Concetti Chiave
- The preface of "The Picture of Dorian Gray" is considered the Manifesto of English aestheticism, expressing Wilde's views on art and morality.
- Wilde believes art should reveal itself while concealing the artist, emphasizing that the quality of writing, not moral judgment, defines a book.
- Art is deemed "useless" by Wilde, suggesting its value lies in beauty rather than practical or moral utility.
- "The Oval Portrait" by Edgar Allan Poe explores the complex relationship between art and life, highlighting obsession and neglect.
- The story illustrates the tragic consequence of the painter's obsession, as his dedication to capturing his wife's likeness leads to her death.
Manifesto of English aestheticism
The preface of The picture of Dorian Gray the novel is considered the Manifesto of English aestheticism, because through the preface Wilde expressed his ideas:
• the artist is the creator of beautiful things (una cosa brutta non è arte);
• to reveal art and conceal the artist is art’s aim;
• there’s no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books can only be well written or not.
• the artist can express everything;
• art is useless;
• the artist has to consider vice and virtue;
• [all art is at once surface and symbol. Those who beneath the surface do so at their peric.]
Wilde was influenced by another story:
The oval portrait
In The Oval Portrait, Edgar Allan Poe offers story about the relationship beetween art and life, through the narrator’s encounter (incontro) with the oval portrait of a young woman in a cheateau in Appenines. Later he finds a book which contains informations about the painting: the woman represented in it was the wife of the painter, who becomes more and more obsessed with capturing her likeness, until he ends up spending all of his time gazing at the portrait of his wife. He stops paying her attention and becomes more and more preoccupied with the painting. When he has just finished the portrait and turns to regard his wife, but she was dead because there’s was a corrispondence beetween the portrait and his wife.
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