Is Art Useless? / Reading Oscar Wilde's Preface Together

all art is quite useless so ends oscar wilde's preface to the picture of dory and gray and today i want to break down this preface because it has a list of quite thought-provoking perhaps controversial challenging precepts and maxims regarding art and morality so let's let's break it down and let's talk about whether we agree with it or not and i would implore you to comment in the comment section below on any part of the preface that enraptures you engages you enrages you amuses you or bemuses you so the picture of dorian gray firstly great novel um he got into a lot of trouble for writing that book uh to put it mildly oscar wilde um he was put on trial basically because they thought it was an obscene book they thought it was an immoral book and if you know anything about wild you know that his contention is essentially that there's no such thing as an immoral book um art is either good or bad let's think about that so the preface begins the artist is the creator of beautiful things okay simple simple or um seemingly simple but perhaps not um beauty there's a huge tradition of examining what the difference between say the beauty beauty is and what the difference between the sublime is beauty traditionally is dainty um delicate and sublime is like awe-inspiring and powerful and fearsome um the artist is the creator of beautiful things now it seems like a simple statement um but do you agree from the start that's the thing this is how you read plato for example you read plato and they all begin their dialogues their socratic dialogues by defining their terms can we all agree that this is this very often though the the proposition from which they are starting from um we rarely if we're not reading correctly we really examine it and see if we actually agree with it the thing i don't like about plato now i do like plato because he's a he's a writer of great imaginative power um but what i don't like is that he'll say can we all agree that money is evil yes socrates we can agree and it's like hang on a minute i don't i don't agree with your starting premises but then it just goes on and on and on for pages and uh whatever conclusion you get to is nullified by the fact that you don't actually agree from the stand the starting point anyway do you agree the artist is the creator of beautiful things i think the artist can be the creator of beautiful things the artist is also the creator of powerful things thought provoking things emotional things that's my personal uh opinion to reveal art and conceal the artist is art's aim again it really depends on who the artist is if you're talking about tolstoy leo tolstoy if you read anna karenina he's basically somewhat invisible in his novel he can go in and out of all the different characters heads he even goes into the into the mind the interior of a dog at one point masterfully and tolstoy is very much unobtrusive flaubert was somewhat unobtrusive as well in regards to his novel um hugo victor hugo who wrote les miserables hunchback of notre dame he was not unobtrusive he was very much a big figure in his novel if you go back to some of the earlier novels i'm thinking tristram shandy i'm thinking tom jones um you can really hear the voice of for example fielding jane austen i can perceive some of her voice she does it very masterfully and she set the groundwork and paved the way for writers like tolstoy in order to do this free and direct discourse but i can discern austin does does that mean she's not successful as an artist i don't think so but to to reveal art and conceal the artist is art's aim again i think that's one of art's aims and very often you know you're in the presence of something beautifully rendered a great work of art if you stop thinking about the artist if it just becomes like nature it's um you don't even question who produced it um but hey very often if you talk to scientists they will question who created beautiful flowers for example so then you get into the wrestling with um theology and like if they're a god is there not god all that sort of thing the critic is he who can translate into another manner or a new material his impression of beautiful things so i don't like the word criticism i much prefer the term interpretation and that means that you create a new work yourself in your interpretation in recording your impression of the work unfortunately critics today and this is very much true you'll see this in academic circles criticism means taking the writer out of their context damning them um cutting them down listing their vices charging them with whatever crime against humanity they can think up whatever they can read between the lines or not of the text hey i don't think that's criticism and i don't think that's a creation of your own own piece of art when i do the podcast and when i do the lectures in the hardcore literature book club that is my expression that is my autobiography and it's my art form i put a lot of care into it in the same way that an artist would paint the brushstrokes with with certain directions certain gusto and verve and so yes i agree with that but we're lacking critics today and i think there's definitely a need for proper critics there's a need and there's a gap in the market so to speak for people who are going to create works of art in their response to other works of art and we're ready for it because we felt a lack of it for a while now and we're definitely ready for it um let's go on a little bit the highest as the lowest form of criticism is a mode of autobiography yeah okay this is so this is where i got this from this is very much me working in a wildly incense i hope that when i respond to art i imbue it with my own personality my own temperament my own lived experience it is so much more interesting to read the faithful honest sincere account and impression of someone responding to a book for example and to just read their straight autobiography straight autobiography can be boring especially if the person is not anyone of a claim or hasn't lived a particularly interesting life now take a common person who's not lived a particularly interesting life and get them responding to artwork in a nuanced thoughtful tender caring fashion and then you have a riveting autobiography then you want to know more about them um those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming this is a fault this is a this is a very this is wildy and wit very ironic rye probably solicits a small smirk out of one corner of your mouth let's read that again because that is so pertinent and this is like an adage to our age it's an instruction it's an imperative it's a warning shot to the critics working today those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming this is a fault so people often ask me to make comment on things that i don't like to make negative lists lists of things that i damn and the thing is we are drawn to negativity it's a confirmation bias everything in our life can be perfect but if we have just just one niggling thing one little problem like a stone in our shoe then we're unhappy and funnily enough yes when i do make a comment negatively or i am a little bit critical that stuff does end up being rather popular but i don't want it to be the default the default should be loving appreciation relishing savouring enjoying so i don't really like to do that very often i think we should admire the art that we profess to love we should admire it and there's enough negativity in the world you can find it in all corners of the internet you can find it in your day-to-day life that's why when i created the hardcore literature book club um there's not many rules but there are some underlying sort of invisible rules and one of them is to not be too negative we want a good vibe and actually we do have a good vibe we don't want to drag too much contemporary commentary into the mix unless we can say something positive about it um like i said most the negativity and the ugly meanings they've already been covered it's the positivity that has not been covered that we're in dire need of those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things how can you think of many people who do that if you want to go into an academic circle and talk about shakespeare i bet you you could come out with people who manage to find ugly meanings and beautiful things are there ugly things lurking there of course there are problematic plays wild even somewhat touches upon one in referencing caliban in one of his next maxims merchant of venice we can go on but to find exclusively ugly meanings in what is primarily a beautiful work of art is yeah to put it mildly that makes you corrupt without being charming and i like that wild leaves some room for being corrupt because you can be corrupt and be charming but he says this the worst sin in the world of wild is to not be charming and to be corrupt without being charming that is a fault and then he goes on those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated for these there is hope well yes because if you think about that's your impression to everything i've recently picked up um james baldwin one of my favorite writers i picked up his notes of the native son i'll show you it's really beautiful addition got it here this is the library of america i've started collecting these these are really lovingly put together as usual with these books i like to take the dust jacket off because baldwin's in a lush verdant green and he's writing he's one of the greatest if not the greatest civil rights writers ever and he's he talks about those who treat him with contempt or hatred and he says that this belies a hatred for everything everyone and above all yourself and i think this is somewhat what oscar wilde is touching upon here this is something i thoroughly agree with those who find beautiful meanings and beautiful things are cultivated for those for these there is hope if yeah and that's true and i think if you can find beautiful meanings and beautiful things then there is hope for you it um the speaks a good direction in your life it speaks a vibe of positivity and light um it's a good thing and that's what we're trying to do together isn't it they are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only beauty so what he's talking about here he's touching upon a walter peter idea but this was a preoccupation that was running through the finder sea clay the turn of the century with the symbolist writers the french writers this idea that the idea of art for art's sake that you do not want to burden art with any other obligation um art does not need social utility now i do differ somewhat here i don't think art needs social utility but i think art can have social utility as a subservient purpose now victor hugo's les miserables is very heavy-handed with its social social justice but it still works as a work of art marvelous work of art endlessly influential endlessly re-readable now there are those works of art that are usually pesky book prize winners um and they have just social purpose that is the only reason they've been written and the only reason they've been read and i would also defer to what james baldwin says about these novels the protest novels they're the most problematic novels of all and bespeak the person to cry in every ist in the book is the person who catalogues every iss in their own soul so what we want to do is we want to create art that's beautiful in and of itself for its own sake okay you don't demand a vas have social utility you don't demand that a wagnerian opera have social utility now we're coming to a very famous maxim there is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book would you agree with that if you disagree you're in fine company because even some of the greatest writers all the time and i'm thinking of tolstoy again would disagree if you read tolstoy's what is art something that we pulled apart attract that we pulled apart both in the hardcore literature podcast and in the book club he seemed to think that good art was a sincere transference of religious religious feeling so essentially art does have a moral duty according to tolstoy but tolstoy who was such a tremendous artist tremendous writer of great feeling he was not the best critic he damned shakespeare and cervantes and beethoven he didn't like anybody apart from dostoyevsky and victor hugo is there such thing as an immoral book i certainly do read certain books and i can feel dirty or i can feel corrupted i can feel guilty um there but the worst guilt i've ever felt with a book is reading a book that has no redeeming aesthetic qualities whatsoever now that's not to damn pulp fiction but definitely as long as a book speaks to you as long as the book is beautifully crafted compelling characters great narrative and is thought provoking i think that's that's good enough and you there are certain books that have been banned and censored and burned through the ages um i don't think that means that they're immoral i think it simply means what oscar is about to say he says books are well written or badly written that is all the 19th century dislike of realism is the rage of caliban seeing his own face in a glass caliban the half human half monster of the tempest um the dislike of realism is the rage of caliban yes so we read something that's realist and if we damn it and don't like it very often it's because we see ourselves contained in it so oscar wilde put on trial for the picture of dorian gray um did did did they see themselves in the book a little bit too much and i think that's what the most uncomfortable thing about the picture of dorian gray is is that that ability to somewhat see yourself and if you find it repulsive you may find it repulsive in the same sense that you might find your own shadow terrifying and repulsive the line between good and evil runs straight through the middle of every human heart it's a soldier it's unquote and it's true and it's it's endlessly plagued humanity as a preoccupation we can see that in stevenson's doctor jekyll and hyde you can see that in everything really so that's something to think about do you protest too much if you dislike a certain genre or a certain book or a certain writer the 19th century dislike of romanticism is the rage of caliban not seeing his own face in the glass can't win can't win with the critics either they dislike it because it reminds them of themselves too much in a negative way or they don't see themselves in it at all either way these are not these are not people that you won't read in your work essentially the moral life of man forms part of the subject matter of the artist but the morality of art consists in the perfect use of an imperfect medium no artist desires to prove anything even things that are true can be proved the perfect use of an imperfect medium this is a tension that artists have always struggled with flaubert talked about limo conrad said that above all his purpose is to make you see and the writers like james joyce would labor over words for entire days i think there was an anecdote with james joyce struggling over seven words in a sentence and that being a good day for him getting the most faithful replication the perfect word the problem is and this is a problem that a lot of artists take into their heart that which we can find words for this is a nichian idea it's something that's already long dead in our hearts we have these concepts and they mean slightly different things to everybody like love and money and justice and peace and war um but the moment we can say something like i love you is the moment that we reduce or strip apart the actual genuine and sincere meaning of the words that which is true and sincere always transcends language no artist has ethical sympathies and ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style yeah and a lot of books today have unpardonable mannerisms of style ethical sympathies now the thing is i think you can have ethical sympathy sympathies but i like to believe that someone can have a sort of humanistic strain where they don't they don't er exclude anybody or anybody they don't know by overtly needing to include i we can we can go down this route i suppose but i feel like we've already touched upon it before no artist is ever morbid the artist can express everything well can he can the artist express everything that kind of flies in the face of that nietzsche an idea that i just touched upon so i'm not sure about that one thought and language are to the artist instruments of an art vice and virtue to the artist materials for an art from the point of view of form the type of all the arts is the art of the musician from the point of view of feeling the actors craft is the type yeah walter peter said all art constantly aspires to the condition of music he said that in the studies in the history of the renaissance i have come to disagree with that over time now many artists wish that they were musicians or could render the dionysian like drunken revelry aspect into their writing um some want to be more like painters which is more apollonian and it's to do with form and i used to think that all the highest form of art would be a blend of the two which would probably be film but recently i've come to i've come to believe very strongly uh that literature is the highest form of art and a novel is the highest form of art and i don't say that in a sense that i don't enjoy other forms i just think there is no other art form that you can engage on such a deep level with your own thoughts now music does something different painting does something different it's similar but it's different and film unfortunately i is too external and you really cannot fully understand everything that you're seeing on the screen whereas a book affords you endless time to really examine everything so all r is at once surface and symbol those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril i think um i think hemingway said something similar to this those who read the symbol do so at their peril it is the spectator and not life that art really mirrors i like that it is the spectator and not life that are really mirrors books are mirrors and their mirrors held up to our self they don't actually faithfully represent society or the greater world there is no objective experience you cannot objectively empirically faithfully report reality it's all subjective it's all seen through the prism of our lift experience our condition and upbringing our faults our strengths everything is tinged with our own persona and so when you read a book if you read it deeply and if you read it well you learn something about yourself do you learn something about the world perhaps not but maybe you learn how you operate in the world that you create in your mind diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new complex and vital he's basically given a middle finger to the censorship and the the trials uh he's saying hey we're all disagreeing here that means this work is new complex and vital disagreement is is a bedrock it's a foundation for developing new thought and um the moment we just start agreeing on everything is the moment that we uh crumble as a civilization we want to keep pushing up against each other as nietzsche said let us divinely strive against one another my friends as enemies we need the left and we need the right we push up against each other and uh hey it's better that way than any other way i'm pretty pretty sure of that when critics disagree the artist is in accord with himself we can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it the only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely i love that the only excuse for making a useless thing is one admires it intensely we do have an obligation with art we have an obligation to admire it intensely and that's enough all art is quite useless there you go that's the preface that's oscar wilde let me know if you agree or disagree with any of those maxims let me know and let me know if you've ever read the picture of dorian gray and what you think of oscar wilde thank you very much for watching if you have any recommendations for content you'd like to see videos questions to answer then please leave them in the comments below and if you've enjoyed this video please give a like and subscribe because that tells me to keep making more content happy reading

Channel: Benjamin McEvoy

Views: 13,697

Keywords: Oscar Wilde book review, picture of dorian gray, Oscar wilde preface

Id: rSChrTARSek

Length: 20min 46sec (1246 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 18 2021