Critical Essays Oscar Wilde's Aesthetics

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The philosophical foundations of Aestheticism were formulated in the eighteenth
century by Immanuel Kant, who spoke for the autonomy of art. Art was to exist for
its own sake, for its own essence or beauty. The artist was not to be concerned
about morality or utility or even the pleasure that a work might bring to its
audience. Aestheticism was supported in Germany by J. W. von Goethe and in England
by Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Thomas Carlyle.

Benjamin Constant first used the phrase l'art pour l'art (French, meaning "art for
art," or "art for art's sake") in 1804; Victor Cousin popularized the words that
became a catch-phrase for Aestheticism in the 1890s. French writers such as
Th�ophile Gautier and Charles-Pierre Baudelaire contributed significantly to the
movement.

Oscar Wilde did not invent Aestheticism, but he was a dramatic leader in promoting
the movement near the end of the nineteenth century. Wilde was especially
influenced as a college student by the works of the English poet and critic
Algernon Charles Swinburne and the American writer Edgar Allan Poe. The English
essayist Walter Pater, an advocate of "art for art's sake," helped to form Wilde's
humanistic aesthetics in which he was more concerned with the individual, the self,
than with popular movements like Industrialism or Capitalism. Art was not meant to
instruct and should not concern itself with social, moral, or political guidance.

Like Baudelaire, Wilde advocated freedom from moral restraint and the limitations
of society. This point of view contradicted Victorian convention in which the arts
were supposed to be spiritually uplifting and instructive. Wilde went a step
further and stated that the artist's life was even more important than any work
that he produced; his life was to be his most important body of work.

The most important of Wilde's critical works, published in May 1891, is a volume
titled Intentions. It consists of four essays: "The Decay of Lying," "Pen, Pencil
and Poison," "The Critic as Artist," and "The Truth of Masks." These and the
contemporary essay "The Soul of Man Under Socialism" affirm Wilde's support of
Aestheticism and supply the philosophical context for his novel, The Picture of
Dorian Gray.

"The Decay of Lying" was first published in January 1889. Wilde called it a
"trumpet against the gate of dullness" in a letter to Kate Terry Lewis. The
dialogue, which Wilde felt was his best, takes place in the library of a country
house in Nottinghamshire. The participants are Cyril and Vivian, which were the
names of Wilde's sons (the latter spelled "Vyvyan"). Almost immediately, Vivian
advocates one of the tenets of Wilde's Aestheticism: Art is superior to Nature.
Nature has good intentions but can't carry them out. Nature is crude, monotonous,
and lacking in design when compared to Art.

According to Vivian, man needs the temperament of the true liar" with his frank,
fearless statements, his superb irresponsibility, his healthy, natural disdain of
proof of any kind!" Artists with this attitude will not be shackled by sterile
facts but will be able to tell beautiful truths that have nothing to do with fact.

"Pen, Pencil and Poison" was first published in January 1889. It is a biographical
essay on the notorious writer, murderer, and forger Thomas Griffiths Wainewright,
who used the pen name "Janus Weathercock."

Wilde's approach is that Wainewright's criminal activities reveal the soul of a

true artist. The artist must have a "concentration of vision and intensity of
purpose" that exclude moral or ethical judgment. True aesthetes belong to the
"elect," as Wilde calls them in "The Decay of Lying," and are beyond such concerns.
As creative acts, there is no significant difference between art and murder. The
artist often will conceal his identity behind a mask, but Wilde maintains that the
mask is more revealing than the actual face. Disguises intensify the artist's
personality. Life itself is an art, and the true artist presents his life as his
finest work. Wilde, who attempted to make this distinction in his own life through
his attempts to re-create himself, includes this theme in The Picture of Dorian
Gray.

The longest of the essays in Intentions, "The Critic as Artist," first appeared in
two parts (July and September 1890) with the significant title, "The True Function
and Value in Criticism; With Some Remarks on the Importance of Doing Nothing: A
Dialogue." It is considered to be a response to Matthew Arnold's essay "The
Function of Criticism at the Present Time" (1865). Arnold's position is that the
creative faculty is higher than the critical. The central thesis of Wilde's essay
is that the critic must reach beyond the creative work that he considers.