“Art finds her own perfection within, and not outside of, herself. She is not to be judged by any external standard of resemblance. She is a veil, rather than a mirror. She has flowers that no forests know of, birds that no woodland possesses. She makes and unmakes many worlds and can draw the moon from heaven with a scarlet thread. Hers are the “forms more real than living man”, and hers the greatest archetypes of which things that have existence are but unfinished copies. Nature has, in her eyes, no laws, no uniformity. she can work miracles at ther will, and when she calls monsters from the deep they come. She can bid the almond-tree blossom in winter, and send the snow upon the ripe cornfield. At her world the frost lays its silver finger on the burning mouth of June, and the winged lions creep out from the hollows of the Lydian hills. The dryads peer from the thicket as she passes by, and the brown fauns smile strangely at her when she comes near them. She has hawk-faced gods that worship her, and the centaurs gallop at her side,”
—Oscar Wilde (“The Decay of Lying”)