QuoteProject
Now art should never try to be popular. The public should try to make itself artistic.
Oscar Wilde
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

Art should be genuine and not cater to popular opinion; rather, society should strive to appreciate and understand art.

In this quote, Oscar Wilde emphasizes the importance of authenticity in art, suggesting that true artistry should not be diluted to merely please the masses. Instead, he believes that it is the responsibility of the public to cultivate their own artistic sensibilities and to seek deeper meanings in the works presented to them, fostering a richer cultural environment.

Themes

ArtPublicCreativityAppreciationAuthenticity

In practice

Example use cases

This quote can be used in a discussion about the role of artists at a gallery opening.

More from Oscar Wilde

Everything is dangerous, my dear fellow. If it wasn't so, life wouldn't be worth living.
Oscar WildeRead
London is too full of fogs and serious people. Whether the fogs produce the serious people, or whether the serious people produce the fogs, I don't know.
Oscar WildeRead
When one has never heard a man's name in the course of one's life, it speaks volumes for him; he must be quite respectable.
Oscar WildeRead
Men always want to be a woman's first love - women like to be a man's last romance.
Oscar WildeRead
A truth ceases to be true when more than one person believes in it.
Oscar WildeRead
His morality is all sympathy, just what morality should be
Oscar WildeRead

Similar quotes

All things of beauty can speak to us of God, and I'm very happy to listen to and be inspired by people of every religious background.
Stephen HoughRead
The rules or 'laws' of poetry are only tentative devices, an approximate scheme. There is no Sinaitic recipe for poetry, for the individual poem is the norm.
Louis MacneiceRead
It's impossible for me to say one word about all that music has meant to me in my life. How, then, can I hope to be understood?
Ludwig WittgensteinRead
Black artists are encouraged to explore their identity but are then pigeonholed according to their ethnicity. We may have seen the decline of old racism, but we are witnessing a new kind of racialising.
Munira MirzaRead
I lived for 15 years in Los Angeles, and I still can't believe that the handsomest man in the world, Cary Grant, and the greatest performer in the world, Fred Astaire, and Johnny Carson, one after another - they were all in my home at different times. I celebrated my 50th birthday with them. Unforgettable.
Tony BennettRead
I am interested in a political art, that is to say an art of ambiguity, contradiction, uncompleted gestures and uncertain ending - an art (and a politics) in which optimism is kept in check, and nihilism at bay.
William KentridgeRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.