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Originals of the main characters in the novel

Wilde himself is a part of all three main characters – not all the time and not to the same extent but traces of him can be found in each of them. According Gillespie:” Wilde gave many of his own habits and his own background to three main characters, each of whom represents, alternately, idealized, true-to life, and extreme views of their creator.” (Gillespie 6)

Wilde is Dorian but not Dorian of the first chapters. He is Dorian of changed mind, Dorian murdering Basil and Dorian with two faces, Dorian who destroyed his own innocence. Wilde is also Basil⁹¹ but mainly Basil of first chapters (And significantly more in the Lippincott’s and typescript versions, in 1891 version Hallward’s feelings are more platonic and art related), Basil admiring Dorian’s beauty and beauty at all and addicted to his art. He is also permanently present in the background of Lord Henry’s⁹² talks, which are whatever happens witty and persuasive.

As Sammels says: “For Wilde, however, Dorian Gray was an opportunity not to self-authentication, but for self-dramatization and self-styling, in which he distributed himself across the narrative in a series of poses. If the novel were to express the personality of the author, it would emphasize not simplicity but multiplicity: ‘I am so glad you like that strange many coloured book of mine: it contains much of me in it, Basil Hallward is what I think I am: Lord Henry what the world thinks of me: Dorian what I would like to be - in other ages, perhaps.’ (Sammels 56) ⁹³

Dorian

Oscar Wilde met seventeen year old Robert Ross at Oxford in 1886. He was thirty two years old in this time. (Ellmann 275) Ellmann outlines his hypothesis why Wilde used the following date for the day of Basil’s murder and its alteration.

“They liked each other, and for a time their friendship was passionate. It marked a transformation of Wilde’s life. The effect can be measured by comparing two versions of a passage in The Picture of Dorian Gray. Dorian has won a bad reputation for unspecified acts, then commits himself irrevocably to an evil life by stabbing the painter of his portrait. In the first version, published in Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine, Wilde wrote, ‘It was the 7^th of October, the eve of his own thirty-second birthday, as he often remembered afterwards.’ When the novel was republished in book form, he altered the date and Dorian’s age: ‘It was on the ninth of November, the eve of his own thirty-eight birthday, as he often remembered afterwards.’ Altering Dorian’s age would be gratuitous if Wilde had not begun to feel that the first reference was to close to actuality, since October 1886 had marked his own thirty-second birthday, and his thirty-third year had been dislocated by the beginning of his affair with Ross.” (Ellmann 277)

Wilde must have done this alteration for some reason. If we accept Ellmann’s hypothesis we can understand Dorian in the moment of Basil’s murder – in Lippincott’s version as 32 years old Wilde in 1886 (Wilde was born on 16 October 1854 and became 32 on 16 October 1886) and in book version also as Wilde, but here the age doesn’s matches so perfectly, because Wilde was not 36 but only 35.

Ellmann’s other theory is connected to Robert Ross age. “Ross turned seventeen on 25 May 1886, and this age is one that Wilde returns to in his writings as if he meant something special to him. It is the age of Dorian’s first love, Sibyl Vane, and also the age of Shakespeare’s boy lover, Willie Hughes, as Wilde reconstructs the relationship in ‘The Portrait of Mr.W.H.’ ” (Ellmann 277) Here Ellmann forgot to mention that also Dorian himself was 17 years old in the moment when the portrait was painted.

After Wilde met Robert Ross he still lived with his family only “began to be absent himself from the family home for ever longer periods.” (Pearce 198) In 1889 Wilde met John Gray whose surname Wilde used for Dorian. There are no indication that John Gray served as a model for the Dorian’s character totally. The only thing which connected him with Dorian except the surname was his beauty and initial looks of Dorian. Gray did not serve as a model “for the corrupted character that Dorian becomes as the book progresses.” (223) Pearce also mentions that “Wilde told John Gray that he had been the model for this character and Gray, understandably flattered, took to signing himself ‘Dorian’ in his letters to Wilde.” (223) And adds that “In January 1961 , there was offered for sale in New York a first edition of The Picture of Dorian Gray containing the autograph letter from Gray to Wilde signed ‘Yours ever, Dorian’.” (260)

According Barbara Belford “Gray was enjoying the reflected fame of sharing his name with the scandalous Dorian Gray … But when the amusement went beyond the Wilde’s circle, Gray was annoyed. He forced the Star to publish an appology for reffering to him as the original for Dorian, Wilde also complained to the Daily Telegraph for similar comments.”(Belford 176)

Basil

If we can believe the story by Hesket Pearson the name of Basil Hallward was based on the name of the real painter, but was a bit modified.

In the year 1884 Wilde used often to drop in at the studio of a painter, Basil Ward, one of whose sitters was a young man of exceptional beauty. Incidentally, Wilde must have been a godsend to many painters of the time, as his conversation kept their sitters perpetually entertained. When the portrait was done and the youth had gone, Wilde happened to say ‘What a pity that such a glorious creature should ever grow old!’ The artist agreed, adding ‘How delightful it would be if he could remain exactly as he is, while the portrait aged and withered in his stead!’ Wilde expressed his obligation by naming the painter in his story ‘Basil Hallward’. (Pearson 145)

Ellmann quotes this one and gives another explanations in addition, allegedly also from Wilde, because Wilde liked to give conflicting answers to those who asked him for the originals of the novel’s characters.

“He [Wilde] was obviously the source for a story that appeared in the St James’s Gazette of 24 September 1891: the Canadian artist Frances Richards, whom Wilde had met in Canada in 1882, painted his portrait in 1887, prompting Wilde to say, “What a tragic thing it is. This portrait will never grow older, and I shall. If it was only the other way.’ ⁹⁴ Still another version was recorded by Ernest Dowson, who heard Wilde say at Herbert Horne’s house on 9 October 1890 that the original of Basil Hallward was Charles Ricketts. This seems likely, at least for the homosexual tastes of Basil Hallward, which were more distinct in the magazine version than in the book.” (Ellmann 312-3)⁹⁵

Gillespie sees the model for Basil also in Charles Ricketts. For him is Basil’s studio “a reproduction of Charles Ricketts’s studio in London, where Wilde was a frequent visitor. Ricketts … may have been the original for Basil Hallward. He designed the title page and binding for Dorian Gray and for many Wilde’ volumes.” (Gillespie 5) Gillespie further adds that Basil may be combination of “Ricketts and his friend Charles H. Shannon …, who shared lodgings with him in Chelsea.”(6) ⁹⁶

According Frankel “The setting of Hallward studio adjacent to a garden in full bloom would seem to locate it in one of Victorian London’s artists’ colonies at St. John’s Wood, Hampstead, Chelsea, Kensington, or (the most prestigious address) Holland Park. In Wilde’s day, Holland Park was the location for a number of specially commissioned artists’studio houses, many of them incorporating parts of the garden of old Holland House (demolished in 1875), where bohemia had first become respectable.” (Frankel 67)⁹⁷

According another theory presented by Nicholas Frankel Basil might have been inspired by Wilde’s neighbor Frank Miles - “Miles died obscurely in 1891 and is sometimes said to be the real figure on whom the painter Basil Hallward is based.” (12)

And Frankel is coming with even one more hypothesis for the original of Basil Hallward:

“Kerry Powell writes that “Wilde’s involvement with art and artists - his essays on painting, his lectures on art, his jousting with Whistler-tempts one to imagine that the remarkable portraitist of Dorian Gray stands in some relation to the author’s own experience”... A few different models for Hallward were suggested by critics. Powell argues compellingly that ‘the most plausible real-life model for Hallward” was a now-neglected late-Victorian portrait artist named Frank Holl. Powell’s argument is based not on any presumed intimacy between Holl and Wilde – there is no evidence that Wilde knew Holl personally, or even that he liked Holl’s paintings - but rather on the possibility that Holl’s portraits, widely admired in Wilde’s day, “present a guilty buried self rather than the ‘blameless’ and unblemished mask that the sitter wears every day to decive the world” ”(70) ⁹⁸

Lord Henry

For Lord Henry is generally accepted as original Lord Ronald Sutherland-Gower. ⁹⁹ Gillespie finds also other influences but agrees with the common reading “Lord Henry may have a touch of Whistler in him and much of Wilde, but critical consensus makes Lord Ronald Sutherland-Gower … the leading candidate as the inspiration for Lord Henry. Gower knew Wilde at Oxford, and the two were intimates in the 1870s and 1880s. (Gillespie 6) Gillespie is not giving any reason why he thinks Whistler could be partially the model for Lord Henry but we can guess that it might have been his outstanding ability of witty talks which was described here already and for what he was also friend with Wilde for certain period of time.

According Frankel “Lord Henry in particular seems intimately familiar with Pater’s Renaissance. Ellmann suggests that the unnamed book that reveals much to [Lord Henry] that he had not known before,” when he was sixteen, is The Renaissance: “Lord Henry is forever quoting and misquoting, without acknowledgement from [The Renaissance].” (Frankel 28) ¹⁰⁰

In this sense Lord Henry had to be the personification of Pater’s ideas.

Nature versus Art in The Picture of Dorian Gray

First chapter of the novel The Picture of Dorian Gray with the dialogue of Basil and Lord Henry begins in the studio of the painter Basil Hallward where the garden represents the nature.“The studio was filled with the rich odor of roses, and when the light summer wind stirred amidst the trees of the garden there came through the open door the heavy scent of the lilac, or the more delicate perfume of the pink-flowering thorn.” (Wilde 5)

From Whistler’s 1885 Ten’s O’Clock lecture there was an open dispute between Wilde and Whistler about the supremacy of one kind of art over the other¹⁰¹ and also about the relationship of art and nature. This motive of their dispute is the most influential throughout the whole novel and mainly on its beginning.

Nature and culture is on the theoretical level discussed in Wilde’s essay “The Decay of Lying” in 1889, where Wilde presents the idea that Art influences Nature, and he returns to this topic in practice in The Picture of Dorian Gray.

Neil Sammells goes to more details regarding nature versus art influence in Dorian Gray:

"Wilde toys with the distinction between Nature and Culture: acknowledging it only to collapse it. [In the] Basil Hallward's studio ... the two realms are melding: the garden (Nature) is infiltrating the studio. This transgressive movement transforms both sides of the opposition: 'odour' becomes 'scent' which becomes 'perfume'. The natural world, in other words, appears as cultivated (the garden) and smells like a 'fragrance', contrived by a fashionable parfumier; the world of couture, on the other hand, is offered as simply an intensification of 'natural' odours. Wilde artfully employes synaesthetic effects to heighten the impression of boundaries being crossed and distinction dissolved: different senses are appealed to, simultaneously. For instance, the blossoms of a laburnum are 'honey-sweet' and 'honey-coloured'. (We are told, also, with characteristically alliterative insistence, that the laburnum's branches seemed 'hardly able to bear the burden of a beauty so flamelike as theirs.' Few of Wilde's readers would have missed this thinly veiled reference to the celebrated Conclusion of Pater's 'Renaissance' and its contention that the purpose of life was to surrender to sensation, to burn with a hard, gemlike flame.) In the studio itself 'the fantastic shadows of birds in the flight flitted across the long, tussore-silk curtains that were stretched in front of the huge window'. Are these 'real' birds outside, or silk patterns inside? Wilde leaves the question unanswered, and in so doing further blurs the distinction between 'inner' and 'outer', between the room and the garden. This confusion produce a 'momentary Japanese effect'"¹⁰² (Sammells 34-35)

For Wilde "'Japan' functions as a sign for the triumph of the elegantly anti-natural, discovered in the amber depths of a tea-cup." (33)

Sammels further writes:

“Wilde gives us an environment that is emphatically written: the aestheticization of the Natural, and the naturalization of the Cultural, is consistently foregrounded. If “The Decay of Lying”displays the Nature-Culture split in order to invert it - raising the bogus above the real¹⁰³ - Dorian Gray gives a fictional form to the collapsing of the distinction between the two terms that theirs theoretical inversion is a prelude to. At the centre of the Basil's studio is the quintessential art-obejct: the picture of Dorian Gray. Vivian says that 'The only portraits in which one believes are portraits in which there is very little of the sitter and a great deal of the artist'.¹⁰⁴ As this implies, this portrait is not in any sense a mirror held up to its ostensible subject. The relationship between Dorian and his portrait precisely enacts the collapsing of the binary opposition between Nature and Culture, or art and life, which Wilde's opening to the novel - partly by foregounding the complexity and artifice of the prose - both describes and embodies. By staying eternally young Dorian acquires the immutability of the art-object; by growing old his image is ravaged by the natural processes of decay. Life imitates art and art imitates life.... So, Wilde evokes the natural world at the beginning of The Picture of Dorian Gray not simply as a means of setting the scene, but in order to signal the transgressive and subversive strategies which will structure the novel itself." (Sammells 35)

Sammells continues with the description of selfauthenticity in relation to the theory that Nature imitates Art from Wilde’s “The Decay of Lying”.

"By a curious irony, Wilde shows more 'respect for nature' than Wordsworth: the aestheticized Nature is to affirm its beauty and otherness; to turn into a moral exercise-yard is sanctimonious, egoistical and ugly. Part of Wordsworthian project is to define the moral and social self by ancoting it in a natural world that is definable, fixed, stable. Wilde's paradoxical dissolution and reinvention of nature as encultured, fabricated, written, entails a concomitant freeing up of notions of human subjectivity. In effect, denying to Nature its authenticity entails denying it to the human subject also. Instead of the narratives of moral and spiritual growth offered by Wordsworth, Wilde gives us multiplicity, discontinuity, flux: as he says in The Soul of Man under Socialism, all we know of human nature is that it changes, ‘change is the only quality we can predicate of it’. Dorian Gray, for instance, is a murderer and a drug-addict; he is also Prince Charming and the most fashionable and desirable man in London.” (Sammells 37)

As Wilde exactly says in his essay “The Decay of Lying”: “Life imitates Art far more, than the Art imitates Life.” (Wilde “The Decay of Lying” 52-3) ¹⁰⁵

In the “The Decay of Lying” Wilde claims through Vivian (dialogue of Vivian and Cyril) that Art influences Nature:

“For what is Nature? Nature is no great mother who borne us. She is our creation. It is in our brain that she quickens to life. Things are because we see them, and what we see, depends on the Arts that have influenced us. To look at a thing is very different from seeing a thing. One doesnot see anything until one sees its beauty. Then and then only, does it come into existence.” (41)

Wilde’s opinion is clear. Art is superior to the nature. It is art which influences the nature. Not the other way round. If we replace Art with Creation (it is how Wilde very probably means it) it whole gives even more sense.

The picture of Dorian Gray being finished

First two chapters of Wilde’s novel are very well summarized by Gillespie: “In the opening scenes … Basil Hallward creates an arresting manifestation of physical beauty that takes on an emblematic significance throughout the narrative. In addition, Basil’s efforts produce a epiphanic animation of Dorian’s consciousness, not simply calling attention of that beauty to the way that he sees the world around him … For Dorian, Basil’s painting operates in conjunction with Lord Henry’s doctrine of New Hedonism, which has already disposed the young man’s mind to assign the paramount importance to sensual pleasure.” (Gillespie “Picturing Dorian Gray” 399-400)

Wilde continues with his description of the studio, where could Lord Henry Wotton lying on the divan

“catch the gleam of the honey-sweet and honey-coloured blossoms of a laburnum, so flame-like as theirs; and now and then the phantastic shadows of birds in flight flitted across the long tussore-silk curtains that were stretched in front of huge window, producing s kind of momentary Japanese effect,¹⁰⁶ and making him think of those palid jade-faced painters of Tokio who, through the medium of an art that is necessarily immobile, seek to convey the sense of swiftness and motion.“ (Wilde 5)

After this almost impresionistic description of the studio we get to the portait.

„In the centre of the room, clamped to an upright easel, stood the full-length portrait of a young man of an extraordinary personal beauty, and in front of it, some little distance away, was sitting the artist himself, Basil Hallward, whose sudden disappearance some years ago caused, at the time, such public excitement, and gave a rise to so many strange conjectures.” (6)

The introduction of the painter with a phrase “whose sudden disappearance some years ago” is quite enigmatic. It is the first thing mentioned about him in the novel. What might mean sudden disappearance of Basil Hallward? Where he might have been some years? If I presume that partial model for him was James Whistler possible answer can be found. As already mentioned Whistler endured ‘enforced absence’ in Venice after the trial with Ruskin caused by the exhibiting of the controversial painting “Nocturne in Black and Gold – The Falling Rocket” in 1877 in Grosvenor Gallery, which was critized by Ruskin. Whistler sued Ruskin for libel and even he won the case it whole led to his bankrupcy. After this ‘Venice exile’ he returned to London in November 1880. (Pearce 131) This Whistler disappearance shows certain similarity to what is written about Basil.

Frankel sees this disappearance as “A direct foreshadowing of Hallward’s tragic end” (Frankel 70), because it “generates the desire on the part of his readers to know more” (70). He connects this note from the beginning of the first chapter with “Lord Henry’s comment at the novel’s conclusion that “people are still discussing poor Basil’s disappearance.”” (70) ¹⁰⁷

Regarding the portrait we have learned that the portrait is full-length portrait. Here can be posed the question who from painters who Wilde knew was the painter of full-length portraits. James MacNeil Whistler was one of the best known representatives and it can make us to suppose the model for Basil might be him.

There is also connection with The Portrait of Mr. W.H.¹⁰⁸ where the portrait painting even in this case historical is also full-length portrait and also of 17 year old men.¹⁰⁹

“It is your best work Basil, the best thing you have ever done, “said Lord Henry, languidly. “You must certainly send it to Grosvenor. The Academy is too large and too vulgar.” (Wilde 6)

As we know already Grosvenor gallery was the place where Wilde saw first time Whistler’s paintings and it was the gallery for which Wilde wrote regular reviews on the beginning of eighties.

“ “I don’t think I shall send it anywhere,“ he [Basil] answered, tossing his head back in that odd way that used to make his friend laugh at him as Oxford. “No: I won’t send it

anywhere.” ” (6)

Interesting is also what Basil claims about the picture. He doesn’t want to send it to any exhibiton, but later changes his mind, when he is visiting Dorian in the chapter 9.

Lord Henry is surprised by his initial decision.

“ “ Not send it anywhere? … Have you any reason? What odd chaps you painters are! You do anything in the world to gain a reputation. As soon as you have one, you seem to want to throw it away. It is silly of you, for there is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about. A portrait like this would set you above all the young men in England, and make the old men quite jealous, if old men are ever capable of any emotion. “

“I know you will laugh at me, ” he replied, “but I really can’t exhibit it. I have "put too much of myself into it.” …

“Too much of yourself in it! … I didn’t know that you were so vain; and I really can’t see any resemblance between you with your rugged strong face and your coal-black hair, and this young Adonis … he is a Narcissus, and you-well, of course you have an intellectual expression, and all that, but beauty, real beauty, ends where an intellectual expression begins. Intelect is in itself a mode of exaggeration, and destroys the harmony of any face……..Your mysterious young friend whose name you have never told me, but whose picture really fascinates me, never thinks. .. He is some brainless, beautiful creature, who should be always here in winter when we have no flowers to look at, and always in summer when we want something to chill our intelligence. Don’t flatter yourself, Basil; you are not in the least like him.” ” (6-7)

It is replied by Basil: “ “You don’t understand me, Harry,” answered the artist. “Of course I am not like him” ” (6-7) Basil continues and what he wants to say isn’t that he looks like Dorian, he wants to say he is giving to the picture his art which is the same outstanding thing as Dorian’s beauty. “ “Harry; my brains, such as they are – my art, whatever it may be worth; Dorian Gray’s good looks – we shall all suffer for what the gods have given us, suffer terribly.” ” (8)

“ “Harry,“ said Basil Hallward, looking him straight in face, “every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter. The sitter is merely the accident, the occasion. It is not he who is revealed by the painter; it is rather the painter who, on the coloured canvas, reveals himself. The reason I will not exhibit this picture is that I am afraid I have shown in it the secret of my own soul. ” ” (9)

Here is clear link to “The Decay of Lying”where as mentioned above Vivian says that 'The only portraits in which one believes are portraits in which there is very little of the sitter and a great deal of the artist“. (Wilde “The Decay of Lying” 46)

What might be the secret of Basil’s soul which can’t be exhibited? Lord Henry also wants to know. In meantime he picks up a daisy. Reader can simply feel like in the garden of Paradise where Basil is a creator and Lord Henry? Maybe Devil talking through him?

Basil explains how he met Dorian first time when he “went to a crush a Lady Brandon’s” (Wilde 9) where he, after a short while, suddenly, spotted that so mebody was looking at him.

“I suddenly became conscious that some one was looking at me. I turned half-way round, and saw Dorian Gray for the first time. When our eyes met, I felt that I was growing pale. A curious sensation of teror came over me. I knew that I had come face to face with some one whose mere personality was so fascinating that, if I allowed it to do so, it would absorb my whole nature, my whole soul, my very art itself. I did not want any external influence in my life.” (10)

What Basil is describing is mainly his inner feeling when he saw Dorian. He feels absorbed and attracted by Dorian’s image. “I had a strange feeling that Fate had in store for me exquisite joys and exquisite sorrows” (10) He didn’t manage to escape and soon came face to face with Dorian.

Basil further talk about Dorian and about a new art manner of art where body and soul are in harmony:

”He is all my art to me now … I sometimes think, Harry, that there are only two areas of any importance in the world’s history. The first is the appearance of a new medium for art, and the second is the appearance of a new personality for art also. What the invention of oil-painting was to the Venetians, the face of Antinous was to late Greek sculpture, and the face of Dorian Gray will some day be to me. It is not merely I paint from him, draw from him, scetch from him. … But he is much more to me than a model or a sitter. I won’t tell you that I am dissatisfied with what I have done of him, or that his beauty is such that Art cannot express it. There is nothing that Art cannot express, and I know that the work I have done, since I met Dorian Gray, is good work, is the best work of my life. But in some curious way … his personality has suggested to me an entirely new manner in art, an entirely new mode of style. I see things differently, I think of them differently. I can now recreate life in a way that was hidden from me before. … Unconsciously he defines for me the lines of a fresh school, a school that is to have in it all the passion of the romantic spirit, all the perfection of the spirit that is Greek. The harmony of soul and body-how much that is! We in our madness have separated the two, and have invented a realism that is vulgar, an ideality that is void. ….You remember that landscape of mine, for which Agnew offered me such a huge price, but which I would not part with? It is one of the best things I have ever done. And why is it so? Because, while I was painting it, Dorian Gray sat beside me. Some subtle influence passed from him to me, and for the time in my life I saw the plain woodland the wonder I had always look for, and always missed.” (13)

Gillespie refers here to the roots of Wilde’s aestheticism from his Oxford studies. “Basil’s aestheticism is an ideal combination of the teaching of John Ruskin (“all the passion of the romantic spirit”) and Walter Pater (“all the perfection of the spirit that is Greek”). Both taught Wilde at Oxford in the 1870s.” (Gillespie 13)

Sammells adds to the above mentioned ‘new manner in art’:

“Basil Hallward insists that it is 'merely' Dorian‘s 'visible presence' which has had such a profound effect upon him and on his painting: ... In effect Dorian collapses together surface beauty and 'inner' character as 'visible presence' and 'personality' become one. …This is a crucial statement: Dorian is associated squarely with the renewing, subversive, revelatory possibilities of style. Indeed, he even transforms the 'natural' world for Basil, helping him to see its artistic possibilities: ... As we have seen, for Wilde that means enculturing Nature ... Dorian is himself a work of art “Dorian is created by Hallward's artistic skill and Lord Henry's theorizing … which together deliberately bring him to the self-consciousness Wilde identifies with style.” (Sammells 57-8)

Regarding mentioned art dealer Agnew – again Gillespie points out that “Thomas Agnew & Sons are to this day art dealers in London’s Old Bond Street.” (Gillespie 13) James McNeill Whistler was in touch with William Agnew who was exhibiting his works in 1887 in Manchester.¹¹⁰

Lets turn back to the original. Lord Henry is impressed and wants to see Dorian, but Basil says:

“Dorian Gray is to me simply a motive in art. You might see nothing in him. I see everything in him. He is never more present in my work than when no image of him is there. He is a suggestion, as I have said, of a new manner. I find him in the curves of certain lines, in the loveliness and subtleties of certain colours. That is all.”

“Than why won’t you exhibit his portrait?” asked Lord Henry.

“Because, without intending it, I have put into it some expression of all this curious artistic idolatry, of which of course, I have never cared to speak to him. He knows nothing about it … But the world might guess it; and I will not bare my soul to their shallow, prying eyes. My heart shall never be put under their microscope. There is too much of myself in the thing. …. An artist should create beautiful things, but should put nothing of his own life into them. We live in an age when men treat art as if it were meant to be a form of autobiography. We have lost the abstract sense of beauty. Some day I will show the world what it is; and for that reason the world shall never see my portrait of Dorian Gray. ” ” Wilde 14)

It is interesting moment when Basil admits that there is part of his autobiography in this portrait and that it is something what he didn‘t intend to do as in general he wanted to show the beauty itself.

When Lord Henry finally meets Dorian he describes him a little bit different from Basil “Yes, he was certainly wonderfully handsome, with this finely-curved scarlet lips, his frank blue eyes, his crisp gold hair. There was something in his face that made one trust him at once. All the candour of youth was there, as well as all youth’s passionate purity. One felt that he had kept himself unspotted from the world.” (17) ¹¹¹

While Lord Henry is talking to Dorian and slowly begins to influence him Basil continues to work on his painting. “The painter had been busy mixing his colours and getting his brushes ready. He was looking worried, and when he heard Lord Henry’s remark he glanced at him hesitated for a moment, and then said,” Harry, I want to finish the picture to-day. Would you think it awfully rude of me if I asked you to go away?” (17-18)

Lord Henry replies: “You don’t really mind, Basil, do you? You have often told me that you liked your sitters to have someone to chat to.” ” (18)

Lord Henry stays and continues in his influential talks, because Dorian wishes so.

It seems not clear if this full-length portrait of Dorian Gray is standing or sitting portrait. In whole novel is not clearly described how the picture looked like. On the beginning of the chapter 2 Dorian says: “I am tired of sitting, and I don’t want a life sized portrait of myself” (17), whereas soon after it he is persuading Basil to keep Lord Henry in the studio: “You never open your lips while you are painting, and it is horribly dull standing on a platform and trying to look pleasant.” (18)

Basil in the end agrees that Lord Henry stays, he only worries about his bad influence to Dorian.

“Dorian Gray stepped up on the dais, with the air of a young Greek martyr, and made a little moue of discontent to Lord Henry, to whom he had rather taken a fancy. He was so unlike a Basil. They made a delightful contrast. And he had such a beautiful voice.” (18)

While Lord Henry talks to Dorian and begins to influence him, Basil, not listening it, is giving his orders: “ “Just turn your head a little more to the right, Dorian, like a good boy,” said the painter deep in his work, and conscious only that a look had come in the lad’s face that he had never seen there before.” ” (19) ¹¹²

Here is probably the moment when Lord Henry is forming Dorian mind to such a shape that stays as final form on Basil’s painting. As Ellmann said: „The portrait of Dorian is executed by Basil Hallward just at the moment when Lord Henry is fishing for Dorian’s soul” (Ellmann 315)

Lord Henry is feeding Dorian’s mind with thoughts and ideas of return to the Hellenic ideal and with New Hedonism like “The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it.” (Wilde 19-20) Dorian is influenced. “For nearly ten minutes he stood there, motionless, with parted lips, and eyes strangely bright. He was dimly conscious that entirely fresh influences were at work within him.” (20)

“ “Hallward painted away with that marvelous bold touch of his, that had the true refinement and perfect delicacy that in art, at any rate comes only from the strength. He was unconscious of the silence.

“Basil, I am tired of standing,” cried Dorian Gray suddenly. “I must go out and sit in the garden. The air is stifling here.”

”My dear fellow, I am so sorry. When I am painting, I can’t think of anything else. But you never sat better. You were perfectly still. And I have caught the effect I wanted - the half-parted lips, and the bright look in the eyes. I don’t know what Harry has been saying to you, but he has certainly made you have the most wonderful expression. I suppose he has been paying you compliments. You mustn’t believe a word that he says.”

Lord Henry and Dorian leave to the garden, because as Henry says “It is horribly hot in the studio. Basil, let us have something iced to drink, something with strawberries in it.” ” (21)

Basil cares mainly for his work: “ “Don’t keep Dorian too long. I have never been in better form for painting than I am to-day. This is going to be my masterpiece. It is my masterpiece as it stands.” ” (21)

Lord Henry finds Dorian in the garden “burying his face in the great cool lilac blossoms, feverishly drinking in their perfume as if it had been wine” (21) which he comments:

“ “You are quite right to do that … Nothing can cure the soul but senses, just as nothing can cure senses but the soul.” The lad stasted and drew back. He was bare-headed, and the leaves had tossed his rebellious curls and tangled all their gilded threads. There was a look of fear in his eyes, such as people have when they are suddenly awakened. His finelly-chiselled nostrills quivered, and some hidden nerve shook the scarlet lips and left them trembling.” (21)

Soon after Lord Henry touches the main motive of the novel “ “Beauty is the wonder of wonders … The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible … But what the gods give they quickly take away. You have only a few years in which to live really, perfectly, and fully. Where your youth goes, your beauty will go with it, and then you will suddenly discover that there are no triumphs left for you.” ” (22) He continues in his speech: ““A new Hedonism - that is what our century wants. You might be its visible symbol… Youth! Youth! There is absolutely nothing in the world but youth! (23) Lord Henry talk is accompanied by the description of flowers in the garden and bees buzzing round.” (23) ¹¹³

Dorian and Lord Henry short garden intermezzo is interrupted by Basil: ““Suddenly the painter appeared at the door of the studio … “I am waiting, he cried. “ Do come in. The light is quite perfect and you can bring your drinks.” ” (24) They came and Dorian

“stepped up on the platform and resumed his pose ... The sweep and dash of the brush on the canvas made the only sound that broke the stillness, except when, now and then, Hallward stepped back to look at his work from a distance. … after about a half an hour Hallward stopped painting, looked for a long time at Dorian Gray, and than for a long time at the picture, biting the end of one of his huge brushes, and frowning. “It is quite finished,” he cried at last, and stopping down he wrote his name in long vermilion letters on the left-hand corner of the canvas. Lord Henry came closer and examined the picture. It was certainly a wonderful work of art, and a wonderful likeness as well. “My dear fellow, I congratulate you most warmly, “he said. “It is the finest portrait of modern times. Mr.Gray, come over and look at your yourself.” The lad started, as if awakened from some dream.“ (24)

Gillespie again comments: “James McNeill Whistler …the American artist and friend of Wilde, would often sign his paintings in vermilion.”(Gillespie 24) This can be understand again as a trace of Whistler in the novel.

When picture was finished “Dorian … passed listlessly in front of the picture and turned towards it. When saw it he drew back and his cheeks flushed for a moment with pleasure. A look of joy came in to his eyes as if he had recognized himself for the first time. He stood there motionless and in wonder, dimly conscious that Hallward was speaking to him, but not catching the meaning of words. The sense of his own beauty came on him like revelation. He had never felt it before.” (Wilde 25)

Dorian is simply becoming conscious of his beauty and its short live. He became instantly aware that Lord Henry’s warning of the brevity of youth was real. The other understanding can be that Dorian awakes from his naivity or innocence and becomes aware as Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden of his own mortality and is going to solve it in Faustian way.

According Sammells “Surfaces encounter surfaces and the portrait becomes a mirror - ... a 'lacanian mirror', ¹¹⁴ and as Dorian describes it later a 'magical' mirror’.¹¹⁵" (Sammells 58-9)

Dorian contemplates his future: “Yes, there would be a day when his face would be wrinkled and wizen, his eyes dim and colourless, the grace of his figure broken and deformed. The scarlet would pass away from his lips, and the gold steal from his hair. The life that was to make his soul would mar his body. He would become dreadful, hideous, and uncouth.” (Wilde 25)

And follows in direct speech:

“ “How sad it is! “murmured Dorian Gray, with his eyes still fixed upon his own portrait. “How said it is! I shall grow old, and horrible, and dreadful. But this picture will remain always young. It wil never be older than this particular day of June … If it were only the other way! If it were I who was to be always young, and the picture that was to grow old! For that-for that-I would give everything! Yes, there is nothing in the whole world I would not give! I would give my soul for that!”

“You would hardly care for such an arrangement, Basil,”cried Lord Henry, laughing. “It would be rather hard lines on your work.”

“I should object very strongly, Harry,” said Hallward,

Dorian Gray turned and looked at him. “I believe you would, Basil, You like your art better than your friends. I am not more to you than a green bronze figure.” ” (25-26)

Here the novel turns into the Faustian¹¹⁶ tragedy.

They are quareling, Basil objects that Dorian can’t be jealous on material things. Dorian opposes: “I am jealous of everything whose beauty does not die. I am jealous of the portrait you have painted of me. Why should it keep what I must lose?” (26) Hallward wants to destroy the painting because his friends made him to hate this painting.

In the following scene there is already latent the future murder.

“He [Basil] was going to rip the canvas.” (27)

Dorian cries “ “Don’t Basil, don’t!” Dorian cried. “It would be a murder!” ” (27)

Dorian is becoming a part of the painting ““It is part of myself, I feel that.” (27), which is in practical way replied by Basil: “Well, as soon as you are dry, you will be varnished, and framed, and send home. Than you can do what you want with yourself.” ” (27)

The painting is finished but the whole story only begins. All what was prepared here starts slowly to uncover.