Ideology of Aestheticism in The Picture of Dorian Gray

Inspired by the ideology of Aestheticism, Oscar Wilde rose to notoriety as a prominent literary figure of the late nineteenth century. As the Industrial Revolution progressed and sentiments of materialism spread, people began to rebel against the “repetitive designs of consumer products created cheaply by ‘soulless’ machines”. The Aesthetic movement represented an escape from tradition and heavily emphasized “art for art’s sake.” Leaders of the movement, including Wilde, were criticized for their “unmasculine devotion to art”. In response to criticism, Wilde published a variety of poems and plays, as well as a single novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray.

His literature was free of political motivations and mainly served to popularize and justify Aestheticism. Wilde’s unwavering devotion to this genre influenced his life, novel, and legacy.

Wilde was born in Dublin, Ireland on October 16, 1854 to a notable ophthalmologist and a revolutionary poet and Irish nationalist. Wilde was initially homeschooled, developing a fluency in French and German before attending Trinity College and the University of Oxford.

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While studying in England, Wilde was exposed to Aestheticism, a movement that arose as a reaction to the Industrial Revolution and the resulting materialism that permeated modern society. With the emergence of identical products, child labor, pollution, overcrowding and poor working conditions, people turned to art to bring them comfort and joy. Art was not supposed to serve a political or didactic purpose, according to the aesthetes; Aestheticism focused on the “pursuit of beauty, and self-expression over moral expectations and restrictive conformity”. Wilde sought to follow aesthetic teachings not just in art, but in all aspects of his life.

He kept his hair long, adorned his residence with flowers and feathers, and dressed flamboyantly despite the harsh criticism; he famously stated, “I find it harder and harder every day to live up to my blue china”.

Two years after moving to London, Wilde published Poems in 1881 to reinforce his image as an aesthete. In a few of these poems, Wilde grapples with religion and spirituality. The duality of Orthodox Christian and Catholic influences plagued Wilde through his life and is reflected in works such as “The Sphinx”. He set out to lecture in North America before settling in Paris as an editor for the magazine Woman’s World. There, he married Constance Lloyd and fathered two sons. During this time, Wilde published witty epigrams, various fairy tales, and political essays, all of which hinted at his socialist and anarchist beliefs. Wilde is most well-known for his comedic plays—Lady Windermere's Fan, A Woman of No Importance, An Ideal Husband, The Importance of Being Earnest—and the religious play, Salomé. Soon after his widespread success, Wilde’s private life disintegrated. Wilde’s homosexual inclinations led to a trial in 1895. He was sentenced two years in prison with hard labor on the grounds of “gross indecency”. De Profundis was written to his during his imprisonment. He recounted his devotion to individualism and outlined his life, and imprisonment, in the essay. For the remaining three years of his life, Wilde traveled throughout Europe with no money before dying in Paris on November 30, 1900. Throughout his entire career, Wilde only published one novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, which featured “French decadence and English gothicism”.

The Picture of Dorian Gray epitomized Wilde’s commitment to Aestheticism and rejection of Philistinism. The novel’s namesake, Dorian Gray, is young, delicate, and beautiful. His prince-like innocence charms a brooding artist named Basil Hallward, who adopts Dorian as his muse and makes him the subject of many of his paintings. Basil, seeking to retain Dorian’s naivety, tries guarding him from the cynical influence of his friend Henry Walton. Walton, however, introduces himself to Dorian anyway, and in one conversation manages to completely transform Dorian’s worldly outlook. Dorian mirrors Walton’s highfalutin intellectualism and begins to seek out the supposed benefits of a hedonistic lifestyle where concerns of morality are nugatory. Dorian, suddenly recognizing the impermanence of his physical beauty, proclaims he would do absolutely anything to remain as youthful as the portrait Basil painted of him. Little does he know that this wish comes true. Trading his soul for eternal youth, Dorian is allowed to remain physically youthful while his portrait ages to reflect his increasingly grotesque moral character.