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Verdeurs

Oscar Wilde, Dorian Gray, and the Colors of Decadence

Bibliographic Data

ID12411981
AuthorsCharlotte Ribeyrol (0000-0003-0398-6410, Sorbonne Université, corresponding author)
Year2021
Volume49
Issue4
Pages753-775
Publication date2021-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueVictorian Literature and Culture (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1060-1503 • E-ISSN: 1470-1553
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s1060150320000261
OpenAlexW4205987114
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited21

When Basil Hallward discovers the distorted portrait of Dorian Gray in chapter 13 of Wilde's eponymous novel, he first ascribes the changes to “some wretched mineral poison” in his paints. Although the passage corresponds to the climax of the story, it has rarely been discussed from a chromatic perspective. And yet, color mattered to Wilde as well as to many of his decadent friends. Drawing on the canonical text of The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891), which it revisits from a color perspective, this article explores the literary inscription of new, shifting chromatic materialities in order to shed light on what Théophile Gautier, in his seminal 1868 essay on Baudelaire, defined as the decadent “palette”: “veined with the greenness ( verdeurs ) of decomposition.”

Art · Art history · Chromatic scale · Decadence · Gray (unit · Literature · Physics · Portrait · Historical Art and Culture Studies · Night-time city culture · Travel Writing and Literature

  • Colour reception(s)

    Open Access•Charlotte Ribeyrol•Sillages critiques•2024

  • Absinthe as a Cypher for Decadence and Catalyst of Degeneration in Marie Corelli’s Wormwood

    Martina Allen•Anglia - Zeitschrift für…•2025

  • Reading the Colours of Victorian Interiors

    Open Access•Charlotte Ribeyrol•Cahiers victoriens et édouardiens•2023

  • The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde, Vol. 1

    Oscar Wilde, Bobby Fong et al.•The complete works of Oscar Wilde•2000

  • British Aestheticism and Ancient Greece

    Open Access•Stefano Evangelista•British Aestheticism and Ancient…•2009

  • The Colours of Things

    Diana J B Young, Diana Young•Handbook of Material Culture•2006

  • The Ideas in Things

    Elaine Freedgood•Ideas in Things•2006

  • Studies on Homer and the Homeric Age

    Open Access•William Ewart Gladstone•Studies on Homer and the Homeric…•2010

  • Dissemination

    Jacques Derrida, Barbara Johnson•Dissemination•1981

  • White Symphonies with Red Spots

    Anja Müller-muth•Women s Studies•2003

  • Pater the Classicist

    Stefano-Maria Evangelista, Charles Martindale et al.•Pater the classicist•2017

  • Étrangeté, passion, couleur »

    Open Access•Charlotte Ribeyrol•Étrangeté, passion, couleur »•2013

  • Color as Cognition in Symbolist Verse

    Françoise Meltzer•Critical Inquiry•1978

Unique citing works3
Citations per year1
Citation span2023 - 2025 (3)
Citation velocityrecent
Highly citedNo
Citation typesNeutral: 3

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