Victorian Context: Beauty 

Aestheticism Movement 1860 – 1900

• ‘Art serves no other purpose than to offer beauty’
• Victorians believed art could be used as a tool for social education and moral enlightenment 
• Aestheticism Movement sought to free art for social responsibility 
• Doctrine that art exists for the sake of beauty and in no easy serves political, didactic or other purposes 
• Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood – art for art’s sake. Women’s roles similar to art ⇒ olt thee to be looked at 

The Picture of Dorian Grey – Oscar Wilde 

Oscar Wilde

• Oxford graduate – art critic and leading proponent of principles of aestheticism 
• 1981: publishes The Portrait of Dorian Gray – seen as immoral by Victorian critics
• Unconventional in his writing and life – affair with a young man led to arest on charge of ‘gross indecency’ (homosexuality) → imprisoned for 2yrs and died 3yrs after being let out 
• Considered a dandy: elegant man, impose great importance to their appearance 

Hedonism: pursuit of pleasure; sensual self indulgence

Narcissism: Pursuit of gratification from vanity or egotism,admiration for oneself 

Subversive Beauty – Victorian Bodies of Expression 

• Victorian heroes/heroines bearing traditional types of beauty become important symbols of moral purity among middle class readership
• Female idea in ‘the angel in the house’ poems seem in many ways a non person, but is always physically flawless 
• Non person = unrealistic, can’t be achieved, far from realism → still seen in 21st century in social media e.g plastic surgery, filtes, facetune