Art – a method of perverting the soul in The Picture of Dorian Gray

“The Picture of Dorian Gray” is one of the most known novel of Oscar Wilde. The
whole text is centered on the personality of the young Victorian aristocrat Dorian Gray and
how he is transformed. There are two pieces of art in this text which have a major influence
in the life of protagonist: a paint and a book.
When the text was firstly published in magazine Lippincott in 1890 has been hit by
criticism from the public. In Victorian Period people believed that the art’s major purpose
was to educate. Oscar Wilde had a different perception about art and he was of the opinion
that the art has no purpose. He promoted art for art in a period when the public opinion was
different. To get rid of the problem, Oscar Wilde inserted in the revised and modified edition
in 1891 a preface in which explains the problem.
One of the most important elements from this text is the picture painted by Basil
Hallward. This picture is the central element of the text, it is the thing that change the
protagonist’s life. Initially it is not so important, but once Dorian discover his major fears, the
painting is that which help him to overcome them. The major problems of Dorian Gray are
beauty and youth. Dorian wants to be all the time young and beautiful and surprising this fact
happens. While all characters older and die, Dorian is the only one who doesn’t change. The
thing that change is his portrait. Dorian’s character changes from the beginning to the end,
but not the external appearance. If in the beginning seems to be innocent in the end this image
is not yet valid. Dorian starts to do a lot of immoral things: it starts from little things such as
lying and getting to commit serious things, such as crime. These things don’t not affect his
social image, his figure doesn’t change at all, no one knows about his acts. The only one
which changes is the painting. As he commits more misfortunes, his portrait begins to grow
old more and more, becoming a projection of his bad soul. Dorian does not seem to be
affected by this, for him it is important that his physical appearance does not change. He has
a moment of weakness in which he becomes aware of the gravity of the situation and tries to
remedy things, but sees that he has no luck, so he gives up. He doesn't tell anyone about his
little secret, not even the author of the portrait, to Basil. Basil is more and more curious to see
what happened to his alone success in art, so he asks Dorian to show him the painting.
Initially the young man refuses to expose himself, then, in a moment of tension, he gives in
and decides to show to Basil their creation, because ultimately not only Basil is its author, but
also Dorian is, he managed to transform it completely, to give her a new face, to make her
become an expression of his evil perverted soul. When he removes the canvas Basil is
shocked by the way his work arrived. In an excess of Dorian anger he kills the creator of the
art that destroyed his life and destroys all traces of his deed with the help of a friend whom he
constrains. In the ending things are back to normal. The portrait of Dorian Gray regains its
initial brilliance, and the Dorian gray ages. Even if Oscar Wilde does not consider that art has
a purpose other than beauty, in the end a moral side can be read. If during the text it can be
accused of immorality, in the end it seems that things change in the sense that it condemns
the actions of the protagonist. In the end is underlined the idea that beauty is transient is
suggested, and what remains at the end of a life are the good deeds and beautiful memories.
Another piece of art which change the protagonist’s destiny is the yellow book. The
Yellow Book was a British quarterly literary periodical that was published in London from
1894 to 1897. It was a leading journal of the British 1890s; to some degree associated with
Aestheticism and Decadence, the magazine contained a wide range of literary and artistic
genres, poetry, short stories, essays, book illustrations, portraits, and reproductions of
paintings.1 Dorian Gray receives from Lord Henry Wotton a book in which he reads a novel
about the life of a young man in Paris. After reading this book the protagonist takes over the
young man's behavior from the book. In the following, the author describes the new Dorian’s
way of life: he begins collecting art pieces, tapestries, listening to music. At one point the
narrator says “Dorian had been poisoned by a book”. 2 which shows that in this novel art has
a negative influence on the characters. Even though Oscar Wilde through this sentence has
made it possible to understand that art has a negative effect, in the end it takes care to make
things right. Lord Henry, near the end of the tale, tells Dorian “As for you being poisoned by
a book, there is no such thing as that. Art has no influence upon action” 3 thus, through Lord
Henry, he returns to the idea that art has no harmful influence on anyone and continues to
advocate for art that is defined by itself.
In conclusion, Oscar Wilde writes a novel in which he expresses his beliefs about art
in a time when society had a completely different opinion. He advocates the separation of art
from pedagogical purposes and suggests that art should be viewed and used only for aesthetic
purposes.

1
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Yellow_Book
2
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/174/174-h/174-h.htm, Chapter 11
3
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/174/174-h/174-h.htm, Chapter 19