Two of the major cultural and intellectual movements in art, literature, and literary criticism, are 'aestheticism' and 'instrumentalism'. Aestheticism emerged in the late nineteenth-century in Britain in part as a reaction towards Victorianism. As a movement, aestheticism put far greater importance on the aesthetic qualities of art as opposed to moral or ethical themes. Instrumentalism meanwhile countered aestheticism by stating that all art was a form of propaganda and emphasized the social values of a particular work.

The novelist, playwright, poet and critic Oscar Wilde was one of the major proponents of aestheticism. The Preface to his The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891) is essentially a series of provocative aphorisms which are themselves art, but which are also, ironically, instrumental, in that they are didactic. The proposition at the end of the Preface: 'All art is quite useless' is essentially a provocative retort to the age-old question: What is literature for? The Preface is written in an epigrammatic style, peppered with a range of striking adjectives which have an undeniably challenging effect. Wilde uses words in a paradoxical fashion, perhaps most apparent in his choice of the final word 'useless'. Wilde has taken this word, which generally has a negative meaning, and utilized it for his own purposes - it is important to acknowledge that he is not saying all art is worthless.

The function of literature has been debated down the centuries with many important historical figures adopting widely differing standpoints. However Wilde's is certainly controversial in that he would appear to be proclaiming any sort of art is an end in itself, and has no subsequent influence in society, other than to entertain 'the elect to whom beautiful things mean only Beauty'. Wilde is explicit in his elitism, although less so about what is meant by 'Beauty'. This standpoint alludes to the older, more famous slogan 'art for art's sake'.

Aestheticism's polar opposite, instrumentalism, believed that art should attempt to influence society. Art that is thought to be instrumental is generally didactic in nature, in that it instructs, persuades or proselytizes. Novelist and critic George Orwell believed all instrumental art and aesthetic art was a form of propaganda. In a 1936 review, he is quoted as saying that 'few people have the guts to say outright that art and propaganda are the same thing' - arguably a point of view every bit as controversial as Wilde's. It is also debatable that the aesthetic standpoint itself could be considered propaganda.

However, most art falls somewhere between both camps in that it usually possesses aesthetic and instrumental qualities. Aestheticism and instrumentalism in art are not just determined by the artists but also by the interpretative community.