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Thanks Eureka for keeping abra alive in our memories. She is missed.
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"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. All art is quite useless." — Oscar Wilde
Barnabas
May 2, 2012, 2:49 pm
I once saw an original work of Andy Warhol's. Useless for the most part, but certainly not valueless.
Barnabas
May 16, 2013, 9:40 pm
Oh... and I did admire it greatly!
skoogie2
July 18, 2013, 12:44 pm
Depends on your definition of useful. Art brings joy in many cases, so that makes it useful.
Annamariah
September 18, 2014, 4:41 am
This is from the preface of The Picture of Dorian Gray.
abra
August 14, 2015, 3:41 pm
Thanks, Annamaria. I've never read it, but I saw the movie when I was a kid. It wasn't until I came to this site, that I even knew that it was written by Oscar Wilde.
Annamariah
September 11, 2015, 12:18 pm
I first heard of it when my school class made an excursion to a museum where there was a series of photographs inspired by the story. The museum guide summarised the story for us, and I found it fascinating. The Picture of Dorian Gray was one of the first classics that I read in English, and I enjoyed Wilde's language a lot.
LLapp
October 17, 2016, 9:48 am
Annamariah, I enjoy your perspective! And Barnabas, if you come back, can you say what it was in Warhol's work that you admired? I have trouble appreciating his art.
letfreedomring
April 30, 2018, 5:50 am
This quote just after one by Renoir, whose art is anything but useless. Is this Oscar having a hissy fit?
Earthwalker
March 24, 2019, 8:30 pm
Had an art teacher who said that the difference between art and craft was that crafts, however beautiful, could be used for something. Art, he insisted, must be entirely useless.
abra
August 10, 2021, 9:25 pm
I disagree with your teacher Earthwalker. If art makes you gasp and stare, if it touches your heart or your mind. I don't think that's useless. If you hang it over that dent in the wall, that's not useless.
abra
September 19, 2022, 1:48 am
^ I am a crafter. I would have loved to be an artist.Comment
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