Into the World There Came a Soul Called

ART AND IMAGES IN PSYCHIATRY

SECTION EDITOR: JAMES C. HARRIS, MD Into the World There Came a Soul Called Ida Carson: Have you ever felt that feeling of adoring madly a beautiful male person many years younger than yourself? Wilde: I have never given adoration to anybody except myself. From the trial of Oscar Wilde1(p91)

VAN ALBRIGHT (1897-1983) RE- ing the emptiness of a life filled with was commissioned to paint Dorian introduced the long-dormant material possessions, Ida stands at the Gray’s corruption for screenwriter and theme of vanitas into 20th- threshold between youth and maturity— director Albert Lewin’s MGM film ad- century art. Traditionally, vani- “poignant and disenchanted.”4(p49) Her an- aptation of Wilde’s book in 1943. Twin tasI (vanity) paintings emphasized the tique dressing table, smoked cigarette, ex- brother Malvin was asked to do the origi- transience of life, the futility of momen- nal uncorrupted painting of Gray, al- tary pleasure, and the certainty of death, though his painting ultimately was not thus challenging the viewer to search for used. A live actor, Skeets Noyes, posed a more meaningful, and less self- with props, putting congealed chicken centered, existence. The vanitas theme blood on his hands for the corrupted originated in northern Europe in the late Dorian painting. Dorian (Figure) wears Middle Ages and remained popular into a frayed and torn suit, his hands cov- the 18th century.2 Albright modern- ered with blood, his face grizzly and ized it in Into the World There Came a pockmarked, his eyes glaring as if pos- Soul Called Ida (cover). In it, he shows sessed. At Dorian’s left is a Victorian a woman’s reluctant physical transition chair, above it a clock; to his right is an from youth to middle age. In contrast, Egyptian cat statue. The film is black and in his Picture of Dorian Gray (Figure), white, but the portrait appears in vivid based on the Oscar Wilde novel, he Technicolor.2 With each of Dorian’s im- turned away from outer appearances and moral acts, the painting becomes more focused instead on the inner life. In it hideous until, in a desperate attempt to Albright depicts the psychological toll destroy it, he stabs his painted self, not and moral degeneracy that results from to renounce evil but to be freed from his Dorian’s Faustian pact to remain eter- conscience, and dies; the painting then nally young, to pursue the aesthetic life reverts to the youthful original Dorian. of sensual indulgence without compunc- The novel is sometimes interpreted tion, morally indifferent to the well- as a preamble to Oscar Wilde’s own life. being of others. Thrilled when his por- Like Dorian Gray’s pact, Wilde’s law- trait captured his youthful beauty, suit against Bosie’s father, the Mar- Dorian reflects: quess of Queensbury, for sexual slan- How sad it is! I shall grow old, and horrible, der initiated a pattern of self-destructive and dreadful. But this picture will remain al- choices that resulted in his conviction ways young....Ifitwereonly the other way! (under an unjust law) for indecent be- If it were I who was to be always young, and havior with men. His denials in court of the picture that was to grow old! . . . I would his well-documented homosexual en- give my soul for that.3(p25) counters with youthful male prosti- Albright’s father, Adam, encour- Figure. Picture of Dorian Gray, 1943-1944. tutes were his downfall (epigraph). aged Ivan, the first born of identical Omnia vanitas. twins, and his twin brother, Malvin, to tinguished match, and threadbare rug indicate the passing of time as once did become artists. He imbued in them his James C. Harris, MD teacher Thomas Eakins’ emphasis on the the candle and hourglass. Her powder importance of detailed drawing, ana- puff suggests fading beauty; the money, tomical dissection, and realistic por- ephemeral worldly power; and the flow- REFERENCES trayal of the human body. Frail at birth ers, transience and decay. Ida attends to (weighing 31⁄2 pounds), shy, and sensi- the aging face reflected in the mirror. Her 1. Holland M. The Real Trial of Oscar Wilde. New York, tive, the brothers shared a private lan- glowing phosphorescent decay is remi- NY: Harper Collins; 2003. guage between them. Both enlisted in the niscent of Oscar Wilde’s statement in De 2. Rossen SF, Guernsey SE, eds. Ivan Albright. Chi- Medical Corps of the American Expe- Profundis (from the depths of misery), a cago, IL: Art Institute of Chicago, Hudson Hills ditionary Forces in 1918. Ivan’s talent letter from prison to his young lover, Lord Press; 1999. was quickly recognized, and he was soon Alfred Douglas (Bosie): 3. Wilde W. The Picture of Dorian Gray. In: Gullespie MP, ed. New York, NY: WW Norton & Co; 2007. ...the“Pleasure that liveth for a moment” making medical illustrations of wounds. 4. Croydon M. Ivan Albright. New York, NY: Abbe- has to make way for the “Sorrow that abideth After the war, he studied art in Chi- ville Press; 1978. 4 forever” it is incarnate....5(p69) cago, Pennsylvania, and New York. 5. Wilde O. De Profundis, The Ballad of Reading Gaol Unlike earlier vanitas art showing Because of his earlier realistic but ex- & Other Writings. Hertfordshire, UK: Wordsworth youth, old age, and death and emphasiz- aggerated depictions of decay, Albright Editions Ltd; 1999.

(REPRINTED) ARCH GEN PSYCHIATRY/ VOL 66 (NO. 7), JULY 2009 WWW.ARCHGENPSYCHIATRY.COM 691