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Oscar Wilde's Aesthete Analysis

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Looking at a painting on the internet is not remotely the same experience as seeing the work in real life. Walter Benjamin suggested that this is partially because photography is an imperfect medium in terms of capturing the true essence of an object, and partially because the physical and historical presence of a work of art in space and time has significance to us. Although Oscar Wilde and his aesthetes would disagree, in art, beauty comes from the viewer’s perceived connection with the artist, of understanding his/her ideas and of perceiving the artist’s subjective truths. Beauty seeks to connect us on a deep, primordial level to the human experience. Art, at its core, seeks to tell stories and reveal mystic truths about the human condition. …show more content…
In Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, love/belonging is the most important need to satisfy after purely practical matters like physiological needs and safety. Teresa seems to imply that her love for Andrew helped her center herself: “then I was thinking about signals that could not connect. It was a thought about Andrew and myself. And I felt how difficult it is to live” (Wojtyla 29). Prior to accepting Andrew’s proposal, she felt how challenging it is simply to exist without feeling the grounding connection of love. After getting together with Andrew, living is no longer difficult for her, which indicates that love helped her navigate feelings of uneasiness and uncertainty. Additionally, after Anna comes to realize that her relationship with Stefan is no longer working, she says “I then felt ready to try and make every man notice me” (Wojtyla 57). Anna’s lack of love creates a hole in her life that causes her to be impulsive. Nothing good will come from this coping mechanism. Instead of throwing herself into healing from a failed relationship, she invites the chaos it brings into her life by throwing herself at other men. When we experience true love, things seem to just click into place. Teresa succinctly expresses this feeling: “my God, how simple this” (Wojtyla 39). Holding the rings with Andrew …show more content…
In the preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray, Wilde expounds his philosophy in his usual pompous, witty, and sensational style: “Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril. Those who read the symbol do so at their peril” (Wilde, 3). He’s not wrong in letting the reader know that risks are involved in trying to gain deeper meaning; he’s wrong in his assumption that those risks are never worth it, and that the results gained from deeper exploration of art are worthless. Anytime we are vulnerable, whether it is with other people or simply in the presence of an art object, we run the risk of getting hurt. But without vulnerability, we would never grow. We would be stuck in the childish power plays that Dorian Grey endures. The whole premise of The Portrait of Dorian Grey presents life and existence as a work of art, but if art has no meaning or purpose aside from superficialities, it would seem to follow that life itself has no meaning or purpose. Lord Henry asserts that “ beauty is a form of genius -- is higher, indeed, than genius, as it needs no explanation” (Wilde 22). Wilde is so close to being on the mark here; beauty is a form of genius, when that beauty refers to art objects created by the artist. Natural, god-given physical beauty is, for the most part, not up to us. It is

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