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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Essays & Lectures by Oscar Wilde: there were no kings there and so their art was as noble and simple
as sincere. But if you want to know what kind of art the folly of
kings will impose on a country look at the decorative art of France
under the GRAND MONARQUE, under Louis the Fourteenth; the gaudy
gilt furniture writhing under a sense of its own horror and
ugliness, with a nymph smirking at every angle and a dragon
mouthing on every claw. Unreal and monstrous art this, and fit
only for such periwigged pomposities as the nobility of France at
that time, but not at all fit for you or me. We do not want the
rich to possess more beautiful things but the poor to create more
beautiful things; for ever man is poor who cannot create. Nor
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