Dorian decides to remain young forever, beautiful forever. He is willing to pay a very high price for this, and I am sure that we are all ready to judge him, to point him out as superficial, diabolic, to rise up on the pulpit and declare ourselves better than him.
But if we were given the opportunity to get away from all sin, infraction, slander? If a painting could pay for our sins? Would we still be so moralistic? Would we still be anchored to our judgment?
“What of Art?
-It is a malady.
–Love?
-An Illusion.
–Religion?
-The fashionable substitute for Belief.
–You are a sceptic.
-Never! Scepticism is the beginning of Faith.
–What are you?
-To define is to limit.” [1]
Friday, June 20 1890, Oscar Wilde prints the first version of The Picture of Dorian Gray: the extraordinary story of the young Dorian who lives in the Victorian London and who loves beauty above anything else. The novel is still considered today the manifesto of the aestheticism and the poetics of art for art’s sake, for which artistic expression is free and independent of the principles of morality.
“The world has changed because you are made of ivory and gold. The curves of your lips rewrite history.”[2]
1890, yet there could not be more contemporary romance! Isn’t the age we live in based on the image? Is not the appearance to count…
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