Quote 7
"[…] the work I have done, since I met Dorian Gray, is good work, is the best work of my life. But in some curious way -- I wonder will you understand me? -- his personality has suggested to me an entirely new manner in art, an entirely new mode of style. I see things differently, I think of them differently. I can now recreate life in a way that was hidden from me before. 'A dream of form in days of thought' -- who is it who says that? I forget; but it is what Dorian Gray has been to me. The merely visible presence of this lad -- for he seems to me little more than a lad, though he is really over twenty -- his merely visible presence -- ah! I wonder can you realize all that that means? Unconsciously he defines for me the lines of a fresh school, a school that is to have in it all the passion of the romantic spirit, all the perfection of the spirit that is Greek. The harmony of soul and body -- how much that is! We in our madness have separated the two, and have invented a realism that is vulgar, an ideality that is void. Harry! if you only knew what Dorian Gray is to me!" (1.20)
Dorian brings about a dramatic transformation in Basil's artwork – his personality is the catalyst to Basil's new understanding of the world. Basil's personal development is exactly in line with his artistic development. Everything, to him, is art.
Quote 8
A strange sense of loss came over him. He felt that Dorian Gray would never again be to him all that he had been in the past. Life had come between them.... His eyes darkened, and the crowded flaring streets became blurred to his eyes. When the cab drew up at the theatre, it seemed to him that he had grown years older. (6.10)
Basil recognizes the changes that have come over Dorian before things even really start happening. He's incredibly sensitive to any difference in the object of his idolatry.
Quote 9
An exclamation of horror broke from the painter's lips as he saw in the dim light the hideous face on the canvas grinning at him. There was something in its expression that filled him with disgust and loathing. Good heavens! it was Dorian Gray's own face that he was looking at! The horror, whatever it was, had not yet entirely spoiled that marvellous beauty. There was still some gold in the thinning hair and some scarlet on the sensual mouth. The sodden eyes had kept something of the loveliness of their blue, the noble curves had not yet completely passed away from chiselled nostrils and from plastic throat. Yes, it was Dorian himself. But who had done it? He seemed to recognize his own brush-work, and the frame was his own design. The idea was monstrous, yet he felt afraid. He seized the lighted candle, and held it to the picture. In the left-hand corner was his own name, traced in long letters of bright vermilion.
It was some foul parody, some infamous ignoble satire. He had never done that. Still, it was his own picture. He knew it, and he felt as if his blood had changed in a moment from fire to sluggish ice. His own picture! What did it mean? Why had it altered? (13.5-6)
Finally, Basil comes face to painted face with Dorian's real soul, and, finally, he sees what he's been denying all along. His horror and shock are those of betrayal; he'd believed in Dorian all these years, only to find that all the rumors are true – Dorian has become a monster.