Dorian Gray Art Quotes

"Last night she was a great artist. This evening she is merely a commonplace mediocre actress."
"Don’t talk like that about any one you love, Dorian. Love is a more wonderful thing than Art."
"They are both simply forms of imitation, remarked Lord Henry."

– Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 7. Dorian is highly critical of Sibyl’s performance as Juliet. He loves the "art" that Sibyl can create and the characters she can give life to, but not Sibyl the person. So when her art fails her and she becomes mere woman, Dorian sees no worth in her. When Basil berates Dorian, holding up love as more wonderful than art, Lord Henry dismisses both as unreal and just forms of imitation.

The painted scenes were my world. I knew nothing but shadows, and I thought them real. You came – oh, my beautiful love! – and you freed my soul from prison. You taught me what reality is. To-night, for the first time in my life, I saw through the hollowness, the sham, the silliness of the empty pageant in which I had always played.

– Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 7. Sibyl proclaims her love to Dorian after she performs poorly as Juliet, which she sees as a positive life-transforming event. She confesses that hitherto she has lived in a world of art which to her was reality. But now that she has found true love with Dorian, her acting world is just an "empty pageant." Her relationship with Dorian is her new reality and has freed her soul from "prison."

To-night, for the first time, I became conscious that the Romeo was hideous, and old, and painted, that the moonlight in the orchard was false, that the scenery was vulgar, and that the words I had to speak were unreal, were not my words, were not what I wanted to say. You had brought me something higher, something of which all art is but a reflection. You had made me understand what love really is. My love! My love! Prince Charming! Prince of life! I have grown sick of shadows. You are more to me than all art can ever be. What have I to do with the puppets of a play?

– Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 7. Sibyl’s rejection of her art as "false" and "unreal" theater brings us back to the final lines in the Preface: "All art is quite useless." Now that she has found love with her real-life Romeo and "Prince Charming," she no longer wants her useless art of "shadows" and "puppets." Dorian means more to her now than art could ever be.

How little you can know of love if you say it mars your art! Without your art you are nothing.

– Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 7. Dorian’s dismissive and insensitive rejection of Sibyl is nothing short of abusive. Dorian believes that Sibyl’s art is essentially her, just as he believes his beauty is what makes him what he is. Sibyl is nothing more than a living artwork to him, an object of aesthetic value, not a human being. But she is of no value to him now that she can no longer act. This is the fuller quote: "You have spoiled the romance of my life. How little you can know of love, if you say it mars your art! Without your art, you are nothing. I would have made you famous, splendid, magnificent. The world would have worshipped you, and you would have borne my name. What are you now? A third-rate actress with a pretty face."

There is something to me quite beautiful about her death. I am glad I am living in a century when such wonders happen. They make one believe in the reality of the things we all play with, such as romance, passion, and love.

– Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 8. Lord Henry is really impressed by Sibyl’s act of suicide. He is trying to persuade Dorian not to wallow in sadness and guilt, but instead to view Sibyl’s suicide as a beautiful and the ultimate artistic act of deathless love for him.

But you must think of that lonely death in the tawdry dressing-room simply as a strange lurid fragment from some Jacobean tragedy…The girl never really lived, and so she has never really died. To you at least she was always a dream, a phantom that flitted through Shakespeare’s plays and left them lovelier for its presence, a reed through which Shakespeare’s music sounded richer and more full of joy. The moment she touched actual life, she marred it, and it marred her, and so she passed away. Mourn for Ophelia, if you like. Put ashes on your head because Cordelia was strangled. Cry out against Heaven because the daughter of Brabantio died. But don’t waste your tears over Sibyl Vane. She was less real than they are.

– Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 8. In his attempt to comfort Dorian after Sibyl’s death, Lord Henry creates an alternative reality. Sibyl only existed in plays and the dramatic art of theater, he says. She never really lived and so she hasn’t really died, he rationalizes in his replacement of reality. Henry portrays Sibyl as too innocent for real life, for when she touched it, it marred and she died. Henry is not emotionally moved by Sibyl’s death and there is a callous tone when he speaks about it here.

For there would be a real pleasure in watching it. He would be able to follow his mind into its secret places. This portrait would be to him the most magical of mirrors. As it had revealed to him his own body, so it would reveal to him his own soul. And when winter came upon it, he would still be standing where spring trembles on the verge of summer. When the blood crept from its face, and left behind a pallid mask of chalk with leaden eyes, he would keep the glamour of boyhood. Not one blossom of his loveliness would ever fade. Not one pulse of his life would ever weaken.

– Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 8. Dorian is now comfortable with the fact that he will be eternally young, despite having traded his soul for it. So he will take pleasure in watching the changing portrait, a magical mirror that will show him his own soul. When the face in the picture crumbles into a bloodless mask of chalk with leaden eyes, he will enjoy the beauty of youth. His portrait has turned into something supernatural, a picture of his changing soul. At this stage Dorian is the complete narcissist.

As a rule, people who act lead the most commonplace lives. They are good husbands, or faithful wives, or something tedious.

– Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 9. Dorian is a fast learner under the mentorship of Lord Henry. He is even coming up with witty epigrams to rival his mentor. This one rather desparagingly about actors, who practice the performing art of acting, leading commonplace tedious lives. Although he does qualify this by saying how different Sibyl was and that "she lived her finest tragedy."

To become the spectator of one’s own life, as Harry says, is to escape the suffering of life. I know you are surprised at my talking to you like this. You have not realized how I have developed. I was a schoolboy when you knew me. I am a man now. I have new passions, new thoughts, new ideas. I am different, but you must not like me less. I am changed, but you must always be my friend. Of course, I am very fond of Harry. But I know that you are better than he is. You are not stronger – you are too much afraid of life – but you are better. And how happy we used to be together! Don’t leave me, Basil, and don’t quarrel with me. I am what I am. There is nothing more to be said.

– Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 9. Dorian wishes to be the spectator of his own life and review his experiences and impressions like you assess a work of art. He admits to Basil that he is a changed man. But is it for the better? We think not. He speaks of indulging his "new passions, new thoughts, new ideas" brought about under the influence of self-proclaimed hedonist and unremitting pleasure seeker Lord Henry. In the new Dorian there are few signs of guilt or self-awareness or a conscience at work. He will be a spectator of his own sins as he watches them manifest themselves in the changing face of Basil’s portrait of him. Appealing to Basil to always remain his friend, he compares him with Lord Henry and tells him that he is too afraid of life. This is rather ironic, as Dorian will kill his friend Basil with a knife of Chapter 20.

He would throw open to the world his beautiful house and have the most celebrated musicians of the day to charm his guests with the wonders of their art. His little dinners, in the settling of which Lord Henry always assisted him, were noted as much for the careful selection and placing of those invited, as for the exquisite taste shown in the decoration of the table, with its subtle symphonic arrangements of exotic flowers, and embroidered cloths, and antique plate of gold and silver.

– Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 11. The story leaps forward in time, detailing the years Dorian spends emulating the adventures of the hero of the yellow book Lord Henry gave him. Dorian’s lifestyle goes full hedonism – a life dedicated to pleasure: dinner parties, musical gatherings, a beautiful house full of gold and silver, embroidered cloths and exotic flowers, showing his taste for the decorative arts. His mentor Lord Henry helped with the arranging of the dinners.

Society – civilized society, at least – is never very ready to believe anything to the detriment of those who are both rich and fascinating. It feels instinctively that manners are of more importance than morals, and, in its opinion, the highest respectability is of much less value than the possession of a good chef.

– Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 11. In this passage Wilde lashes out at the hypocrisy of Victorian high society. Amid the swirling rumors about Dorian’s sordid behavior his great wealth provides for him a protective shield. For this society is slow to believe anything bad about people like Dorian who are "both rich and fascinating." Manners are regarded as more important than morals. The rest of this passage suggests that what makes good art also makes for a good society and insincerity even may be good thing: "And, after all, it is a very poor consolation to be told that the man who has given one a bad dinner, or poor wine, is irreproachable in his private life. Even the cardinal virtues cannot atone for half-cold entrées, as Lord Henry remarked once, in a discussion on the subject; and there is possibly a good deal to be said for his view. For the canons of good society are, or should be, the same as the canons of art. Form is absolutely essential to it. It should have the dignity of a ceremony, as well as its unreality, and should combine the insincere character of a romantic play with the wit and beauty that make such plays delightful to us. Is insincerity such a terrible thing? I think not. It is merely a method by which we can multiply our personalities."

As one read them, one seemed to be floating down the green water-ways of the pink and pearl city, seated in a black gondola with silver prow and trailing curtains. The mere lines looked to him like those straight lines of turquoise-blue that follow one as one pushes out to the Lido. The sudden flashes of colour reminded him of the gleam of the opal-and-iris-throated birds that flutter round the tall honeycombed Campanile, or stalk, with such stately grace, through the dim, dust-stained arcades. Leaning back with half-closed eyes, he kept saying over and over to himself: –
"Devant une façade rose,
Sur le marbre d’un escalier."
The whole of Venice was in those two lines.

– Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 14. While he waits for scientist Alan Campbell, Dorian reads some stanzas about Venice from a book of French poetry. The two lines quoted translate as "Upon a red-faced town On the marble of a stairway." They transport Dorian back to Italy’s floating city, which he had visited with Basil. A beautiful simile is used to compare the lines of the poem to the "straight lines of turquoise-blue that follow one as one pushes out to the Lido." There is a dark irony in the images of beauty and peace conjured up by Dorian in this passage, as they mask Dorian’s darker nefarious thoughts – to have Campbell dispose of Basil Hallward’s body after his grisly murder by Dorian. When Campbell refuses Dorian uses blackmail to force him to carry out his dirty work.

What was that loathsome red dew that gleamed, wet and glistening, on one of the hands, as though the canvas had sweated blood? How horrible it was! – more horrible, it seemed to him for the moment, than the silent thing that he knew was stretched across the table, the thing whose grotesque, misshapen shadow on the spotted carpet showed him that it had not stirred, but was still there, as he had left it.

– Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 14. When Dorian goes to cover the portrait after stabbing Basil to death he notices that it has undergone a dramatic new change in appearance. He experiences a feeling of terror when he sees the "red dew" glistening on one of the hands, as if the painting had "sweated blood" and is alive. He finds the sight more horrifying than that of Basil’s corpse after he murdered him. The evidence of Dorian’s diabolical crime is clearly portrayed in the portrait.

She is very clever, too clever for a woman. She lacks the indefinable charm of weakness. It is the feet of clay that make the gold of the image precious. Her feet are very pretty, but they are not feet of clay. White porcelain feet, if you like. They have been through fire, and what fire does not destroy, it hardens. She has had experiences.

– Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 15. Lord Henry makes this comment about the beautiful Duchess of Monmouth, who is smitten with Dorian and has been invited by him to a party that he is hosting. This is typical of Henry’s disdainful view of women in general. Henry likes women to be vulnerable with "feet of clay" and not "too clever." Using two decorative arts metaphors he describes the Duchess as having white porcelain feet rather than feet of clay, so she is hardened by her experiences.

Ugliness that had once been hateful to him because it made things real, became dear to him now for that very reason. Ugliness was the one reality. The coarse brawl, the loathsome den, the crude violence of disordered life, the very vileness of thief and outcast, were more vivid, in their intense actuality of impression, than all the gracious shapes of Art, the dreamy shadows of Song.

– Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 16. Dorian is taking a cab ride to a rough and seedy part of London to visit an opium den to indulge his craving for opium. He reflects on his soul’s fall from grace. From being a lover of art and beautiful things and indulging himself in aesthetic experiences, ugliness has now become his only reality. His "disordered life" in London’s heart of darkness was now more vivid and intense to him than all the shapes of art.

Yes…his painting had quite gone off. It seemed to me to have lost something. It had lost an ideal. When you and he ceased to be great friends, he ceased to be a great artist.

– Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 19. Lord Henry is discussing the disapperance of Basil with Dorian. He expresses the view that Basil’s art suffered greatly when the once great friendship between Dorian and the artist waned. Basil’s closeness to Dorian had inspired him to produce better art, Henry observes.

Life has been your art. You have set yourself to music. Your days are your sonnets.

– Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 19. Lord Henry makes this response when Dorian complaints that he is not the same person anymore and laments over what he has done with his life. Comparing Dorian’s life of pleasure and sin to a work of art, Henry tells him: "I am so glad that you have never done anything – never carved a statue, or painted a picture, or produced anything outside of yourself!" He goes on in the above quote to tell Dorian that he has lived his life as a piece of living art.

"You poisoned me with a book once. I should not forgive that. Harry, promise me that you will never lend that book to anyone. It does harm."
"My dear boy, you are really beginning to moralize. You will soon be going about like the converted, and the revivalist, warning people against all the sins of which you have grown tired. You are much too delightful to do that…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."

– Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 19. At this point in the story Dorian is troubled by his conscience and has vowed to live a better life. Thinking back over his past twenty years, he challenges Lord Henry, blaming him for corrupting him with a book. This is a reference to the infamous "yellow book" that Henry gifted to him. It is believed to be Joris-Karl Huysman’s novel À Rebours ("Against Nature"). The story follows a 19th century Parisian man who seeks "all the passions and modes of thought that belonged to every century except his own." Dorian is seduced by the young man’s search for pleasure and when first he read the story saw his own life in it: "the whole book seemed to him to contain the story of his own life, written before he had lived it." Henry is a committed hedonist and naturally doesn’t accept Dorian’s accusation. He believes that art doesn’t influence action and is neither moral nor immoral. A book that is called immoral merely holds a mirror up to the world’s shame.

It had kept him awake at night. When he had been away, he had been filled with terror lest other eyes should look upon it. It had brought melancholy across his passions. Its mere memory had marred many moments of joy. It had been like conscience to him. Yes, it had been conscience. He would destroy it…As it had killed the painter, so it would kill the painter’s work, and all that that meant. It would kill the past, and when that was dead, he would be free. It would kill this monstrous soul-life, and without its hideous warnings, he would be at peace.

– Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 20. Dorian picks up the knife with which he killed Basil Hallward and stabs Basil’s portrait of him with it. In destroying the painting he believes that he is killing his conscience and the past and so freeing himself from these. His decision to destroy the portrait is in keeping with his hedonism – to pursue only things that bring pleasure, and get rid of those that don’t.
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