If, say, Dorian Gray is the embodiment of beauty in the story, then it is Basil Hallward the painter who converts Dorian’s worldly existence into a heightened sphere of art. Throughout the book, the impression of basil upon readers is nothing other than his keen sensitiveness to the value of beautiful things, or simply his preoccupation with sensibility.
Sensibility:
In Basil’s appreciation of beauty and art, top priority is given to his sensibility rather than sense and reason. When he first met Dorian Gray, he gives a delicate and passionate description of the psychological change he undergoes “a curious sensation of terror came over me,…it would absorb my whole nature, my whole soul, my very art itself”. And in the same chapter, he made a confession to Lord Henry about the influence of Dorian’s beauty upon his art as “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 and ideality that is void”. Here the effect of sensibility is heightened to an extent to which it can even penetrate one’s nature and soul while realism is despised as being vulgar. The description serves as an indicator of the artist’s preference of sensibility to rationalism in his pursuit of art, which is in accordance with Wilde’s theory of “they are elect to whom beautiful things mean only him so long as it is beautiful and what matters is beauty itself instead of any moral significance it bears. That is why he lavishes praises upon Dorian despite his ignorance of the l beauty” and “All art is quite useless”. To basil Hallward, anything will appeal toatter’s nature. And to Wilde, “there is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all”. Basil’s extravagant panegyrics on Dorian’s beauty is a reflection of his emphasis upon sensibility in artistic creation, which could be further proved by his refusal to paint for somebody else despite the huge price offered to him just because “there was something in the shape of his fingers that I hated”. Basil’s, or rather, Wilde’s infatuation with sensibility is inseparable from his attempt to seek an escape from the stifling confines of Victorian painting and writing, from those arts weighed down by an ever increasing burden of moral, social and sentimental baggage.
The greatest fascination of the novel, as unanimously applauded by most readers, owes itself to the portrayal of Lord Henry Wotton, a dandy and cynic who treats life as a spectator sport and exercises a malign influence upon Dorian. It is through his scintillating remarks that Oscar Wilde finds an ideal outlet for his own outlook toward art and life. In Lord Henry three elements coalesce to distinguish Wilde as a leading aesthete: dandyism, cynicism and masterly use of paradox.