The definition and the standard of art may vary depending on the artist’s values. In Joseph Conrad’s Preface to The Nigger of the “Narcissus”, he states that the artist should contemplate on producing a work that is tightly planned and created, being mindful of every single line. An art should contain reflections on “illuminating and convincing” (1887) qualities within sensuously stimulating events, and thus, be “enduring and essential” (1887). The artistic appeal, made to the delicate human nature, is also made to a person’s temperament, which is an unchanging, permanent gift to feel and find significance within passing events. And using such temperament, the artist can appeal to different senses and eventually to the dormant “feeling of fellowship
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In the first two stanza of the poem, the speaker is in a time when night is slowly ending. Visually peculiar expressions are continuously made; specifically, Wilde’s adjectival usage of color is not natural or realistic but rather impressionistic. For example, the poem begins likewise: “The Thames of nocturne of blue and gold/ Changed to a harmony in grey” (1-2). From the very beginning, Wilde alludes to the “Nocturnes in Blue and Gold”, a painting by Whistler, giving his readers a direct visual guide to be mindful of (1687). Even to those who do not know what the painting looks like, the colors blue and gold, connoted with richness and deepness, helps the readers envisage the dark, deep stillness of midnight. In line 2, a lighter color, grey, is immediately introduced, symbolizing how the night’s color is fading into morning. Grey is identified with harmony, creating a slightly incongruous imagery. Harmony has a musical, joyful, united, and balanced connotation, but grey has a connotation of dullness, depression, and conservativeness. Yet, the readers are able to realize that harmony stands for the balance met between the night and the morning and that grey represents the visually perceptible color of that moment. Thus, “harmony in grey” (2) sounds odd at
In the first two stanza of the poem, the speaker is in a time when night is slowly ending. Visually peculiar expressions are continuously made; specifically, Wilde’s adjectival usage of color is not natural or realistic but rather impressionistic. For example, the poem begins likewise: “The Thames of nocturne of blue and gold/ Changed to a harmony in grey” (1-2). From the very beginning, Wilde alludes to the “Nocturnes in Blue and Gold”, a painting by Whistler, giving his readers a direct visual guide to be mindful of (1687). Even to those who do not know what the painting looks like, the colors blue and gold, connoted with richness and deepness, helps the readers envisage the dark, deep stillness of midnight. In line 2, a lighter color, grey, is immediately introduced, symbolizing how the night’s color is fading into morning. Grey is identified with harmony, creating a slightly incongruous imagery. Harmony has a musical, joyful, united, and balanced connotation, but grey has a connotation of dullness, depression, and conservativeness. Yet, the readers are able to realize that harmony stands for the balance met between the night and the morning and that grey represents the visually perceptible color of that moment. Thus, “harmony in grey” (2) sounds odd at