The Preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray…

… and Aestheticism

AestheticismAestheticism artistic movementContextSpace: Europe Specificity: Aestheticism: England; Symbolism or Decadence: France; Decadentismo: Italy

Time: the end of XIX centuryCore: emphasis of aesthetic values (Beauty), cult of sensations.

“Art for art’s sake”Art should not teach or be useful

BUT communicate beauty and sensations

S. Kierkegaard

The Preface

“The artist is the creator of beautiful things"“To reveal art and conceal the artist is art’s aim”“The highest, as the lowest, form of criticism is a mode of autobiography”“All art is at once surface and symbol”“Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril”“All art is quite useless”

The Picture of Dorian Gray

Writer: Oscar WildeGenre: Bildungsroman1890Dorian Gray: fascinating young man, model-like character.Lord Henry Wotton: painter, teaches Dorian Gray Walter Pater’s philosophyHe starts living with the only purpose of reaching pleasures

AIM Reaching eternal youth

Picture showing the protagonist’s aging.Ending: consciousness of his acts; scars his picture.

O. Wilde’s Literary AimManifesto of Aestheticism.Art should appeal to the senses of the reader.

O. Wilde shows his point of view about Art.Life should be a RE-PRESENTATION of Art.

Showing different attitudes about life as a concrete comment to the Victorian attitude to life