The article deals with the aesthetic views of English writer Oscar Wilde, who led aestheticism as a literary trend in England, defined his credo in the articles included in the collection of «Intentions» (1891). From the ordinary life of bourgeois society, where injustice reigned, the writer distanced himself and went into the abode of beauty. Wilde’s views are contradictory. Controversies in the views of Wilde are particularly evident in his novel «The Picture of Dorian Gray», 1891. The writer builds images, plot episodes in accordance with his favorite aesthetic concepts: art is higher than life, pleasure is more important than anything else, beauty is above morality. However, the system of images and the development of the plot reveal the falsity of these ideas. The dynamics of the plot overcome the static of individual episodes. The objective meaning of the novel contradicts the meaning of individual episodes and, in fact, refutes the entire program of aestheticism and hedonism, which impresses the author.