Dorian Gray: Question#8

I think The Picture of Dorian Gray is pretty accurate on several events in history, one of these being the Aesthetic movement. The Aesthetic movement was a movement in which people believed that art should be available to all classes and that one didn’t have to have a reason to create art. That it didn’t need a meaning. One source that discuses this movement says, “Aesthetic experience is a fully autonomous and independent aspect of a human life. Thus, art should exist solely for its own sake.”(Aesthetic par.2) In fact, Oscar Wilde was even one of main authors who became a voice for this movement. Even his character Basil Hallward believes in this and even says, "An artist should create beautiful things, but should put nothing of his own life into them. We live in an age when men treat art as if it were meant to be a form of autobiography. We have lost the abstract sense of beauty.”(Wilde 13) The Aesthetic movement was happening in London in the setting this book was written in. In this story you can clearly see that the Aesthetic movement was a major influence to Oscar Wilde. Mainly because this movement helped to make Dorian’s portrait such an important symbol in the book.

Wilde, Oscar. The Picture of Dorian Gray. New York: Barns & Noble Classics, 2003. Print.

"Aesthetic Movement." Buffalo Architecture and History. Ingenius Inc. Web. 08 July 2011. .