The preface of the picture of dorian gray

Materie:	Appunti
Categoria:	Lingue
Voto:	2 (2)
Download:	226
Data:	30.05.2001
Numero di pagine:	1
Formato di file:	.doc (Microsoft Word)

In the famous Preface of The Picture of Dorian Gray, a sort of poem, Wilde affirmed his concept of Art and the Artist.
The artist is a creator of beautiful things and the aim of art is to reveal itself but even to conceal the artist. The critic can translate his impression of art into another manner; criticism is actually a mode of autobiography. To find ugly meanings in beautiful things is a fault, while to find beautiful meanings in beautiful things is to be cultivated. However, there aren’t moral or immoral books: books are well written or badly written. That is all.
Moreover the artist doesn’t desire to prove anything and hasn’t ethical sympathies but he can express everything. He is always in accord with himself. Finally, Art doesn’t mirror life but the spectator, and is quite useless.
This preface expresses his view of art as the cult of beauty that could prevent the murder of the soul. Moreover the concept of Art for Art’s sake was to Wilde, still Victorian at heart, a moral imperative and not only an aesthetic one, infact in the end he stressed the integrity and coherence of the artist saying that he must be in accord with himself.