Aestheticism In Dorian Gray Essay

The word “Aestheticism” has Greek roots, coming from the Greek meaning to perceive (with the senses). Aestheticism would later come to refer to the world's appreciation of beauty, becoming the name of a 19th century concept prevalent in Victorian England, which placed utmost emphasis on beauty and pleasure in life. Aestheticism is also very prevalent in Oscar Wilde’s “The Picture of Dorian Gray”, centered around the life of Dorian Gray. Youth and everlasting beauty is a form of aesthetics that is mocked by the character Dorian Gray. Without contemplating aestheticism, one cannot fully understand why people desired that beauty and aestheticism in the first place. Aestheticism is rooted in a personal desire to be beautiful and everlasting like
Admiring his visage in the portrait and ruminating on the aesthetic world view, Dorian wishes that his painting would age instead, allowing him to retain an everlasting beauty and youth. When this wish comes true, Dorian courts Sibyl, and after she forgoes life on the stage he viciously refutes her, proclaiming that acting was her beauty, prompting her to commit suicide by ingestion of prussic acid. This marks Dorians shift into total aestheticism, concerned only with himself and his beauty, and here is where the risks begin. When one is concerned only by the self, interpersonal relationships and inner integrity begin to fail. When Dorian allowed his passion for his own beauty to consume him, his humanity began to deteriorate, and bodies thus began to pile. Dorian himself realizes this, and attempting to absolve himself and destroy the one thing he found the most beautiful, and therefore he stabs the painting. With this action, Dorian reverses the trend of and the facile notions of aestheticism he had so easily embrace. With his suicide, Dorian’s circle is complete, and all that aestheticism has brought him. Dorian’s immolation is the final toll of the bell, however pretty it’s sound may