Aparência e essência no retrato moderno: de Sargent e Oscar Wilde

Abstract

This dissertation investigates portraiture as a symbolic device in the construction of modern identities, examining the tensions between appearance and essence in late nineteenth-century literature and painting. The study establishes a comparative dialogue between the novel The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890/1891), by Oscar Wilde (1854–1900), and the paintings Portrait of Madame X (1884) and Lady Agnew of Lochnaw (1892), by the painter John Singer Sargent (1856–1925). It is based on the hypothesis that, in these works, portraiture is not limited to the representation of physical appearance but constitutes a symbolic device of performativity and cultural staging through which identities, social values, and subjectivities are simultaneously constructed, negotiated, and revealed. The main objective is to analyze, from a comparative perspective, how portraiture operates as a field of mediation between the visible and the invisible, between being and seeming, highlighting the role of the image in the constitution of subjectivities. Methodologically, the study adopts a qualitative, interdisciplinary, and comparative approach, bringing together contributions from image theory, art history, and literary criticism, while also employing ekphrasis as an analytical procedure to establish a dialogue between word and image. In this process, Edgar Allan Poe’s short story “The Oval Portrait” (1842) is used as a comparative axis to deepen the analysis of the relationship between Wilde’s narrative and Sargent’s portraits. The theoretical framework draws on authors such as Hans Belting (2014), Erwin Panofsky (1991), Georges Didi-Huberman (2015), W. J. T. Mitchell (1986), and Roland Barthes (1984), whose reflections contribute to an understanding of the image as a field of cultural and symbolic mediation. The findings indicate that, in both Wilde’s narrative and Sargent’s portraits, representation does not function as a mere mirror of reality but rather as a space of symbolic construction in which identities, social values, and cultural codes are staged. Thus, modern portraiture emerges as a privileged site for reflecting on the ambiguities of modern subjectivity, revealing the instability between appearance and essence in the aesthetic and social experience of modernity.