The Art of Influence

After finishing his novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde predicted that it would “create a sensation” when first appearing in Lippincott's monthly magazine on June 20th, 1890 (Mason). The subsequent claims and libel case were part of the many reactions to the novel. In the context of late 1800’s Victorian England, in the midst of aestheticism and integration of psychology into science, Wilde’s novel is an unsettling moral tale as well as statement on the position of art and language in society. The influences in the novel are shaped by decadence in the late 1800’s, an art movement characterized by a “time of experiment” and experience (Holbrook 34). The foundations of the movement are seen in Henry’s philosophy that encourages Dorian to capitalize on his youth and beauty. It is this quest for experience and eternal youth, regardless of morality, that ultimately leads to his demise. In this, Wilde examines and challenges the aesthetics and morality of Victorian England. Therefore, the treatment of influence in The Picture of Dorian Gray roots itself in the fluid art of language. Wilde’s own elaborate, lyrical style serves a didactic purpose: to prove the influence and superiority of language. Dorian’s malleability under Lord Henry’s linguistic talent reveals the power of words in shaping art and morality. The novel, in conversation with Wilde’s “The Critic as Artist” negotiates the role of psychology and aesthetics, ultimately suggesting that language is the primary influencer of art and morality. 

Oscar Wilde’s work reflects and challenges many popular theories of the late 1800’s. In context of John Stuart Mill’s theory on the freedom of thought, the novel navigates a psychological landscape that is fed and flourished through modern ideas that become corruptive influences. In balancing the “free exchange of ideas” versus “corruption of youth” Wilde uses a gothic, supernatural extreme to illustrate the power of influence on youth (Gagnier 26). Accompanying the liberation of thought is the construction of ethics and aesthetics, and in “The Critic as Artist” Wilde comments: “Aesthetics… are to ethics in the sphere of conscious civilization what, in the sphere of the external world, sexual is to natural selection. Ethics, like natural selection, makes existence possible. Aesthetics, like sexual selection, make life lovely and wonderful, fill it with new forms, and give it progress, and variety, and change” (Critic 202). This view of aesthetics aligns him with Darwinist theories of individuality and creativity, and is embodied in Henry’s flavorful monologues (Gagnier 25). Wilde also captures the connection between sexuality and aesthetics that is mirrored in Basil’s obsession with Dorian- he challenges Victorian morality by suggesting homosexual desires. Basil, the artist, is a proponent of ethics- he is what makes “art” possible, but is trapped in his momentary temporality, while Henry embodies Wilde’s view of aesthetics, he is the one who creates color in Basil’s picture, giving it “progress, and variety, and change”. Wilde’s case for aesthetics becomes evident in Henry’s entrancing dialogue, which breathes life into Dorian’s picture, and ultimately Dorian himself. 

The beginning of the novel stages Wilde’s philosophy on the role of language and art. Wilde writes in the preface “It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors” (Wilde 4). Although added a month after the novel was published, Wilde comments on the immobility of art itself, and role of the perceiver in creating meaning. This is also reflected in Henry’s first account with Dorian: Dorian’s perception of Basil’s portrait transforms rapidly after Henry’s monologue on his fleeting youth and beauty, which “stirred him at the time, and now, as he stood gazing at the shadow of his loveliness, the full reality of the description flashed across him” (Wilde 23). Basil points out that this shift in perspective is Harry’s doing: it is his words that inform the meaning of the painting, also reflecting Wilde’s view that “the writer is the superior artist” (Mendelssohn 153). Lord Henry claims that “all influence is immoral” because “to influence a person is to give him one’s soul” but goes on to relay his philosophy and encourage Dorian to pursue new sensations and yield to temptation (Wilde 18). Draped in elegant, enchanting words, the “music” of Henry’s speech conceals the inherent flaw of a superfluous, immoral existence. While Basil’s painting is static, Lord Henry’s words are a vehicle to transmit his own soul, his own ideas and beliefs into Dorian: “Words! Mere words! How terrible they were! How clear, how vivid, and cruel! One could not escape from them. And yet what a subtle magic there was in them! They seemed to be able to give a plastic form to formless things, and to have a music of their own as sweet as that of viol or of flute. Mere words! Was there anything as real as words?” (Wilde 28). Again, language is showcased as superior to the painting itself, for it is through the influence of words that art and morality are intertwined, and Lord Henry “substitutes an aesthetic for an ethical conscience” (Manganiello 28; Mendelssohn 154). As seen in Dorian’s sudden realization of his own beauty, reflected back to him in the picture, his physical senses and psyche are transformed by the power of Lord Henry’s language. 

Although Lord Henry enacts the role of a critic, influencing his own art piece- Dorian- he encourages a philosophy that separates aesthetics from ethics. Therefore, as Dorian is shaped by Lord Henry’s words and trades his soul for eternal youth, his innocence is replaced with selfishness and immorality. The text suggests a certain vulnerability in Dorian’s tragic family life, which fuels Lord Henry’s interest in Dorian: “There was something terribly enthralling in the exercise of influence… perhaps the most satisfying joy left to us in an age so limited and vulgar as our own, an age grossly carnal in its pleasures, and grossly common in its aims…” (Wilde 31). The use of sexual, sensuous diction describes the satisfaction Lord Henry derives from dominating Dorian’s beliefs. As a painter projects his image upon the canvas, Lord Henry projects his “soul” unto Dorian: “To a large extent this lad was his own creation...now and then a complex personality took the place and assumed the office of art...” (Wilde 48). By introducing personality as an art form, Wilde complicates the conventional views of aestheticism during the Victorian era- Lord Henry’s attempt to separate aesthetics from ethics is taken to an extreme and ultimately tragic for Dorian. After Dorian sells his own soul to capture in time the eternal pleasure of youth and beauty, he is corrupted by the fantastic images that Lord Henry breathed into him. Wilde uses a reversal of roles so that Dorian’s moral corruption animates the picture and Dorian himself becomes the static image. Here ethics are confined to the painting as it rots and decays from Dorian’s immorality, while he remains untouched, his beauty divorced from his morality. Dorian locks the portrait away, which also suggests a physical and cognitive disconnect from his morality.

In addition to establishing personality as a form of art, suggesting Lord Henry’s role as a critic in shaping Dorian, Wilde emphasizes the power of literature and words to also influence Dorian. Towards the end of the novel, when Dorian is complaining to Lord Henry that the book he suggested “poisoned” him, Henry replies: “As for being poisoned by a book, there is no such thing as that. Art has no influence upon action. It annihilates the desire to act. It is superbly sterile. The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame. That is all” (Wilde 172). In context of Wundt’s psychology in the late 1800’s, emphasizing the relation between language, literature and psychology, Wilde’s reference to the book and its influence adds to the psychological nature of art and aesthetics (Seagroatt 743). Dorian is blaming art for influencing him into action, and Lord Henry takes the position of a critic in saying that it is the subjective interpretation of art that determines how one is influenced. He denies the influence of art and literature, therefore caught in a contradiction that denies his own capacity to influence Dorian through his speech. Although Lord Henry’s speech may appear to be avoiding personal responsibility for Dorian’s corruption, and is at times filled with paradox, his ambivalent attitude toward art is an ironic representation of the society Wilde wishes to critique. In “The Critic as Artist” Wilde explicitly defines his politics on art versus language: “No, Ernest, don't talk about action. It is a blind thing dependent on external influences, and moved by an impulse of whose nature it is unconscious...It is only by language that we rise above them, or above each other--” (Critic 127). Wilde’s idea of art (painting) as stagnant and language as the superior art promotes individuality and personality as an integral part of aesthetics. The gothic, supernatural transformation of Dorian Gray is an allegory for the dangers of separating art and morality- if art does not influence action, the role of the critic as an interpreter is dependent on subjective analysis, therefore a unique morality: “His own individuality becomes a vital part of the interpretation” (Critic 155). This is shown through Dorian’s interpretation of his first love Sibyl Vane: his lack of morality manifests itself in viewing Sibyl as merely an art form, rejecting her when she transforms into a real person.

Dorian’s fleeting romance is a representation of art’s stagnation and exclusion from life. Once Sibyl does not meet his ideal, he rejects her; his egotism and shallowness is a result of his isolated aestheticism. Unlike Lord Henry’s role as a critic in sculpting Dorian, Dorian’s one-dimensional frame is exposed as he is unable to imagine Sibyl beyond the limits of her sphere of art. When she recognizes her love for Dorian above her role as an actress, she claims, “The painted scenes were my world. I knew nothing but shadows, and I thought them real. You came...and freed my soul from prison.” (70). Sibyl’s beautiful, confessional monologue mirrors Plato’s allegory of the cave, as she has been fooled by “shadows” until love becomes her true reality that she has been unaware of. Wilde’s choice of diction “painted scenes” is representative of the immobility of art, and the girl is brought to life through her love. Since Dorian sees Sibyl as merely an object, an art form, her transformation into a real person, combining morality and aesthetics through language, turns Dorian away. Again, Sibyl mirrors Wilde’s theory of art in “The Critic as Artist”: 

“The image stained upon the canvas possesses no spiritual element of growth or change. If they know nothing of death, it is because they know little of life, for the secrets of life and death belong to those, and those only, whom the sequence of time affects, and who possess not merely the present but the future, and can rise or fall from a past of glory or of shame. Movement, that problem of the visible arts, can be truly realized by Literature alone. It is Literature that shows us the body in its swiftness and the soul in its unrest” (Critic 134). 

As Sibyl is transmuted from an art piece into the fluid reality of language and life, Dorian rejects her in order to maintain his own static moral and aesthetic. The “movement” Wilde defines is evident in Sibyls confession, as it is a clear display of her soul, while Dorian himself is represented as a figure of art, but immobile due to his divorce from morality. Therefore, he is influenced by Lord Henry’s own life criticisms, but is unchanged by Sibyl’s confession of love, highlighting art’s separation from life and morality. 

Though Wilde’s contradictory language can tangle the ideals of the novel, as Lord Henry often confuses his, the separation of aesthetics and ethics in the case of Dorian’s life reveals art’s immobility and the power of language and perception in interpreting art. Lord Henry capitalizes on modern movements that endorse living life based on sensation and experience, divorcing aestheticism from ethics, as shown in the picture of Dorian, and  ultimately refusing to accept the consequences of his influence by remaining naive to Dorian’s true nature, the product of a corrupt morality. While his influence appears to be a form of psychological experiment, testing the “new Hedonism that was to recreate life,” pursue “experience itself” and “search for sensations” (Wilde 105). As previously mentioned, Wilde suggests personality and life as an art form, and Dorian is the experiment testing modern theories that divorce ethics and aestheticism, and question the relationship of psychology, perception, and art. Considering Wilde’s view on the critic, art’s ethics and aestheticism ultimately lie in the hands of the critic, who shapes life through words. Wilde writes “that is what the highest criticism really is, the record of one's own soul…. It is the only civilized form of autobiography, as it deals not with the events, but with the thoughts of one's life; not with life's physical accidents of deed or circumstance, but with the spiritual moods and imaginative passions of the mind.” (Critic 138). In his novel, Lord Henry embodies the critic and Dorian appears to be the art piece that Lord Henry is transforming. The influence of art is in the critic’s hands- otherwise the art is stagnant. His attempt to separate ethics and aesthetics in the art of Dorian’s life reveals the consequences of such influence.

In the end of the novel, Lord Henry is unconscious of the disastrous effect his philosophy had on Dorian. After Dorian suggests he murdered Basil, Lord Henry denies he is capable, therefore repressing the loss of control of his own creation (Wilde 169). If Dorian himself is the art piece, as suggested by Lord Henry in the end of the novel “life has been your art” then his influence and experiment in separating aesthetics from ethics was a failure (Wilde 172). The novel ends in a loss of control: Dorian becomes a monster fueled by Lord Henry’s convictions that he himself refuses to practice; rather, he hides behind his extravagant words and observes his “creation’s” cruel demise. Dorians aim to “cure the soul by means of the senses, and the senses by means of the soul” was unsuccessful, and he is ironically destroyed by his own vain cultivation of the senses. As much as Lord Henry’s words had an influence upon his soul, it is the “romance with his own corrupt nature” that solidifies his loss of self and moral demise (Manganiello 30). It was the influence of language, through Lord Henry’s convictions and the yellow book, that transformed his soul, but his own will in accepting the influence. Wilde conveys his idea about personality as “the final work of art” through Lord Henry’s curious construction of Dorian (Holbrook 103). In the preface Wilde dramatically concludes “all art is useless,” in an attempt to exaggerate the “lack of a progressive element” as it “ended in itself, and not any addition of personal power” (Wilde 4, Holbrook 104). The “personal power” circles back to the premise of “The Critic as Artist” and the vital mobility and aesthetic of language that the critic utilizes to add meaning to art. Lord Henry’s influence over Dorian is an amalgam for the potential and responsibility of the critic to decipher and recreate art from life, acknowledging that ethics and aesthetics are separate, but nevertheless both important to the realm of art and life. 

In The Picture of Dorian Gray Oscar Wilde complicates the relationship between art and life, using language as a tool to influence one’s soul. The novel itself was profoundly influential, reinforcing Wilde’s conviction on the power of words as a higher form of art. Dorian is transformed into an aesthetically pleasing, but morally corrupt version of the painting, conforming to the narrative Lord Henry imposes upon him. In relation to Wilde’s “The Critic as Artist” the separation of ethics and aesthetics is an experiment of the art critic, embodied in Lord Henry, who molds the life around him with his words but fails to see the detriment his experiment caused. While Basil’s painting gains life and movement, it is Dorian who becomes a stagnant image, beautiful but corrupt within. Wilde’s paradoxical views on the role of art and morality is reflected in Harry’s speech, yet regardless of whether his convictions were sincere, it was the influence of his language that transformed Dorian, and Wilde’s language that is still reflected upon today. 

Works Cited 

Drew, John M.L. Introduction. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, 1992, Wordsworth editions, 2001, pp. vi-xxxi.

Gagnier, Regenia. “Wilde and The Victorians.” Cambridge Companion to Oscar Wilde, Cambridge Univ. Press, 2010.

Holbrook, Jackson. The eighteen nineties: a review of art and ideas at the close of the nineteenth century. Penguin Books, 1939.

Manganiello, Dominic. “Ethics and Aesthetics in ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray.’” The Canadian Journal of Irish Studies, vol. 9, no. 2, 1983, pp. 25–33. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/25512571.

Mason, Stuart. Oscar Wilde: art and morality: a defence of "The Picture of Dorian Gray". J. Jacobs, 1908.

Mendelssohn, Michele. “Henry James, Oscar Wilde and Aesthetic Culture.” Cambridge Companion to Oscar Wilde, Cambridge Univ. Press, 2010.

Seagroatt, Heather. “Hard Science, Soft Psychology, and Amorphous Art in The Picture of Dorian Gray.” Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, vol. 38, no. 4, 1998, pp. 741–759. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/451096.

Wilde, Oscar, “The Critic as Artist [in, Intentions]”. Literary Theory Database, Cambridge, Chadwyck-Healey 1999.

Wilde, Oscar. The picture of Dorian Gray. Wordsworth Editions, 1996.