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This paper discusses the so-called incongruity that critics tend to see in Oscar Wilde’s aesthetic theory which he celebrates in his prose. Critics have always discussed a kind of contradiction between Wilde’s novel The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891) and his artistic views which he celebrates in The Preface and in his two essays “The Decay of Lying” (1889) and “The Critic as an Artist” (1891). The first section of this paper analyzes Wilde’s artistic theory which was a reaction against Victorian moral aesthetics. Most Victorian aestheticians believed that the function of art is moral. Not only was art related to man’s ethical needs but it also had a religious mission. On the other hand. Wilde. like some Victorian poets. sensed the attraction of pure art independent of all moral concerns. Wilde’s major works reflect a desire to free art from the moral and social obligations. Writing under the influence of Pater and rejecting the principles of Ruskin at the same time. Wilde became the main proponent of New Aesthetic movement in England in 1890s. The paper presents a detailed study of Wilde’s four claims that constitute the New Aesthetics of his age. In addition. it shows the influence of Wilde on modern thought epitomized by Modernists and the proponents of modern objective theory such as Eliot. J. C. Ransom. Brooks. Burke. Ellis and others. The second section of this paper answers a major question: does The Picture of Dorian Gray expose the defects of aestheticism while The Preface defends its virtues? As the paper reviews most of the issues that critics consider to be a source of contradiction. it also shows that the novel presents a coherent philosophical point of view that Wilde wished to emphasize at least indirectly. The novel. when properly understood. is consistent with Wilde’s artistic views.