Estetica - Estetismo e Superomismo

unhappiness, he brakes the picture with a knife and he immediately falls down dead, as if he has stabbed

himself. The servitude rush to the place and they look a wonderful picture of their master and on the floor a

dead man with an evening dress, with a knife in the heart, with an old and cruel face. They understand that

he is their master only for his rings. The life, broken the charm, prevails over Dorian, who wants to oppose to

his necessary pain another life, fictitious and mysterious.

The allegoric meaning of this novel exalts the absolute and eternal value of art, which triumphs over all the

ugliness and lowness of the life. In this work the author states that for obtaining the essential detaching from

the life, for looking himself in third person it is necessary to invent, to lie, to wear a mask. And the mask is

deliberately formed by himself, because it is different from his imperfect nature and because it is the product

of his intellect; it really is the only reality of the man. His behaviour is more important than his nature. "To be

artificial!" is the real saying of the aesthete, who understands this reality. "The truthfulness is a pose; and the

most irritating one that I know." Says Lord Henry at the beginning of the story. Then he observes: "I like the

theatre. It is truer than the life!" and he praises the hypocrisy, typical of the good society, where the manners

are most important than the moral, and then, like in the art, the form is all. The mask makes the life richer,

flooder. It permits to the aesthete to feel pleasure for every kind of experiences and it permits to the thinker

to play with the ideas, to sustain different point of view for the love of speaking. In fact the primary concern of

Wilde in his novel is the exploration of the power of the language. It is rich, elaborated and ornamented as

the embroideries, the jewels and the works of art it so accurately describes. Similes and metaphors compare

things in the real world to the products of art and craftsmanship, to the materials and effects created by

artists. The novel is mostly written in an intensely poetic style that does not only describe, but communicates

sensuous pleasure by the richness and musicality of its language. Words produce in the reader the same

hypnotic effect, the same "form of reverie" and "malady of dreaming" that Dorian experiences at the sound of

Lord Henry’s voice and while reading his book. The novel "The picture of Dorian Gray" derives from the

influence of different sources:

-The novel "A Rebours" (1884) by the Belgian writer J.K.Huysmans, a mannered portrait of aristocratic

decadence whose protagonist Des Esseintes becomes the prototype of the aesthete of fin de siecle

literature. This book is read by Dorian and produces in him " a form of reverie, a malady of dreaming", and

from whose influence he can not free himself for years.

- The psychological horror stories, such as "The strange case of Dr Jekill and Mr Hyde" (1886) by the

Scottish novelist R.T.Stevenson and "Frankestein" (1818) by Mary Shelley. He draws inspiration from the

Stevenson’s way of describing the characters of his work: he looks inside "the haunted house of Victorian

values" and he speaks about the "homo duplex", that’s to say a man with a double personality, a respectable

public one and a hidden, violent and animal one. (Since the beginning of his friendship with Lord Alfred

Douglas the Wilde himself had led a double life).

-The British and German stories about a character selling his soul to the devil, such as Chistopher Marlow’s

"The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus" (1588-89), Charles Robert Maturin’s "Melmoth the Wanderer"

(1820) and Goethe’s "Faust (1808-32). However, in Wilde’s novel there is no real devil and no contract with

it. Dorian manages to remain young and beautiful by the force of his narcissism. Lord Henry Wotton has

diabolical connotations and exercises a powerful and wicked influence on him. His familiar name "Harry" is

an allusion to the expression "Old Harry", a common and familiar name for the devil. His low, languid voice

has seductive power that is characteristic of representations of the devil in literature. The scene in which he

delivers his panegyric on youth and beauty takes place in the garden and borrows several images from the

episode between Eve and the serpent in Milton’s "Paradise Lost" (1667).Dorin Gray and Sybil Vane are also

meaningful names. "Dorian" means of Doria, a part of Ancient Greek. It suggests both the young man’s

classical beauty and Lord Henry’s "Hellenic ideal" to which he aspired to return. "Gray" indicates the contrast

between the good and evil. "Sibyl", according to the ancient Greek mythology, was a prophetess who was

thought to know the future. The pronunciation of "Vane" suggests, on the one hand, that her words and her

truth are spoken "in vain" because Dorian rejects and abandons her, and on the other, that the girl herself

may be vain, empty and superficial.

-The romances by Dickens, for the realistic part of the novel, for example the detailed description of night

London.

-The "dandy" romances written in the first part of the century, such as "Tremaine" (1825) by Robert Plumer

Ward, "Pelham" by E.G.Bulwer Lytton and in particular "Vivian Gray" by Bejamin Disraeli, the story of the

political and amorous ambitions of a young man, whose name is remembered by Wilde in the protagonist of

his novel. Skuola.net

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THE PREFACE OF DORIAN GRAY:

The artist is the creator of beautiful things.

To reveal art and conceal the artist is art’s aim.

The critic is he who can translate into another manner or a new material his impression of beautiful things.

The highest, as the lowest, form of criticism is a mode of autobiography.

Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault.

Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope.

They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only Beauty. There is no such thing as a moral or an

immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.

The nineteenth-century dislike of Realism is the rage of Caliban seeing his own face in a glass.

The nineteenth-century dislike of Romanticism is the rage of Caliban not seeing his own face in a glass.

The moral life of man forms part of the subject-matter of the artist, but the morality of the art consists in the

perfect use of an imperfect medium. No artist desires to prove anything. Even things that are true can be

proved.

No artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical sympaty in an artist is an unpardonable manerism of style.

No artist is ever morbid. The artist can express everything.

Thought and language are to the artist instruments of an art.

Vice and virtue are to the artist materials for an art.

From the point of view of form, the type of all the arts is the art of the musician. From the point of view of

feeling, the actor’s craft is the type.

All art is at once surface and symbol.

Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril.

Those who read the symbol do so at their peril.

It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.

Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex, and vital.

When critics disagree, the artist is in accord with himself.

We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it. The only excuse for making

a useless thing is that one admires it intensely.

All art is quite useless.

GABRIELE D’ANNUNZIO:

In Italia D’Annunzio creò un altro importante modello dell’estetismo i cui atteggiamenti, l’arte, le idee, o

meglio i miti, appaiono il risultato dell’incontro di un temperamento nativamente sensuale, irrazionale,

egotistico, antidemocratico con la particolare situazione storico-sociale "fin de siecle" ( di fine secolo) e con

le tendenze del decadentismo europeo. Skuola.net

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Nella prefazione del suo romanzo, "Il ritratto di Dorian Gray", pubblicato nel 1890, Oscar Wilde affermava:

"Non esistono libri morali o immorali. I libri sono scritti bene o scritti mali: questo è tutto." Ebbene, per

Gabriele D’Annunzio la vita è come un libro; nè morale, nè immorale:scritto bene o scritto male. Il suo ritenne

di averlo scritto bene. È sostanzialmente questo il suo estetismo. D’Annunzio, infatti a differenza di tanti altri

scrittori, pare non avere una storia, un lento graduale evolversi verso atteggiamenti spirituali ed artistici

sempre più maturi e complessi: pare invece che egli giunga d’un tratto, giovanissimo, dopo pochi anni, alla

scoperta di sè, di quel motivo che resterà poi sempre centrale in tutta la sua opera, e che da allora in poi non

faccia che intrecciare a quel motivo centrale motivi sempre diversi, che tentare, in modi sempre diversi di

evaderne, senza mai riuscirci, che, in una formula semplice, variarlo delle variazioni più varie, senza però

mai sopraffarlo. Questo motivo centrale, cuore della sua opera e, nello stesso tempo, della sua vita di uomo

è una capacità singolarmente dotata di cogliere il mondo ( il mondo tutto delle cose dello spirito ) con la

sensibilità estremamente raffinata ma, appunto per questo, disgregatrice, atta a partecipare sensazioni,

espressioni , momenti, incapace di collegare in una trama organica e umana, incapace quindi di

rappresentare gli uomini e le loro vicende. E così D’Annunzio scrive di sè: "Sempre qualcosa di carnale,

qualcosa che assomiglia ad una violenza carnale, un misto d’atrocità e d’ebbrietà, accompagna l’atto

generativo del mio pensiero"; quando pensiamo a questa ed altrettanti affermazioni il suo estetismo non può

non apparire torbido e ambiguo. Per lui l’estetismo fu dunque il suo primo tentativo di superare la bestialità

inconsapevole e perché inconsapevole pura, del naturalismo e del senso: "Ed ebbi così nel mio sguardo

l’inconsapevolezza de la purità bestiale" scriverà una volta nelle Laudi. L’estetismo rappresenta lo sforzo di

spiritualizzare la sensualità redimendola nel culto della bellezza, anzi della Bellezza e si esprime nella

formula: "Il verso è tutto ". L’arte è il valore supremo, e ad essa devono essere subordinati tutti gli altri valori.

La vita si sottrae alle leggi del bene e del male e si sottopone solo alla legge del bello trasformandosi in

opera d’arte.

Sono gli anni romani (1881-91) che vedono D’Annunzio astro nascente non solo del firmamento letterario,

ma anche di quello mondano della capitale, un personaggio ricercato nei salotti dell’aristocrazia, nelle

redazioni dei giornali, al centro di amori teatrali, (come quello contrastato per la duchessina Maria Hordouin

di Gallese, che si apre con una fuga sensazionale, quasi un rapimento, e si conclude con un matrimonio

modesto ma memorabile,) duelli clamorosi , imprese sportive, che fanno notizia, scandalo e tanta pubblicità

allo scrittore e alle sue opere; insomma vita e letteratura cominciano a fondersi insieme secondo la logica sia

pur provinciale di quello che in seguito sarà detto il divismo. Pronto a rispondere ai miti del giorno e a sua

volta a suscitarli, dà in pasto al pubblico nobile e alto borghese i miti dell’eros e del nazionalismo. (Basta

pensare alla grande forza retorica con cui, durante un comizio interventista a Roma del 1915, incitava gli

italiani alla violenza). Ed è qui che emerge, per la prima volta, l’ambiguità della sua personalità, che non

riuscirà mai a superare: egli si è creato la maschera dell’esteta, dell’individuo superiore, dalla squisita

sensibilità, che rifugge inorridito dalla mediocrità borghese, ma in realtà il culto della bellezza e il "vivere

inimitabile" superomistico in cui si rifugia risultano finalizzati a ciò che D’Annunzio ostentava di disprezzare, il

denaro, le esigenze di mercato; proprio lo scrittore più ostile al mondo borghese, era in realtà il più legato

alle sue leggi; proprio lo scrittore che più spregiava la massa, era costretto a sollecitarla ed a lusingarla. La