Book ReviewThe Portrait of a Lady by Henry James presents the reader with a novel that uses literary form to attempting to frame the life of its female protagonist; the very title – “Portrait” – expresses a double meaning, referring both to the representation of someone's inner character and also to a painting, drawing or engraving of the outer body. Art permeates both the structure and narrative of the play, and the manner in which it is presented is integral to our understanding of the novel. Throughout his writings, James considers contrasting views on aesthetics. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why violent video games should not be banned"? Get an original essay On the one hand, he seems to reject the idea that art should serve a didactic purpose, but on the other, he refuses to align himself with the notion of art for art's sake in his characterization of the soulless aesthete Osmond. Moreover, writing at a time when traditional art itself was being challenged by the birth of photography, these artistic anxieties are reflected in James's experimentation with realism – and its limitations – as he attempts to capture and distill a character whose identity revolves around resistance against being pinned. Alongside The Author of Beltraffio, a short story that embodies this conflict between didacticism and aestheticism, James presents the idea that art should represent life as accurately as possible. Yet in doing so he reveals the limitations of art, affecting the genre, perspective, and structure of both The Author of Beltraffio and The Portrait of a Lady. Through his writings, James presents the value of art as being found in the accurate representation of reality. In Portrait of a Lady, characters are repeatedly described in relation to works of art. For example, the protagonist Isabel is mentioned at the beginning of Ralph's novel as being "more beautiful than the finest work of art – than a Greek bas-relief, than a great Titian." Than a Gothic cathedral.” Its beauty is emphasized by the use of comparatives and superlatives “finer” and “finer” in relation to neoclassical and Gothic traditions. Moreover, it is already suggested that art is incapable of fully capturing reality: Isabelle cannot be encompassed by any aesthetic piece. Similarly, in The Author of Beltraffio, Mark Ambient's sister is casually described by the anonymous narrator as "very well made up in Rossetti", metaphorically suggesting that she embodies the Pre-Raphaelite ideal. Yet even though his characters constantly approach life through constant comparison with art, James is careful to criticize the projection of artistic values ​​onto reality. It is suggested in his critical article The Art of Fiction that "the health of an art which so immediately sets out to reproduce life must require that it be perfectly free", the implication being that bad art is that which projects superficial artistic values ​​and structure. about life rather than arising from life itself. Isabel's artistic romanticization of the European landscape and Oswald leaves her blind to his machinations, and it is the narrator's ignorance of the separation of Ambient's literary art from his domestic life that arguably results in the tragic death of his son. Indeed, the two protagonists can be accused of artistic solipsism, a fact made explicit in the texts themselves; early in the novel, Isabel is accused of living "too much in a world of her own dreams" and Ambient's house is described as "a palace of art". Thus, both characters are described as projecting aesthetic viewpointsmind-dependent on a mind-independent reality. Ultimately, James's artistic philosophy acts as a critique of the elements of 19th-century aestheticism, shown in his works through his characterization of representative individuals of the movement. In The Portrait of a Lady, this is seen most clearly in the presentation of the antagonists Osmond and Madame Merle. In an early scene with Isabel, Merle asserts that individuality is known externally rather than internally, stating that the self is “the expression of oneself; and one's house, one's furniture, one's clothes, the books one reads, the company one keeps – all this is expressive.” If one were to take Merle's philosophy as gospel, then Mark Ambient's sister in The Author of Beltraffio would truly be the Pre-Raphaelite muse she is trying to emulate. Instead, the narrator sees through her outward facade revealing her as a false artist, asserting through cutting repetitions "that she wished to be looked at, she wished to marry, she wished to be considered original." Furthermore, Osmond's artistic failure can be blamed on his inability to see beauty beyond material goods, or what critic Maurizo Ascari considers his "sphere of immobility". Osmond is incapable of appreciating anything apart from "static" objects, and while the interior of his house "tells of subtly considered arrangements and frankly proclaimed refinements," his interior artistic life is equally empty and lifeless. Although James may display a critical approach to "art for art's sake", his portrayal of moral didacticism is just as damning, if not more so: it is Beatrice's harsh Calvinism in Beltraffio's The Author that prevents him from to save his son. As detailed in The Art of Fiction, James rejects the idea that "English fiction should have a 'conscious moral purpose' in favor of an accurate presentation of reality." Yet while James seems to value art that prioritizes an accurate representation of reality, one could argue that he is a victim of the same romanticization for which he criticizes his characters. Indeed, he frequently uses houses and settings as exteriorizations of personalities in the novel. For example, Osmond's house is described as "the house of darkness, the house"; house of silence, the house of suffocation. As a reflection of Osmond's dominant personality, Ascari argues that this depiction "links the refined Osmond with gothic villains, transforming him into a jailer." Additionally, when evaluating the realism of the text, many critics overlook the supernatural element presented by Gardencourt's ghost, appearing as "a vague, hovering figure in the blur of the play" in the penultimate chapter, although it may seem that James is undermining his own artistic philosophy in his melodrama and. presentation of the unreal, the use of perspective in the novel can explain the existence of these artistic elements. Osmond's house appears as a "house of suffocation" precisely because Isabel projects her inner life onto the environment, similarly Ambient's house is described as "a palace of art" because of the the narrator's obsession with the author; the descriptions become an exercise in psychology. Rather than losing his realism, by taking the subjective perspectives of his characters and articulating how they perceive the objective world, James is able to use the techniques of Gothic and Romantic literature without being guilty of artistic solipsism. For James, good art is that which presents "the beauty and truth" of the artist's reality, and likewise "no good novel will ever come from a superficial mind." Followingthis argument, even the use of the ghost is justified in a realistic story; indeed, it is this oscillation between the psychological and the fantastic in The Turn of the Screw that ensured its popularity among 20th-century psychoanalytic readings. allows the psychology of the characters to be explored, it is also used as a way of almost imitating art itself, whilst questioning the extent of mimesis. While Beltraffio's author restricts the reader to a first-person perspective, in The Portrait of a Lady James he delves in and out of the point of view of a range of characters through the use of a narrator omniscient in the third person. Indeed, Osmond's introduction can be compared to a first vision of a painting: "a gentleman was seated in the company of a young girl and two good sisters from a religious house". The use of the common nouns "girl", "sisters" and "gentleman" places two of the main characters in seemingly static roles, with the narrator himself stating that "the small group could have been described by a painter as composing well" . There are moments in the novel where it also appears that the main character is literally posing for a portrait, for example "Isabel walked to the other side of the gallery and stood there, showing him her charming back, her slight figure and thin, the length of her white neck as she lowered her head and the density of her dark tresses. However, Isabel is shown to systematically avoid completing her portrait; importantly, Warburton's viewer cannot see that his eyes are "filled with tears." James denies Warburton's perception of Isabel's emotions, foreshadowing the withdrawal of Isabel's psychology from the reader during the second half of the novel. As the story progresses, perspective plays a more structural role, with the succession of elliptical jumps in time requiring the reader to piece together key events, such as Osmond's marriage to Isabel. This manipulation of viewpoints has led some critics, such as Alan Nadel, to view James's literature as proto-cinematic, asserting that "cinema is Jamesian – James is cinematic". Certainly, he was writing at the time of the emergence of photography as an artistic medium, questioning the purpose of traditional art which strove to represent reality; even the artist Delaroche is said to have declared that “painting is dead”. For an author concerned with art and literature as a presentation of reality – in The Beltraffio Author, Mark Ambient states “I want to be truer than I ever have been. …I want to give the impression of life itself” – James was wary of photography. He accused it of being "temporary", criticizing early photographer Mathew Brady, saying the medium "tells you everything except what you want to know". Critic Edward L. Schwarzschild points out that James viewed photography, despite its mimesis, as "superficial, superficial, merely 'realistic,' whereas the creations of Europeans like Goethe and Velazquez are 'life itself,' placing both literature and art above photography. While James may have espoused a prejudice towards an art form that was still in its infancy, the temporary nature of photography was reiterated even by later photographers, with Susan Sontag stating that "life is a film". This anxiety towards photography as a representation of a singular and finite moment – ​​one. symbolic death – is akin to the anxiety Isabel has, at least in the first half of the novel, about being intellectually confined and transformed into a static object. Thus, we can see the removal of Isabel's perspective in the middle as offering the reader a symbolic death. We don't.