Cut to the chase: why does Oscar Wilde consider imitative art to be of a lower kind? He praises music as the only non-imitative art, doesn't he? Does recursion play a role? I'm thinking: the octave x 7 on a piano, etc
19:12
Music, to him, is pure form: it doesn’t describe, it is. Its value lies in its internal logic—abstract,
recursive, and self-contained.
19:14
Yes, recursion matters. The octave cycle on a piano, with its fractal-like repetition, models music’s non-mimetic, self-referential beauty. Wilde sees this as art at its highest:
generative, not reflective.
19:14