The Painter's Studio in the First Page of Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray

The first page of The Picture of Dorian Gray connects two places, a painter's studio and a garden. In doing so, it weaves a subtle interplay of correspondences between both. This article intends to show first that Wilde's description is in keeping with the nineteenth-century pictorial topos of the 'artist's studio', which explains why nothing precise is said about Dorian's portrait. Second, it contends that, far from being an objective representation, the studio serves as a metaphor for art and writing. It also claims that Wilde highlights one fundamental topic, the power of reading.