The House of Mirth

The motif of the artist is repeatedly used in The House of Mirth. Lily Bart is portrayed as an artist in her conscious creation of effects and in her sensitivity to beauty. Aware of Lily’s social maneuverings to gain a wealthy husband, Selden declares to the young woman: “your taking a walk with me is only another way of making use of your material. You are an artist and I happen to be the bit of colour you are using today” (69). Lily’s physical beauty is not the sole reason for her social ability to charm, but she understands that her appearance provides her with advantages. Whether it is arranging herself on a train seat to meet Percy Gryce or waiting in a rustic spot for Selden to appear, Lily positions herself intelligently places herself within the orbit of men she hopes to capture. Lily’s artistic triumph occurs at the Brys’ tableaux vivants, when she shows “her artistic intelligence in selecting a type so like her own that she could embody the person represented without ceasing to be herself” (142). Her matchless appeal, perceived by both Selden and Rosedale, consists of “the touch of poetry in her beauty” (142) and the way that “she detached herself, by a hundred undefinable shades […] her grace cheapening the other women’s smartness as her finely-discriminated silences made their chatter dull” (225).