Aestheticism

The Peacock Room, Aesthetic Movement designed by

James Abbott McNeill Whistler, one of the most
famous examples of Aesthetic style interior design
Aestheticism (also the Aesthetic
Movement) is an intellectual and art
movement supporting the emphasis of
aesthetic values more than social-political
themes for literature, fine art, music and
other arts.[1][2] This meant that art from
this particular movement focused more on
being beautiful rather than having a deeper
meaning — "art for art's sake". It was
particularly prominent in Europe during the
19th century, supported by notable figures
such as Walter Pater and Oscar Wilde, but
contemporary critics are also associated
with the movement, such as Harold Bloom,
who has recently argued against
projecting social and political ideology
onto literary works, which he believes has
been a growing problem in humanities
departments over the 20th century.[3]

In the 19th century, it was related to other

movements such as symbolism or
decadence represented in France, or
decadentismo represented in Italy, and
may be considered the British version of
the same style.

Aesthetic literature
The British decadent writers were much
influenced by the Oxford professor Walter
Pater and his essays published during
1867–68, in which he stated that life had
to be lived intensely, with an ideal of
beauty. His text Studies in the History of
the Renaissance (1873) was very well
regarded by art-oriented young men of the
late 19th century. Writers of the Decadent
movement used the slogan "Art for Art's
Sake" (L'art pour l'art), the origin of which is
debated. Some claim that it was invented
by the philosopher Victor Cousin, although
Angela Leighton in the publication On
Form: Poetry, Aestheticism and the Legacy
of a Word (2007) notes that the phrase
was used by Benjamin Constant as early
as 1804.[4] It is generally accepted to have
been promoted by Théophile Gautier in
France, who interpreted the phrase to
suggest that there was not any real
association between art and morality.

One of many Punch cartoons about æsthetes

The artists and writers of Aesthetic style

tended to profess that the Arts should
provide refined sensuous pleasure, rather
than convey moral or sentimental
messages. As a consequence, they did not
accept John Ruskin, Matthew Arnold, and
George MacDonald's conception of art as
something moral or useful, "Art for truth's
sake".[5] Instead, they believed that Art did
not have any didactic purpose; it only
needed to be beautiful. The Aesthetes
developed a cult of beauty, which they
considered the basic factor of art. Life
should copy Art, they asserted. They
considered nature as crude and lacking in
design when compared to art. The main
characteristics of the style were:
suggestion rather than statement,
sensuality, great use of symbols, and
synaesthetic/Ideasthetic effects—that is,
correspondence between words, colours
and music. Music was used to establish
mood.

Predecessors of the Aesthetics included

John Keats and Percy Bysshe Shelley, and
some of the Pre-Raphaelites who
themselves were a legacy of the Romantic
spirit. There are a few significant
continuities between the Pre-Raphaelite
philosophy and that of the Aesthetes:
Dedication to the idea of ‘Art for Art’s
Sake’; admiration of, and constant striving
for, beauty; escapism through visual and
literary arts; craftsmanship that is both
careful and self-conscious; mutual interest
in merging the arts of various media. This
final idea is promoted in the poem L’Art by
Théophile Gautier, who compared the poet
to the sculptor and painter.[6] Dante Gabriel
Rossetti and Edward Burne-Jones are
most strongly associated with
Aestheticism. However, their approach to
Aestheticism did not share the creed of
‘Art for Art’s Sake’ but rather “a spirited
reassertion of those principles of colour,
beauty, love, and cleanness that the drab,
agitated, discouraging world of the mid-
nineteenth century needed so much.”[7]
This reassertion of beauty in a drab world
also connects to Pre-Raphaelite escapism
in art and poetry.
In Britain the best representatives were
Oscar Wilde and Algernon Charles
Swinburne, both influenced by the French
Symbolists, and James McNeill Whistler
and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. The style and
these poets were satirised by Gilbert and
Sullivan's comic opera Patience and other
works, such as F. C. Burnand's drama The
Colonel, and in comic magazines such as
Punch, particularly in works by George Du
Maurier.[8]

Compton Mackenzie's novel Sinister Street

makes use of the type as a phase through
which the protagonist passes as he is
influenced by older, decadent individuals.
The novels of Evelyn Waugh, who was a
young participant of aesthete society at
Oxford, describe the aesthetes mostly
satirically, but also as a former participant.
Some names associated with this
assemblage are Robert Byron, Evelyn
Waugh, Harold Acton, Nancy Mitford, A.E.
Housman and Anthony Powell.

Aesthetic visual arts

Music by Thomas Dewing, ca. 1896- 1900. Brooklyn
Museum

Artists associated with the Aesthetic style

include Simeon Solomon, James McNeill
Whistler, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and
Aubrey Beardsley. Although the work of
Edward Burne-Jones was exhibited at the
Grosvenor Gallery which promoted the
movement, it also contains narrative and
conveys moral or sentimental messages
hence it falls outside the given definition.

Aesthetic Movement
decorative arts

Aesthetic Movement antiques at Florian Papp, New

York City
The primary element of Decorative Art is
utility. The maxim "art for art's sake",
identifying art or beauty as the primary
element in other branches of the Aesthetic
Movement, especially fine art, cannot
apply in this context. Decorative art must
first have utility, but may also be
beautiful.[9] Decorative art is dissociated
from fine art.[10]

Important elements of the Aesthetic

Movement have been identified as Reform
and Eastern Art.[11] The Government
Schools of Design were founded from
1837 onwards in order to improve the
design of British goods. Following the
Great Exhibition of 1851 efforts were
intensified and Oriental objects purchased
for the schools teaching collections. Owen
Jones, architect and Orientalist was
requested to set out key principles of
design and these became not only the
basis of the schools teaching but also the
propositions which preface The Grammar
of Ornament (1856), which is still regarded
as the finest systematic study or practical
sourcebook of historic world ornament.

Jones identified the need for a new and

modern style that would meet the
requirements of the modern world, rather
than the continual re-cycling of historic
styles, but saw no reason to reject the
lessons of the past. Christopher Dresser, a
student and later Professor at the school
worked with Owen Jones on The Grammar
of Ornament, as well as on the 1863
decoration of The Oriental Courts
(Chinese, Japanese, and Indian) at the
South Kensington Museum, advanced the
search for a new style with his two
publications The Art of Decorative Design
1862, and Principles of Design 1873.

Production of Aesthetic style furniture was

limited to approximately the late 19th
century. Aesthetic style furniture is
characterized by several common themes:

Ebonized wood with gilt highlights.

Far Eastern influence.
Prominent use of nature, especially
flowers, birds, ginkgo leaves, and
peacock feathers.
Blue and white on porcelain and other
fine china.

Ebonized furniture means that the wood is

painted or stained to a black ebony finish.
The furniture is sometimes completely
ebony-colored. More often however, there
is gilding added to the carved surfaces of
the feathers or stylized flowers that adorn
the furniture.

As aesthetic movement decor was similar

to the corresponding writing style in that it
was about sensuality and nature, nature
themes often appear on the furniture. A
typical aesthetic feature is the gilded
carved flower, or the stylized peacock
feather. Colored paintings of birds or
flowers are often seen. Non-ebonized
aesthetic movement furniture may have
realistic-looking three-dimensional-like
renditions of birds or flowers carved into
the wood.
Contrasting with the ebonized-gilt furniture
is use of blue and white for porcelain and
china. Similar themes of peacock feathers
and nature would be used in blue and
white tones on dinnerware and other
crockery. The blue and white design was
also popular on square porcelain tiles. It is
reported that Oscar Wilde used aesthetic
decorations during his youth. This aspect
of the movement was also satirised by
Punch magazine and in Patience.

In 1882 Oscar Wilde visited Canada, where

he toured the town of Woodstock, Ontario
and gave a lecture on May 29 titled "The
House Beautiful".[12] This particular lecture
featured the early Aesthetic art movement,
also known as the "Ornamental Aesthetic"
art style, where local flora and fauna were
celebrated as beautiful and textured,
layered ceilings were popular. An example
of this can be seen in Annandale National
Historic Site, located in Tillsonburg,
Ontario, Canada. The house was built in
1880 and decorated by Mary Ann Tillson,
who happened to attend Oscar Wilde's
lecture in Woodstock, and was influenced
by it. Since the Aesthetic art movement
was only prevalent from about 1880 until
about 1890, there are not many surviving
examples of this particular stylem but one
such example is 18 Stafford Terrace,
London, which provides an insight into
how the middle classes interpreted the
principles of Aesthetics.

See also
Arts and Crafts movement
Ideasthesia
Aestheticization of politics
Aestheticization of violence

References
1. Fargis, Paul (1998). The New York Public
Library Desk Reference - 3rd Edition.
Macmillan General Reference. p. 261.
ISBN 0-02-862169-7.
2. Denney, Colleen. "At the Temple of Art:
the Grosvenor Gallery, 1877-1890" , Issue
1165, p. 38, Fairleigh Dickinson University
Press, 2000 ISBN 0-8386-3850-3
3. Skafidas, Michael (2015-06-10). "Harold
Bloom: Preposterous 'Isms' Are Destroying
Literature" . Huffington Post. Retrieved
2019-01-21.
4. Angela Leighton (2007) 32.
5. Raeper, William (1987) George
MacDonald, p. 183. Tring, Herts., and
Batavia, IL: Lion Publishing.
6. McMullen, Lorraine (1971). An
Introduction to the Aesthetic Movement in
English Literature. Ottawa, ON: Bytown
Press. pp. 22–23.
7. Welland, Dennis S. R. (1953). The Pre-
Raphaelites in Literature and Art. London,
UK: George G. Harrap & Co. Ltd. p. 22.
8. Mendelssohn, Michèle (2007). Henry
James, Oscar Wilde and Aesthetic Culture .
Edinburgh University Press. pp. 22–30.
ISBN 978-0748623853.
9. Christopher Dresser. The Art of
Decorative Design 1862.
10. The Illustrated London News LXXXI,
Saturday, August 12, 1882, p.175.
11. Christopher Morley. Reform and Eastern
Art Decorative Arts Society Journal, 2010.
12. O'brien (1982) 114.

Sources
Denisoff, Dennis. "Decadence and
aestheticism." Cambridge Companion to
the Fin de Siecle. Cambridge:
Cambridge UP, 2007.
Gal, Michalle. Aestheticism: Deep
Formalism and the Emergence of
Modernist Aesthetics. Peter Lang AG
International Academic Publishers, 2015
Gaunt, William. The Aesthetic Adventure.
New York: Harcourt, 1945. ISBN None.
Halen, Widar. Christopher Dresser, a
Pioneer of Modern Design. Phaidon:
1990. ISBN 0-7148-2952-8.
Lambourne, Lionel. The Aesthetic
Movement. Phaidon Press: 1996.
ISBN 0-7148-3000-3.
O'Brien, Kevin. Oscar Wilde in Canada, an
apostle for the arts. Personal Library,
Publishers: 1982.
Snodin, Michael and John Styles. Design
& The Decorative Arts, Britain 1500–
1900. V&A Publications: 2001. ISBN 1-
85177-338-X.
Christopher Morley. "'Reform and
Eastern Art' in Decorative Arts Society
 Journal" 2010
Victoria and Albert Museum "A Higher
Ambition: Owen Jones (1809–
74).www.vam.ac.uk/collection/painting
s/features/owen-jones/index/
Gal, Michalle. "Aestheticism,
philosophical critique". in Oxford
Encyclopedia of Aesthetics (Michael
Kelly, ed.). Oxford University Press,
2014.

External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related to
Aestheticism.
Gal, Michalle. "Aestheticism,
philosophical critique". in Oxford
Encyclopedia of Aesthetics (2nd edition,
Michael Kelly, ed.).
Aesthetes & Decadents on Victorian
Web
Annandale National Historic Site
Books, Research & Information
"Aestheticism Style Guide" . British
Galleries. Victoria and Albert Museum.
Retrieved 2016-01-31.
Edward Burne-Jones, Victorian artist-
dreamer , a full text exhibition catalog
from The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Retrieved from
"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?
title=Aestheticism&oldid=879507485"

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