What is true about Art is true about Life.
This is one of the most famous quotes of Wilde contained in his non-fiction body of work. The title indicates that it might be a political diatribe of one sort or another or, at the very least, an analysis of political ideology, but in truth it is a celebration of individualism and the right—indeed, the requirement—for all artists to establish their own sense of identity in a way that might seem selfish to others, but is actually just the very opposite. It is the person who demands of others that they do not manifest their individualism openly who are selfish.
What is true of a bankrupt is true of everyone else in life.
The title of this essay translates to “from the depths” and it was while in the depth of darkness in prison that Wilde was moved to write what some have only half-facetiously referred to in terms along the lines of “Oscar Finally Learns the Important of Being Earnest.” It is a heartfelt apologia for those mistakes that set him inexorably on the path to jail. This quote is one of the rate examples of Wilde expressing a witticism full of pathos. The omnipresent irony that it sometimes seem Wilde invented is missing entirely. Like Johnny Rotten in “God Save the Queen” here is Oscar Wilde snarling, “I mean it, man!” Everyone has to pay the piper eventually.
What is true about the drama and the novel is no less true about those arts that we call the decorative arts.
This particular work is one of Wilde’s essays in the form of a philosophical dialogue. It is a particularly appropriate form to take on the topic at hand which is one that traces famously back to Plato and his critique of entertainment for the masses being dangerous because the masses are not intelligent enough to tell the difference between what is real and what is illusion. Wilde’s take on the issue is to split things down the middle: forego the unimaginative foundation of pursuing “realism” in fiction and one need not worry about the intellect of the audience. The particular criticism here is directed toward the essential underlying purposeless of using the aesthetic possibilities inherent in decorative arts like stained glass and weaving tapestries for the mundane effect of recreating historical events.
“What is true about music is true about all the arts.”
Another essay as dialogue, the now-familiar terminology used by Wilde to situate one thing within the broader context of another is the summation of his argument that any critique of an artistic expression should be concerned primarily with the artistic expression itself. The comparison here is based on the character’s immediately preceding assertion that music carries with it the capacity to “bring the soul into harmony with all right things.’ And since what is true about music is true about all the arts, the logical extension of this assertion is that all other aesthetic expressions of creativity should be judged based on that capacity before any other. Or, as the concept is more familiarly stated: judge art for art’s sake.
