art and audience

"Art is not a means to an end; it contains its own ends. It is one of the principal means, in our view, by which human beings gain their bearings in the world. It has an objective, truthful content. Profound artistic images reflect the world, in their own manner, just as accurately as scientific axioms. Art grasps the world in the form of images. The present-day postmodernist or left academic dismisses this objective, 'universal' element in favor of a cheap, flabby relativism." David Walsh

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"And it is to be noted that it is the fact that Art is this intense form of Individualism that makes the public try to exercise over it an authority that is as immoral as it is ridiculous, and as corrupting as it is contemptible. It is not quite their fault. The public have always, and in every age, been badly brought up. They are continually asking Art to be popular, to please their want of taste, to flatter their absurd vanity, to tell them what they have been told before, to show them what they ought to be tired of seeing, to amuse them when they feel heavy after eating too much, and to distract their thoughts when they are wearied of their own stupidity. Now Art should never try to be popular. The public should try to make itself artistic." Oscar Wilde