Beauty, Charm, Admiration

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Beauty

All forms of beauty, like all possible phenomena, contain an element of the eternal and an element of the transitory - of the absolute and of the particular. Absolute and eternal beauty does not exist, or rather it is only an abstraction creamed from the general surface of different beauties. The particular element in each manifestation comes from the emotions: and just as we have our own particular emotions, so we have our own beauty.

Charles Baudelaire (1821–67), French poet. Curiosités Esthétiques,“Salon of 1846,” sct. 18 (1868; repr. in The Mirror of Art, ed. by Jonathan Mayne, 1955).

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Charm

All charming people, I fancy, are spoiled. It is the secret of their attraction.

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900), Anglo-Irish playwright, author. Erskine, in The Portrait of Mr. W. H., ch. 1 (first published in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, July 1889).

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Admiration

Bad artists always admire each other’s work. They call it being large-minded and free from prejudice. But a truly great artist cannot conceive of life being shown, or beauty fashioned, under any conditions other than those he has selected.

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900), Anglo-Irish playwright, author. Gilbert, in The Critic as Artist, pt. 2 (published in Intentions, 1891).

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