Aestheticism
Sign in to saveAlso known as Aesthetic Movement, Æsthetic Movement, æstheticism
Aestheticism (also known as the aesthetic movement) was an art movement in the late 19th century that valued the appearance of literature, music, fonts, and the arts over their functions. According to Aestheticism, art should be produced to be beautiful, rather than to teach a lesson, create a parallel, or perform another didactic purpose, a sentiment expressed in the slogan "art for art's sake." Aestheticism flourished, in the 1870s and 1880s, gaining prominence and the support of notable writers, such as Walter Pater and Oscar Wilde. Those seen as guided by the movement were known as Aesthet
Key facts
- Art movement.yearsactive
- late 19th century
- Art movement.location
- predominantly Great Britain
- Art movement.influences
- German Romanticism, Anglo-Japanese style
- Art movement.majorfigures
- Christopher Dresser, Charles Eastlake and Edward William Godwin
- Art movement.image
- The Peacock Room.jpg
- Art movement.caption
- The Peacock Room, designed in the Anglo-Japanese style by James Abbott McNeill Whistler and Edward Godwin, one of the most famous and comprehensive examples of Aesthetic interior design
via Wikipedia infobox
~15 min read
Encyclopedic overview
10 sectionsContents
- Origin
- Aesthetic literature
- Aesthetic fine art
- Aesthetic decorative arts
- Influence on advertising
- See also
- References
- Sources
- Further reading
- External links
Aestheticism (also known as the aesthetic movement) was an art movement in the late 19th century that valued the appearance of literature, music, fonts, and the arts over their functions. According to Aestheticism, art should be produced to be beautiful, rather than to teach a lesson, create a parallel, or perform another didactic purpose, a sentiment expressed in the slogan "art for art's sake." Aestheticism flourished, in the 1870s and 1880s, gaining prominence and the support of notable writers, such as Walter Pater and Oscar Wilde. Those seen as guided by the movement were known as Aesthetes.
Aestheticism challenged the values of mainstream Victorian culture, as many Victorians believed that literature and art fulfilled important ethical roles. Writing in The Guardian, Fiona MacCarthy states that "the aesthetic movement stood, in stark and sometimes shocking contrast, to the crass materialism of Britain, in the 19th century."
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Aestheticism” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.