Aestheticism in Oscar Wildes, The

Picture of Dorian Gray

By shanewilliam

How to cite this post:

( OBrien, Shane, Aestheticism in Oscar Wildes, The Picture of Dorian Gray.

ScribblingShane. Feb 28, 2011. DATE ACCESSED.).

Oscar Wildes novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray is perhaps the most prominent
example of aestheticism in nineteenth century literature. Wildes characters, Dorian
Gray and Lord Henry both live the lives of an aesthete. Wilde himself is anti-
Victorian morality, and through this work, rejects the idea of Art as didactic. It is
obvious that Wilde, and his art, are heavily influenced by Immanuel Kants Critique
of the Power of Judgement.

Kants Analytic of the Beautiful breaks down the judgement of taste, concerning
quality, into four movements. The first is that the judgement of taste is aesthetic.
This movement distinguishes that which is beautiful, from that which is good and
that which is agreeable. That which is agreeable, is so because there is a personal
interest in it, which will cause one to seek it out. That which is good is laden with
interest, in the sense of an ultimate ends; there is a desirable effect. That which is
beautiful, is what pleases; Only the taste for the beautiful is a disinterested and free
satisfaction (95). Taste, therefore, is the faculty for judging the beautiful. Kant is
saying that beauty is not something artwork is able to possess, and it is not a logical
judgment on the behalf of the audience. Beauty is an awareness of pleasure, and is
aesthetic.

Focusing on the idea of pleasure and beauty, Wildes main character, Dorian Gray,
lives a life of pure pleasure, free from moralizing, and becomes interested only in that
which is beautiful: Live! Live the wonderful life that is in you! Let nothing be lost
upon you. Be always searching for new sensations. Be afraid of nothingA new
Hedonism-that is what our century wants (63). This is the advice given to Dorian by
Lord Henry, one of Wildes characters. He believes that pleasure is the highest aim
for human life. Also, as if reading directly from Critique of the Power of Judgment,
Lord Henry says,

Beauty if a form of Genius [...] People say sometimes that Beauty is only superficial.
That may be so. But at least it is not so superficial as Thought is. To me, Beauty is the
wonder of wonders. It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances. The
true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible (62)

Wilde, inspired by Kants first movement, is encouraging the idea that beauty is not
something which can be experienced logically, through thought. It must be
experienced aesthetically, and to do so one must simply experience beauty through
its pleasures. There is a mystery in what is beautiful, because it is just experienced
as something which pleases; It is not something which can be understood through
reasoning. The aforementioned section also echos Kants statement that, Beautiful
art is art of genius (186).

It is, however, ideas from Kants Third Movement, which are most prevalent in
Wildes novel. The Third Moment concerns the, Relation of the ends that are taken
into consideration in them (105). Kant states that,

If one would define what an end is in accordance with its transcendental

determinations, then an end is the object of a concept insofar as the latter is regarded
as the cause of the former; and the causality of a concept with regard to its object is
purposiveness. (105)

This means that, any time there is a concept which is thought to have caused an
object, the object itself is a purpose. Because of this, products which are a result of
human conceptualization are thought the be purposive. True Beauty, Free Beauty, is
purposive in its form only; there is no purpose of an end. Oscar Wildes novel, as a
whole, works on this level. There are no lessons intended to be learned in reading,
The Picture of Dorian Gray; it is not a didactic text. It is simply literature for
literatures sake.

The language of certain characters, particularly the paradoxical and whimsical

language of Lord Henry, is the form of Wildes art, and this form does not serve a
purpose of an ends. It does not educate, but rather seems to just exist to please its
reader. Lord Henry does not say things with a point or reason, he just communicates
whatever he feels like saying on any given subject. The man even aestheticizes a
womans suicide: Someone has killed herself for love of you. I wish that I had ever
had such an experience. It would make me in love with love for the rest of my life.
The people who have adored me [...] have always insisted on living on, long after I
had ceased to care for them (136). It is important to note that Lord Henry wishes
to be in love with love itself, not a person, and looks at the suicide with an emotional
detachment, totally disinterested in outcome or reason. Even the sexuality of Lord
Henry and Dorian Gray is aesthetic. This novel is riddled with coded homosexuality.
Because homosexuality was criminalized at the time Wilde wrote the novel, it is
never directly addressed, but is frequently alluded to. Homosexuality itself is very
aesthetic. It is very much pleasure for pleasures sake. There is only a purpose in the
form, there is no real concept (if the term concept is used as Kant uses it) because
there is no reason for two men to have sex other than for pleasure; procreation is
impossible. Therefore homosexuality is non utilitarian pleasure for pleasures sake.

Sibyl Vane, the woman who eventually kills herself when her love goes unrequited,
first catches the attention of Dorian Gray when he sees her perform at the theatre.
Dorian immediately falls in love with her, when he sees her as Art:

To-night she is Imogen [...] and tomorrow night she will be Juliet

When is she Sibyl Vane? Lord Henry asks.

Never (93).
To Dorian, Sibyl is her performance. She is the Art, not a person. Once he realizes
that she is simply Art imitating life (a performer acting out a role), Dorian rejects her.
In doing so he rejects the realistic art form in favour of aesthetic art. The rejection of
art imitating life is an underlying theme throughout-the-entire novel. After realizing
his own beauty, Dorian wishes that the beautiful portrait of himself would age, while
he remains beautiful forever. From that point forward, the portrait becomes the one
to age and show physical manifestations of Dorians sins. Dorian, meanwhile,
maintains his youth and good looks. However, the portrait restores the aesthetic
ideal by ceasing to reflect Life: Dorian is killed when he stabs the painting, and the
portrait is restored to its original beauty.

Looking at Oscar Wildes, The Picture of Dorian Gray, it is obvious that he studied
aesthetic theory. Also, exploring Wildes anti-utilitarian, anti-bourgeois approach to
art and beauty, it is obvious that Wilde is heavily influenced by Immanuel Kant.
More specifically, Kants Critique of the Power of Judgement. Wilde creates his main
characters as aesthetes, and he himself puts a strong emphasis on pure-sensory
response to his work, rejecting the idea of a moral filter. A moral filter would make
his novel a didactic text, and if his novel was intended to teach, it would be
purposive. Wilde is inspired by Kants anti-purposiveness of art, where the purpose
lies only in the form itself. Wilde even kills two of his characters as a means of
restoring an aesthetic ideal, and destroys any art which mimics life. All of the
aesthetic concepts in Wildes novel can be found in Kants, Analytic of the Beautiful,
in his first three moments concerning the judgement of taste.

Works Cited

Kant, Immanuel. Critique of the Power of Judgement. ed. Paul Guyer. trans. Paul
Guyer and Eric Matthews. New York, Cambridge University Press. 2000. Print

Wilde, Oscar. The Picture of Dorian Gray.ed. Norman Page. Peterborough,

Broadview Editions. 1998. Print.