Dorian Gray and Aestheticism

by

 Benjamin Foitzik

Table of Contents

I Introduction

II What is Aestheticism ? 
(two different philosophies)

1. Aestheticism as a philosophy of life

2. Aestheticism as a philosophy of art

III The History of Aestheticism

1. The origin

2. The development

3. The decline

IV The Development of Dorian Gray as compared to Aestheticism in general

1. The infection

2. The advanced stage

3. Transgression of the last frontier

4. The Fall of Dorian

V The End

I Introduction

In this paper I will first give an account of the aesthetic movement in England, from origin to decline, which I will then oppose to the character of Dorian Gray in Oscar Wilde′s The Picture of Dorian Gray. The comparison of the different stages in the development of both aestheticism and its incarnated representative Dorian Gray is intended to outline the fact that, even before the decline of aestheticism sets in in the 1890s, Oscar Wilde has anticipated the danger that lies in leading a life that is exclusively based on aesthetic values and pursuing its doctrines too persistently. Through the ruin of Dorian Gray, Wilde reveals the tragedy of the aesthetic movement and thus shows that it is eventually inevitably condemned to fail. Dorian is the epitome of an aesthete who in the end becomes the martyr of a movement which has preached, taught and understood its philosophy too narrow-mindedly. Of course this is a deficiency of narrow-mindedness in general and thus The Picture of Dorian Gray does not only represent the undoing of the epoch it was written in but also of any other theory or philosophy that takes itself too seriously.

I will support this statement with an assertion of Lord Henry Wootton′s, who is obviously a polemic on general principles but therefore mostly not less right.

"Humanity takes itself too seriously. It′s the world′s original sin. If the caveman had known how to laugh, History would have been different." (p.50 )¹

II What is aestheticism? (two different philosophies)²

1. Aestheticism as a philosophy of life

When the Romantic Age comes to an end in England, there is an aspiration after the liberated, the free imagination, a longing for the new and the strange. In a Victorian Society that is dominated by traditional and conventional ideas, such as vulgar materialism (e.g. that the gross national product is seen as a criterion of civilisation), a utilitarian spirit which disparages intellectual pursuits and a puritan moralism that preaches ′doing good and avoiding evil′, aestheticism is the artistic expression of dislike for these predominating values. The aesthetes estimate beauty over commonly received standards and ideas and live now according to the formula of John Keats that "beauty is truth, truth is beauty". They go even so far to elevate beauty above truth and glorify it as their new deity.

The aesthetes make the search for beauty their main aim in life, they tend to seek beauty everywhere, in art, literature and life in general, in order to satisfy their need for personal fulfilment and find something to give meaning to life. In their opinion, it is the enjoyment of beauty that can provide this meaning everyone is searching for, which is again a controversy with the Puritan ethic that considers a good life to be active and some kind of moral struggle or even a pilgrimage. Aestheticism, on the other hand, sees life rather as a spectacle than a battle, in their view life is not active but contemplative. Again, Lord Henry serves as an adequate example:

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1 All page references, unless otherwise stated, given parenthetically within this essay refer to Oscar Wilde′s The Picture of Dorian Gray, Penguin Popular Classics (Cox & Wyman Ltd: Reading, Berkshire,1994).

2 All information on the philosophy and history of Aestheticism is taken from R.V. Johnson′s The Critical Idiom: Aestheticism, ed. J.D. Jump (Methuen & Co Ltd: London,1973).
Any references to the bibliography of Oscar Wilde are based on R. Ellmann′s Oscar Wilde (Hamish Hamilton Ltd: London, 1987).