Colour symbolism in the novel The Picture of

Oscar Wilde’s “The Picture of Dorian Gray” is a true masterpiece. It contains a lot of symbols, motives, allusions, which are now and then even provocative.

Oscar Wilde was a genuine artist of poetic word.

Natural sciences present colour as a light flux.

For literature’s purposes:
spiritual basis of colour;
“perceptional and moral effect of colour” (J.W. Goethe ).

The art conception of the Pre-Raphaelites.
A supply of criticism aimed at the modern society from a position of Beauty.
Life should be more aesthetically acceptable.
The principle of stylization .
The main features of the Pre-Raphaelites are:
exaggerated decorativism;
bright colouring;
detailed elaboration.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti
“Proserpine”.
(1874)
Oil on canvas.
Tate Gallery,
London, UK

John Everett Millais “Ophelia”.
(1851–1852)
Oil on canvas
Tate Britain, London

John William Waterhouse “The Lady of Shalott”
(1888)
Oil on canvas
Tate, London

The main character – young and handsome dandy Dorian Gray.
a lad of delightful beauty “with his finely-curved scarlet lips, his frank blue eyes, his crisp gold hair”.
“Immobilized” colours are the implementation of eternal youth, which Dorian longed for.

The portrait painted by Basil Hallward is a true work of Art.
the same “gold
hair, blue eyes,
and rose-red
lips”.

“foul parody … infamous,
ignoble satire…”
Despite having transformed beyond recognition, the portrait preserves the protagonist’s features.
Nevertheless “gold in the thinning hair”, “scarlet on the sensual mouth” could be noticed in the canvas, “the eyes had something of … their blue”.

A generalized colour characteristic of the protagonist:
Lord Henry:
“Young Adonis, who looks as if he was made out of ivory and rose-leaves”.
(I chapter)
An unknown sender to Dorian:
“The world is changed because you are made of ivory and gold”.
(XX chapter)

Aestheticism (by Walter Pater)
no attention to moral;
absolutized pure Beauty;
refined and exquisite form;
worship of inanimate nature.

The evidence of this theory in the novel:
Colour is frequently expressed by the epithets, metaphors and comparisons with gems, metals.
The beauty of things seems to be immortal.
The names of material are used with the meaning of tints.
In the novel the colours of nature are reconsidered by the objects of the material world.

The examples of comparison of colours with gems:
“crocodiles with small beryl eyes”;
“the opal-and-iris-throated birds”;
“His eyes deepened into amethyst”.

The colours in the descriptions of the sky:
“the hollowed turquoise of the summer sky” (turquoise - a greenish-blue colour of this mineral);
“The sky was pure opal”;
“a thin wreath of smoke was rising. It curled … through the nacre-coloured air” (nacre - a hard substance, that forms the inner layer of the shells of certain molluscs);
“a copper-green sky”.

The examples of comparison of colours with metals:
“the leafless trees shook their black iron branches to and fro”;
“the water’s silent silver”;
“the dusty gilt horns of the straggling woodbine”.

Fatal “yellow” book
↓
Dorian’s likings and passions
↓
a mosaic of different
paints and tints
olive-green chrysoberyl”;
“flame-red cinnamon-stones”;
“books bound in tawny satins”;
“altar frontals of crimson velvet”.

Lord Henry: “Sin is the only real colour-element left in modern life”.
Vivid colours flash out in the moments when Dorian’s vices and crimes are shown.
(The illustrations by Viktoria Svichkar)

The incident with Sibyl Vane and the first torture of conscience:
“… tiny scarlet speck that makes men mad”.
“He was trying to gather up the scarlet threads of life, and to weave them into a pattern; to find his way through the sanguine labyrinth of passion through which he was wandering”.

The scene of Basil Hallward’s murder and the description of the dead man:
“loathsome red dew that gleamed, wet and glistening”;
“the light shot up for a moment in a flame of murky orange”;
the dead man’s “glistening yellow face”.

The scene in the den:
“The moon … like a yellow skull”;
“orange, fanlike tongues of fire”;
“a tattered green curtain”;
“Two red sparks flashed for a moment in the woman's sodden eyes”