity. Now Art should never try to be popular. The public should try to make itself artistic. There is a very wide difference. If a man of science were told that the results of his experiments, and the conclusions that he arrived at, should be of such a character that they would not upset the received popular notions on the subject, or disturb popular prejudice, or hurt the sensibilities of people who knew nothing about science; if a philosopher were told that he had a perfect right to speculate in the highest spheres of thought, provided that he arrived at the same conclusions as were held by those who had never thought in any sphere at all—well, nowadays the man of science and the philosopher would be considerably amused.” source

Meaning and analysis

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