The Decay of Lying

“One of the chief causes that can be assigned for the curiously commonplace character of most of the literature of our age is undoubtedly the decay of Lying as an art, a science, and a social pleasure. The ancient historians gave us delightful fiction in the form of fact; the modern novelist presents us with dull facts under the guise of fiction.”

Vivian advocates for lying not to encourage immorality but because he considers Lying as a Necessary Creative Act that, through artifice, creates beauty. Aestheticist thought models art as an ideal precisely because it is kept distinct and is unburdened by “dull facts.”

“In point of fact what is interesting about people in good society—and M. Bourget rarely moves out of the Faubourg St. Germain, except to come to London,—is the mask that each one of them wears, not the reality that lies behind the mask. It is a humiliating confession, but we are all of us made out of the same stuff.”

Wilde makes the point that reality is not a suitable subject for art because it is banal and repetitive. What is instead worthy of artistic representation is the “mask” or the lies one uses to create a persona for others. The reality of a person’s day-to-day is suggested to be far too dull to be an artistic subject. Vivian argues that a façade is more alluring than the truth of someone’s thoughts and actions.

“The public imagine that, because they are interested in their immediate surroundings, Art should be interested in them also, and should take them as her subject-matter. But the mere fact that they are interested in these things makes them unsuitable subjects for Art. The only beautiful things, as somebody once said, are the things that do not concern us. As long as a thing is useful or necessary to us, or affects us in any way, either for pain or for pleasure, or appeals strongly to our sympathies, or is a vital part of the environment in which we live, it is outside the proper sphere of art. To art’s subject-matter we should be more or less indifferent.”

Wilde discredits the basis of Realism by arguing that true art must necessarily be detached from everyday concerns and realities. Art is an ideal and therefore cannot be lowered or tainted by influence from the imperfections of life. This supports the tenet of Art for Art’s Sake.