Oscar Wilde's Essay 'The Decaying Of Lying'

Oscar Wilde’s essays and lectures discussing the role of art in society is supposed to be used as a guideline for future artists to create more meaningful and useful works. Through the analysis of his essays and lectures, it is visible that, Wilde thinks there are characteristics of art and artists that offer no value to the world and are inherently useless. Wilde compares useful and useless art in an attempt to explain what qualities are necessary to develop meaningful and beneficial artworks. Wilde’s major proclamation is that “all bad art comes from Life and Nature” and people should move their focus from these common subjects to subjects that are self-fulfilling, regardless of if their popularity in society (“The New Aesthetic” 85). Wilde’s constant reference to self-fulfilling artwork has led to him being labeled as having an egotistical view on art; a view that states that only his opinions are correct and all artists should cater their art to satisfy him. In reality, what Wilde is trying to say through his works is that all views of art are generated from the individual’s self and the willingness and ability of the artist to display his character in his artwork is the most important quality of meaningful art.
Throughout his …show more content…
Wilde believed that art is superior to nature and so there is no need for artists to depict it. In “The Decaying of Lying,” Wilde uses the narrators of the essay to describe the use of nature as inspiration as having good intentions, but being simple, monotonous, and lacking in design when compared to other artistic topics. Wilde’s dislike for the depiction of art does not necessarily mean that artists should never depict nature; it stems more from numerous artists only depicting nature in their work. This causes a lack of diversity, resulting in many artists thinking that the only way they will be successful artists is if they only depict