Christa Giles

66
The very sharpness of the contrast used to
quicken his sense of pleasure. He grew more
and more enamoured of his own beauty,
more and more interested in the corruption of
his own soul. 176
The mirror that Dorian holds, then, is perpetually occupied
with his beauty even as the alternate mirror (the painting)
is perpetually occupied with his decay. But art reveals the
beauty of truth (the painting transmutes ugliness into
psychological beauty) while nature merely reveals Dorian’s
external beauty. Both ˝art˝ and nature,˝ then, are the
repositories of different kinds of beauty and the
interconnection of art and life in this context suggest the
dandy/artist’s narcissism. The mirror/Narcissus image is
further developed in reference to Mallarmé in a passage in
Hérodiade quoted by Des Esseintes in A rebours:
…Oh mirror!
Cold water frozen by boredom within your
frame,
How many times, for hours on end,
Saddened by dreams and searching for my
memories,
Which are like dead leaves in the deep hole
beneath your glassy surface,
Have I seen myself in you as a distant ghost!