Al publicarse esta novela
en 1890 se la criticó por decadente y por hacer alusiones a la homosexualidad.
El Daily Chronicle, por ejemplo, la llamó sucia, venenosa y putrefacta. Wilde
respondió “si el arte es rico y vital aquellos que tienen instintos artísticos
verán su belleza…” Aquí algunos párrafos de The Picture of Dorian Gray.
The studio was
filled with the rich odour of roses, and when the light summer wind stirred
amidst the trees of the garden, there came through the open door the heavy
scent of the lilac, or the more delicate perfume of the pink-flowering thorn.
From the corner of the divan of Persian saddle-bags on which he was
lying, smoking, as was his custom, innumerable cigarettes, Lord Henry Wotton
could just catch the gleam of the honey-sweet and honey-coloured blossoms of a laburnum, whose tremulous branches
seemed hardly able to bear the burden of a beauty so flamelike as theirs; and
now and then the fantastic shadows of birds in flight flitted across the long tussore-silk
curtains that were stretched in front of the huge window, producing a kind of
momentary Japanese effect, and making him think of those pallid, jade-faced
painters of Tokyo who, through the medium of an art that is necessarily
immobile, seek to convey the sense of swiftness and motion. The irritating
murmur of the bees shouldering their way through the long unmown grass, or
circling with monotonous insistence round the dusty gilt horns of the irregular woodbine,
seemed to make the stillness more oppressive. The dim roar of London was like
the bourdon note of a distant organ.
In the centre of
the room, closed to an upright easel,
stood the full-length portrait of a young man of extraordinary personal beauty,
and in front of it, some little distance away, was sitting the artist himself,
Basil Hallward, whose sudden disappearance some years ago caused, at the time,
such public excitement and gave rise to so many strange conjectures.
As the painter
looked at the gracious and attractive form he had so skilfully mirrored in his
art, a smile of pleasure passed across his face, and seemed about to remain
there. But he suddenly started up, and closing his eyes, placed his fingers
upon the lids, as though he sought to imprison within his brain some curious
dream from which he feared he might awake.
"It is your
best work, Basil, the best thing you have ever done," said Lord Henry
languidly. "You must certainly send it next year to the Grosvenor. The
Academy is too large and too vulgar. Whenever I have gone there, there have
been either so many people that I have not been able to see the pictures, which
was terrible, or so many pictures that I have not been able to see the people,
which was worse. The Grosvenor is really the only place."
"I don't
think I shall send it anywhere," he answered, moving his head back in that
odd way that used to make his friends laugh at him at Oxford. "No, I won't
send it anywhere."
Lord Henry
elevated his eyebrows and looked at him in amazement through the thin blue rings
of smoke that curled up in such fanciful circles from his heavy, opium-tainted
cigarette. "Not send it anywhere? My dear fellow, why? Have you any
reason? What odd chaps you painters are! You do anything in the world to gain a
reputation. As soon as you have one, you seem to want to throw it away. It is
silly of you, for there is only one thing in the world worse than being talked
about, and that is not being talked about. A portrait like this would set you
far above all the young men in England, and make the old men quite jealous, if
old men are ever capable of any emotion."
"I know you
will laugh at me," he replied, "but I really can't exhibit… (The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde.
Excerpts in easier English)
laburnum:
poisonous trees with bright yellow flowers.
gilt: resembling
gold.
woodbine: (español)
madreselva.
bourdon: deep.
easel: A wooden
frame for holding an artist’s work while it is being painted or drawn.
Related posts
Resources
The Picture of Dorian Gray. Text
online.
The Picture of Dorian Gray, audiobook.
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