Balthazar Grazian said, "the man who cannot see himself may not exist. "0 when did human beings create the first cosmetic mirror? It is unknown. The earliest artificial cosmetic mirror discovered by archaeologists was made of polished obsidian, and it was not until the late 18th century that the glass cosmetic mirror was widely used. In ancient times, our ancestors poured a layer of water into a large earthenware basin for cosmetic treatment, and called this kind of earthenware "Jian". Zheng Xuan of the Han Dynasty noted: "Jian, mirror belongs to, and water is taken, which is called Fang Zhu in the world.". A word of "Jian" reveals the clear purpose of the make-up mirror and its profound cultural connotation.

In Wilde's works, Dorian Gray was at first a pure young man with beautiful appearance, just as aunt Agatha said he was a "very lovely young man". (21) out of his appreciation of beauty, his friend Howard painted a life size portrait of him. But when I heard the letter from Lord Henry Lynn, I found out-

Who am I? What is beauty? What is love?

Dorian's eyes were opened by Lord Henry. After discovering his beauty, Dorian murmured, "how miserable! I will grow old, ugly and terrible; but this painting will always be young, and it will never be any better than it was in June. If only it could make me young forever, and this painting would be old. For this one, for this one, I am willing to give anything! Yes, there is nothing in the world that I do not want to give! Even the soul is willing to give! "B he began to feel pain for the difficulty of beauty, hoping that the portrait can take the burden of time and soul instead of himself. His desire to be wrong was realized later. For decades, he lived a dual personality life under the cover of portraits. His appearance was innocent and pure. In fact, he degenerated day by day, such as cruelly destroying Howard after killing him. Originally, his portrait can urge him to be good, but it is taken as a talisman by him, which anesthetizes his soul and protects his sin. In the end, Dorian is still destroyed in the portrait - or really in his own hands.

At the end of the novel, Dorian quotes such a sentence from Shakespeare's play Hamlet, "it is like a portrait drawn for sadness, a face without soul." 4, which is the answer to the three question marks in front. As pendergrast, an expert on the history of science, said, "without the make-up mirror, we are still human beings. What I lament is not the empty mirror itself, but what we reflect in the mirror. "Whether it's a mirror or a portrait, what human beings want to see is not what they are, but what they should be. The make-up mirror is only a medium for human beings to tempt themselves.