PREFACE
THE artist is the creator of beautiful things. To reveal art and conceal the artist is 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 meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is
hope.
They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only beauty.
There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly
written. That is all.
The nineteenth century dislike of realism is the rage of Caliban seeing his own face in a
glass.
The nineteenth century dislike of romanticism is the rage of Caliban not seeing his own
face in a glass.
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.
No artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable
mannerism of style.
No artist is ever morbid. The artist can express everything.
Thought and language are to the artist instruments of an art.
Vice and virtue are 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 actor's craft is the type.
All art is at once surface and symbol.
Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril.
Those who read the symbol do so at their peril.
