Fionn Wilson

On Saturday, I celebrated my 50th birthday in the beautiful Oscar Wilde Lounge at the Cafe Royal in Regent Street. I’d wanted to go there for years and my Dad made my wish come true for this occasion. Stepping into the golden and mirrored room where Oscar would hold court was something very special to me and I was moved to tears to be there.

Oscar Wilde was a rebel and ahead of his time. He was a leading proponent of aestheticism (alongside writers and poets including Baudelaire and Edgar Allan Poe) and in ‘The Soul of Man under Socialism’ he proposed that the best government for the artist is no government at all. In current times, where it’s almost impossible to gain funding unless your work supports state-driven agendas, I think his statement is becoming increasingly pertinent.

I’ve painted Oscar Wilde four times and the portraits belong to the private collections of members of The Oscar Wilde Society and actor and writer Stephen Fry. I’m sharing below something I wrote a few years ago, reporting back on a talk given by Stephen Fry as part of an Oscar Wilde season at the Vaudeville theatre. I think it shows how important and relevant Oscar still is to the world and to our individual realities.

Stephen Fry at the Vaudeville theatre (October, 2017)

Recently, I listened to a very moving and enlightening talk by Stephen Fry about Oscar Wilde. He explained that where he grew up television was frowned upon and locked in a cupboard and brought out only on special occasions. He remembered that once he sneaked it out and fashioned an aerial out of a wire coat hanger and sat down to watch what turned out to be a film based on a play by Oscar Wilde. He said that he was transfixed by the beauty of the language and how it sounded and although he didn’t really understand it, it fascinated him enough to walk the couple of miles down to the bottom of the lane to visit the mobile library every weekend to read more and more (and eventually all) of Oscar Wilde’s works.

When he discovered what actually happened to Wilde he was horrified. He couldn’t understand how someone who wrote so beautifully and with such wit and warmth became so hated and humiliated and suffered such a dramatic and complete downfall. He also said that he somehow knew then that what Wilde had been persecuted for was something that was also within himself. He told us that Oscar Wilde had once said ‘I see the world in all its colours’ and refused to ask for white wine as he said he’d never seen wine that was white before, so he used to order yellow wine. He wanted to deal with what he saw as the truths of the time, and to throw light on them and criticise them and he often spoke about this through witty pronouncements.

As Stephen pointed out, wit is often seen as being somehow throwaway, belittling, but it is also a way of being able to say things that wouldn’t otherwise be seen as acceptable. Wilde was, in his own way, a revolutionary thinker. In his work ‘The Soul of Man under Socialism’, he proposed that the best government for the artist is no government at all.

Oscar Wilde’s star continues to rise with the passing years (he’s the most widely read and translated English-language author in Europe after Shakespeare). Stephen suggested that it’s important to guard against seeing Wilde as anything other than human – and of course he had failings (it’s fair to say he was a really bad snob) but also, he was compassionate. He couldn’t stand spite or ugliness of thinking and he was full of humanity. He also understood the class system and how it works.

Stephen proposed Oscar Wilde as the patron of those who refuse to narrow or confine their thinking and morality and are constantly redefining their views and ideas and of artists and those who strive for beauty in thinking as well as through poetry and writing. He finished off by saying he wished he could go back in time, to Reading Gaol, and whisper in Oscar Wilde’s ear that he, and his writing, would be loved by so many people.

I thoroughly recommend The Oscar Wilde Society to Oscar fans. You can find out more here:

https://oscarwildesociety.co.uk

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