The Artist

The artist is the creator of beautiful things.

To reveal art and conceal the artist is the art's aim.

The critic is he who can translate into another manner or a new material his impression of beautiful things.

The highest, as the lowest, form of criticism is a mode of autobiography.

Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault.

Those who find beautiful things meanings in beautiful things are cultivated. For these there is hope.

They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only Beauty.

--Oscar Wilde, Preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray.