Eternal youth, infinite passion, pleasures subtle and secret, wild joys and wilder sins – he was to have all these
things. The portrait was to bear the burden of his shame: that was all.
– Oscar Wilde
The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 8. After Dorian cruelly and coldly turns his back on Sibyl which results in her suicide, Basil’s portait of him changes and a look of vicious cruelty mars the lines of the mouth. He understands right away what this means for him – the portrait will serve as a metaphor for the state of his soul and conscience. The more corrupt these become the more the picture will portray Dorian’s moral decay and ugliness.