Lord Henry Wotton (Harry) and the artist Basil Hallward sit in Hallward’s London studio and admire the artist’s recent painting: “In the centre of the room, clamped to an upright easel, [stands] the full-length portrait of a young man of extraordinary personal beauty” (5). Lord Henry believes the painting is Hallward’s greatest work yet and encourages the artist to submit it to Grosvenor Academy. When Hallward refuses, the men discuss beauty versus intellect. Lord Henry sees Hallward as intellectual, and intellectual men are ugly, while ignorant men like the beauty in the painting are beautiful. Hallward would rather be unremarkable and blend in rather than being distinguished, be it intellectual or physical. Both he and Dorian stand out, however (his art and Dorian’s looks). Because of this, they’re both destined to suffer.

Hallward, who believes he’s baring his soul embarrassingly with the painting, tells Lord Henry how he met Dorian Gray. He was at a party thrown by Lady Brandon when he first saw Dorian, and became possessed by a feeling of terror at first sight: “I knew that I had come face to face with some one whose mere personality was so fascinating that, if I allowed it to do so, would absorb my whole nature, my whole soul, my very art itself” (9-10).