Aestheticism

Art for art's sake: beauty freed from moral duty, from Pater's Renaissance to Wilde's green carnation.

Specifications & Metrics

era

c. 1860 – 1900

region

Britain, with French roots

key figures

Walter Pater, Oscar Wilde, Algernon Charles Swinburne, Aubrey Beardsley

exemplar

Studies in the History of the Renaissance (1873); The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890)

introduced

1860

Core Principles & Analysis

• Pater's 1873 Renaissance made lived intensity the measure of art.
• Wilde's trials in 1895 broke the movement's public reign.
• It answered Victorian moralism with beauty as the only justification.

Sources

• Wikipedia: Aestheticism