Good Art is. . . Useless?

Reflecting on Oscar Wilde's "The Decay of Lying."

Yesterday, I discussed the tension between Plato and Tolstoy’s dueling definitions and normative appraisals of art. Today, I’m going to share my interpretation of Wilde’s view, and some of my favorite passages from his essay, “The Decay of Lying.”

Tolstoy believes good art plays the pivotal role of perfecting mankind; Wilde thinks the opposite: “As long as a thing is useful or necessary to us, or affects us in any way, either for pain or for pleasure, or appeals strongly to our sympathies, or is a vital part of the environment in which we live, it is outside the proper sphere of art. To art’s subject-matter we should be more or less indifferent.” Talk about a far cry from Plato and Tolstoy, both of whom are eminently concerned with art’s content and praise that which promotes virtuous conduct (though, in Tolstoy’s view, morally repugnant art is not the same as counterfeit art).

There is, however, unexpected overlap between Wilde’s view and Plato’s; the former vindicates the latter’s contention that art is (at least) thrice removed from the truth: “The fact is that we look back on the ages entirely through the medium of Art, and Art, very fortunately, has never once told us the truth.” Plato justifies untruthful art that promotes virtuous behavior by invoking the Noble Lie. Wilde goes further: He not only makes allowances for untruthful art, but regards all art as fundamentally untruthful.

There is yet another characteristic common to Plato and Wilde—both are epistocrats: “Most of our modern portrait painters are doomed to absolute oblivion. They never paint what they see. They paint what the public sees, and the public never sees anything.” Wilde is not a small-d democrat, nor is he a demagogue. Clearly.

Finally, like Plato, Wilde privileges formal reality about empirical reality: “The growth of common sense in the English Church is a thing very much to be regretted. It is really a degrading concession to a low form of realism. It is silly, too.”