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The job of the critic is to report to us his moods.
Oscar Wilde
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Interpretation

What this quote means

Critics express their personal views and emotions rather than objective truths about art.

In this quote, Oscar Wilde suggests that a critic's role is inherently subjective; their reviews and opinions reflect their own emotions and experiences rather than an absolute assessment of the artwork. This highlights the importance of individual perspective in the interpretation of art, underscoring that different critics may have vastly different reactions to the same piece based on their personal moods and contexts.

Themes

CriticArtSubjectivityEmotionsPerspective

In practice

Example use cases

In a discussion about art reviews, one might say, 'As Oscar Wilde pointed out, the job of the critic is to report his moods.'

More from Oscar Wilde

Everything is dangerous, my dear fellow. If it wasn't so, life wouldn't be worth living.
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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.
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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.
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Men always want to be a woman's first love - women like to be a man's last romance.
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A truth ceases to be true when more than one person believes in it.
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His morality is all sympathy, just what morality should be
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