Penny Dreadful Digital Book Club discussion

During the Victorian London era, art was seen as a tool for eduction and moral enlightenment. However, Oscar Wilde was a huge advocate of the Aesthetic Movement, which sought to emphasize the aesthetic values of art and free it from the burden of ethics and politics. When Wilde's "The Picture of Dorian Gray" was first published in 1890, there was a public outcry regarding its immorality. In response to the outcry, Wilde revised the book's Preface the following year to state, "Books are well written, or badly written. That is all."

Does "The Picture of Dorian Gray" support Wilde's argument that art exists simply for art's sake? Is there such a thing as a book without any type of moral or lesson? If someone is inspired to act immorally after reading a book, is the reader or the author to blame?

Oscar Wilde wasn't the originator of the concept, l'art pour l'art; translated as "art for art's sake," which expresses a philosophy that the intrinsic value of art, and the only 'true' art, is divorced from any didactic, moral or utilitarian function. The explicit slogan is associated in the history of English art and letters with Walter Pater and his followers in the Aesthetic Movement, which was self-consciously in rebellion against Victorian moralism. It appeared in his seminal text, The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry (1873), one of the most influential texts of the Aesthetic Movement.
Wilde's only published novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, was published almost 30 years after Pater's review (1890-91), and while it remains a hallmark literary work of Astheticism, it does not claim to be, nor is 'art for art's sake.' The major theme is that aestheticism is merely an abstract construct that only serves to disillusion rather than dignify the concept of beauty. The main character, Dorian Gray, is a handsome and narcissistic young man who becomes enthralled with Lord Henry's idea of a new hedonism. He begins to indulge in every kind of pleasure, moral and immoral, which eventually leads to his own societal demise. The plot, strongly aligned with the Decadent movement of the Symbolist artists of the time, is considered a classic Gothic novel with a Faustian theme -- not at all written just for the sake of writing on Wilde's part. Himself a participant in the movement of Astheticism, and perhaps the Dandy of all dandies, his pursuit was in the appreciation of art and beauty; conservative Victorian virtues disrupted the period's artists' and writers' from discovering and expressing the truly beautiful due to fear of social ostracism, false bourgeois propriety, and conflated judgements on morality and quality.
Espousing a new hedonism, Lord Henry suggests the only things worth pursuing in life are beauty and fulfilment of the senses. Realizing that one day his beauty will fade, Dorian (whimsically) expresses a desire to sell his soul to ensure the portrait Basil has painted would age rather than he. Dorian's wish is fulfilled, and when he subsequently pursues a life of debauchery, the portrait serves as a reminder of the effect each act has upon his soul, with each sin displayed as a disfigurement of his form, or through a sign of aging.
The portrait itself, and its mutations, is proof that the author was not interested in the concept of l'art pour l'art; Wilde's story exemplifies aesthetic and decadent doctrines, but art itself can never be removed from its socio-historical context, moreover extricated from the artist's personal ideologies and conceptions of beauty and taste.
A better example of 'art for art's sake,' and also a critical influence for Dorian Gray, is Joris-Karl Huysmans's Against Nature (or 'Against the Grain,' originally titled in French, À rebours) anti-Naturalist novel published in 1884 widely regarded as the ultimate example of "decadent" literature.

continuing the discussion here: https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/...