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

I absolutely want to have a career where you make'em laugh and make'em cry. It's all theater.
Jim CarreyRead
Being a kid with black skin in South Central Los Angeles, in a part of the world where opportunity didn't necessarily knock every day, is what gave me this sensibility and drove me to explore my fascination with art.
Kehinde WileyRead
I wanted to share my doubts and my culinary, amorous, and cosmic experiences. So I wrote 'Like Water for Chocolate,' which is merely the reflection of who I am as a woman, a wife, a mother, a daughter.
Laura EsquivelRead
The Mediterranean has the color of mackerel, changeable I mean. You don't always know if it is green or violet, you can't even say it's blue, because the next moment the changing reflection has taken on a tint of rose or gray.
Vincent Van GoghRead
I didn't know Kurt Cobain or Amy Winehouse, but I was affected by both of their deaths because I admired their work so much and mourned their youth and work they would never produce.
Patti SmithRead
An artist is someone who produces things that people don't need to have but that he - for some reason - thinks it would be a good idea to give them.
Andy WarholRead

A little wisdom, now and then

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