This is the preface of The Picture of Dorian Gray, written by Oscar Wilde in 1891. Whan the writer published the novel he added a Preface which embodies his aesthetic doctrine of "art for art's sake". The preface is made up a list of shot phrases, like epigrams, that are paradoxical and apparently contradictory statements. The intelligent reader suddenly understands that Oscar Wilde repudiates the idea that art serves a moral purpose: in the Victorian period art has a double goal, to teach and to entertain. Art was supposed to mirror life and also teach its readers to live a good and moral life. Consequently The Picture of Dorian Gray is a nonconforming novel, that refuses the Victorian and the bourgeoisie's norms. Besides The Preface of The Picture of Dorian Gray is a manifesto of Oscar Wilde's aesthetic doctrine. The writer assigns to art and to the beauty an absolute supremacy and the artist is he who creates beautiful thinks. It's interesting that according to Wilde's idea, the ordinary people can't understand the power of art. Only the "elects", only the cultivated and learned people can find beautiful meaning in beautiful things.