22 May 2024
If you have ever visited Oscar Wilde's grave at Père Lachaise cemetery in Pari, you may be intrigued by the choice of a mysterious egyptian sphinx as his monument And also by the strange plastic protective screen built around the tomb.
Oscar Wilde is a famous Irish playwright and poet. He spent his final years in Paris, where he is buried in Père Lachaise Cemetery.
Homosexual relationships between men aged 21 and over were decriminalised in England and Wales under the 1967 Sexual Offences Act. It's important to note that Scotland and Northern Ireland did not follow suit until later, in 1980 for Scotland and 1982 for Northern Ireland.
After his release from prison in England having served time for "gross indecency", Wilde lived in self-imposed exile in France under the pseudonym "Sebastian Melmoth." He died in Paris in 1900, impoverished and relatively outcast from the society that once celebrated him.
The tomb of Oscar Wilde is notably adorned with a modernist angel-like sculpture, resembling an Egyptian sphinx. The monument was designed by Sir Jacob Epstein, an American-British sculptor, at the request of Wilde's friend and literary executor, Robert Ross. The Sphinx is a 174-line poem by Oscar Wilde written over a period of 20 years. In it, a young man questions the Sphinx in lurid detail on the history of her sexual adventures, before finally renouncing her attractions and turning to his crucifix.
Whilst it caused uproar at the time of final publication, it is now seen as Wilde's finest Decadent poem and has been described as "unrivalled: a quintessential piece of fin-de-siècle art".
Whatever the sphinx, a creature with profound mythological significance, and the poem's value-free inquiry into sexual behaviour, this sculpture does effectively capture the enduring intrigue and allure of Wilde’s persona, lifestyle and his numerous literary works.
Wilde was known as a champion of "Art for art's sake" ("Art with a capital F", Scruton could have said) and the school of "aesthetic philosophy", a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of art, of beauty, of aesthetic taste, as well as the creation and appreciation of beauty. Aesthetic philosophy explores what art is, its effects on us, why we find certain things beautiful others ugly, how we judge aesthetic value in art. Roger Scruton explored this more convincingly in a quite different way. A subject familiar to any serious art collector what.
In the context of Oscar Wilde's only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, aesthetic philosophy often aligns with the principles of Aestheticism, a movement which, as we've seen, Wilde played a prominent part. A movement that held as true that art should be appreciated and valued for its own sake, rather than for any moral or political message. Aestheticism very importantly advocated that the pursuit of beauty should be the primary goal of art, and that the life of the individual should be devoted to the pursuit of beauty - and we could agree, adding truth and justice. Not just beauty alone but sensory experiences too, so pure art and quite a long way from any Woke moral or social concerns we might suffer from today.
Over the years, the tomb has faced conservation challenges, especially due to this tradition of visitors who would often put on lipstick and then kiss the monument before leaving not only flowers but cosmetic marks and sometimes even damage. A glass barrier has now been erected around the tomb to protect it, while still allowing visitors to pay their respects.
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The Picture of Dorian Gray
The Picture of Dorian Gray is, perhaps surprisingly, Oscar Wilde's only novel. It was first published in 1890.
It tells the story of Dorian Gray, a young man of a quite extraordinary beauty, whose image is captured in a portrait by famous artist Basil Hallward. Dorian wishes that he could always stay young and beautiful as in his portrait. His wish is mysteriously granted, Dorian remains young and untouched by his sinful and hedonistic lifestyle, while the portrait in the attic ages and over time becomes hideously disfigured, reflecting the corruption in his soul.
As Dorian descends deeper and deeper into debauchery, the changes in the portrait become ever more grotesque, leading ultimately to the tragic consequences that we all know about.
The original idea for the novel may have come from themes of effete aestheticism, the need for a double life, the hypocritical duplicity, these all reflect Wilde's own complicated public and private personas in a society of Victorian moral values. Dorian Gray is after all a study in the nature of art and the relationship between the artist and his creation.
But Wilde was also surely influenced by the Faustian theme - a common trope in literature where a character makes a pact with the devil for some earthly advantage - so that we can say that in his novel, Wilde re-interprets the pact with the devil through the prism of aesthetic philosophy and Victorian morality.
The Picture of Dorian Gray had a significant impact when it was published, it was controversial. Critics and the public were scandalised and in uproar by its overt references to homosexual desire and its critique of the moral hypocrisy of Victorian society, A bankruptcy we would only come to appreciate with the arrival of the pill in the 1960s. The novel's exploration of aestheticism, moral duplicity, and the nature of beauty was spectacular and groundbreaking. It challenged the conventional norms of literature and society, forcing readers to question the values and ethics of the era. The book calls to mind Quentin Crisp's The Naked Civil Servant and still today remains a classic, studied for its literary merit and its themes that continue to resonate about the pursuit of beauty and the consequences of living a life devoid of ethical boundaries. Over time, it has cemented Wilde's legacy as one of our most incisive critics and our most eloquent authors of the late Victorian period.
And there we must leave the old rake rotting away under the featherly lashes with his sphinx-like mummy watching over him.
Next, we will turn to Van Morrison and the bubble gum tree.
