aestheticism

noun

Etymology: Etymology tree Latin aesthēticusder. German Ästhetikder. New Latin aesthēticusbor. French esthétiqueder. English aesthetic Proto-Indo-European *-id- Proto-Indo-European *-yéti Proto-Indo-European *-idyéti Proto-Hellenic *-íďďō Ancient Greek -ῐ́ζω (-ĭ́zō) Proto-Indo-European *-mos Proto-Indo-European *-mós Ancient Greek -μός (-mós) Ancient Greek -ισμός (-ismós)der. English -ism English aestheticism From aesthetic + -ism.

1. A doctrine which holds aesthetics or beauty as the highest ideal or most basic standard.

   “He went over his canvases with disgust and anger, unable to see virtue in any one of them. Even his sacred Oyster Girl went back on him. The creature of a vitiated æstheticism, he could only suppose that conceit had played an abominable trick on his eyesight.”

   “Born the most sensitive of children into an unhappy family that misreared and misschooled him, Rilke recoiled into introspectiveness and dilletante^([sic]) aestheticism, and long remained there; the world, or outwardness, was what had hurt him, was the enemy.”