194
See also: Death in Venice 240W
hen the dandy Lord
Henry first seduces the
title character of Oscar
Wi lde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray
into a life of debauchery, his advice
to yield to temptation summarizes
the basic tenets of Aestheticism.
The Aesthetic movement developed
in late 19th-century Europe and
Britain, emphasizing the primacy
of “art for art’s sake” rather than for
its social, political, or moral “value.”In pursuit of pleasure
In Wilde’s novel, the beautiful
Dorian lives the life of the ideal
aesthete, embracing all forms
of hedonism in pursuit of new
sensations. As he enters further
into a life of dissipation and
corruption, behind closed doors
his magical portrait conceals the
horrors of his sins, his painted
image becoming older and uglier
while he remains young and
unblemished in the flesh.
While the story is considered
a prime example of the creed of
appreciating art and life for sensual
pleasure alone, Dorian’s path ofexcess is a destructive one and he
leaves many victims in his wake.
His is not a straightforward tale
of aesthetic pleasure, but, like the
Aesthetic movement, it questions
the bourgeois morality of the 19th
century, which required art to serve
a higher purpose. Wilde’s portrayal
of Aestheticism attacks this by
suggesting that art should be
removed from morality. Wilde saw
his celebration of amoral sensuality
and destruction as a critique of the
middle-class ideology that, he felt,
was stifling art with its didacticism.Beauty and decay
Just as Dorian superficially thrives
while his painting decays, the
façade of Aestheticism disguised
the loss of a middle-class social
order in the waning of the British
Empire. The beautiful decay
that so “fascinates” Lord Henry
represents the society from which
it stems, where temptation is overly
indulged as a symbol of a world in
decline. Beauty might reign, but
at a terrible cost—for Dorian, the
ultimate price is his soul. ■THE ONLY WAY TO GET
RID OF A TEMPTATION
IS TO YIELD TO IT
THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY (1891),
OSCAR WILDE
IN CONTEXT
FOCUS
AestheticismBEFORE
1884 In French writer Joris-
Karl Huysmans’ Against
Nature, the eccentric aesthete
antihero, Jean des Esseintes,
loathes middle-class morality.AFTER
1901 German novelist Thomas
Ma nn’s Buddenbrooks details
the decline of bourgeois
culture in the 19th century.1912 Thomas Mann’s novella
Death in Venice charts the
succumbing to temptation
of Gustav von Aschenbach,
an artist who goes down a
self-destructive path of erotic
infatuation and excess.
1926 The novella Dream Story,
by Austrian writer Arthur
Schnitzler, is published; it is
considered a key piece in the
turn-of-the-century Viennese
decadence movement that is
associated with Aestheticism.US_194-195_Dorian_Dracula.indd 194 08/10/2015 13:07