THE artist is the creator of beautiful things. To reveal art and conceal the artist is art's aim.
The critic is he who can translate into another manner or a new material his impression of beautiful things.
The highest as the lowest form of criticism is a mode of autobiography.
Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault.
Wilde believes that the artist must only create art, not try to overwhelm his art with his own personality or other futile subjects. The artist must conceal himself in what T. S. Eliot later called a “gradual extinction of personality.” Here you can see the influence on Wilde of the  “Art for art’s sake”  credo, or  “l'art pour l'art” in the original French.
The Picture of Dorian Gray Preface