So the internet’s not working at home this week, which has put a major cramp on my blogging. But I don’t care! Because a) the Sharks beat the Kings in the first round and b) someone has done this:
There are more, but this should be enough to get you started. ISN’T THIS THE BEST THING EVER?
Thanks to Sean Ferrell for opening my eyes to this.
This is a closeup of one of my bookcases and it pretty much defines me as a person.
Wilde Wednesdays have kind of fallen by the wayside, BUT I AM GOING TO BRING THEM BACK. STARTING NOW.
With one of my favorite pieces of writing ever in the world, the preface to the Picture of Dorian Gray. I truly love this.
The artist is the creator of beautiful things.
All art is quite useless.
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.
It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.
Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex, and vital. 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.
Aubrey Beardsley illustrated Oscar Wilde’s Salome, creating one of my favorite books ever because omg Beardsley is a genius illustrator. However—and perhaps not surprisingly—the two ended up not getting along very well. Wilde complained about the art, and in retaliation Beardsley drew this cartoon, responding to Wilde’s claim that he never did any research.
Why is it always the most volatile of artistic relationships that produce some of the greatest art?
April 1891
To Arthur Conan Doyle
Between me and life there is a mist of words always. I throw probability out of the window for the sake of a phrase, and the chance of an epigram makes me desert truth. Still I do aim at making a work of art, and I am really delighted that you think my treatment subtle and artistically good. The newspapers seem to me to be written by the prurient for the Philistine. I cannot understand how they can treat Dorian Gray as immoral. My difficulty was to keep the inherent moral subordinate to the artistic and dramatic effect, and it still seems to me that the moral is too obvious.
Oscar Wilde
From this book.
Hey hey they say it’s your birthday…
Busy busy busy day, so today’s Wilde Wednesday is going to be a brief excerpt. From Act I of An Ideal Husband, one of my favorite Wilde characters is confronted by his father at a party…
LORD CAVERSHAM
Well, sir! What are you doing here? Wasting your life as usual! You should be in bed, sir. You keep too late hours! I heard of you the other night at Lady Rufford’s dancing till four o’clock in the morning!
LORD GORING
Only a quarter to four, father.
LORD CAVERSHAM
Can’t make out how you stand London society. The thing has gone to the dogs, a lot of damned nobodies talking about nothing.
LORD GORING
I love talking about nothing, father. It is the only thing I know anything about.
LORD CAVERSHAM
You seem to me to be living entirely for pleasure.
LORD GORING
What else is there to live for, father? Nothing ages like happiness.
So I have come to realize that there has been a major oversight in my blogging. I have not yet—or barely—touched on one of my favorite subjects: Oscar Wilde.
This man:
Oh, the hotness.
So I am going to institute a new feature here at Gracetopia. Yes, you guessed it: Wilde Wednesdays!
Why Wednesday? Because it starts with a W, obviously. :)
Wilde Wednesdays will be random whateverness of Wilde. They might be historical factoids, or snippets of a play, or just a picture, or something. Long or short. Who knows? We shall see. So many Wednesdays, so little time. No wait. So much Wilde, so little time. There we go.
So, without further ado, I would like to introduce the the first edition of Wilde Wednesdays.
We have to start at the beginning, of course. Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde was born on October 16, 1854. Really it should be an international holiday. Week from Friday. Anyone want to party? Anyway, he was born in Dublin to Sir William Wilde, an eye and ear doctor, and the extraordinary, fabulous, inimitable Jane Speranza Francesca Wilde.
Lady Wilde
Lady Wilde was a character. Poet, suffragette, diva, she was always larger than life. I have yet to actually read a book on her (I saw one once but did not buy it what was I thinking) but it is pretty obvious from what little I know of her that she was instrumental in shaping Oscar into the man he became.
Lady Wilde quote of the day, which pretty much sums her up: “I should like to rage through life—this orthodox creeping is too tame for me—ah, this wild rebellious ambitious nature of mine. I wish I could satiate it with Empires, though a St. Helena were the end.”
And there we go. Brief, yes, but Wilde.
Occasionally I have to double-check to make sure I have not died and gone to heaven. For instance:
a musical
of The Picture of Dorian Gray.
The only reason I’m sure I’m still here is that it’s currently touring Europe, where I am not. AARRGHHHH
