Aesthetic movement (jan 1, 1868 – jan 1, 1901)

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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 England during the late 19th century, supported by notable figures such as Walter Pater and Oscar Wilde. The movement started in a small way in the 1860s in the studios and houses of a radical group of artists and designers, including William Morris and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, reformers who explored new ways of living in defiance of the design standards of the age as revealed in the 1851 Great Exhibition at Hyde Park, London. Flourishing in Britain in the 1870s and 1880s, critic Walter Hamilton was the first writer to identify the movement, publishing The Aesthetic Movement in England in 1882.[3]

Aestheticism challenged the values of mainstream Victorian culture, as many Victorians believed that literature and art fulfilled important ethical roles.[4] Writing in The Guardian, Fiona McCarthy states, “the aesthetic movement stood in stark and sometimes shocking contrast to the crass materialism of Britain in the 19th century.”[5] By the 1890s, decadence, a term with origins in common with aestheticism, was in use as an aesthetic term across Europe.[4]

More contemporary critics are associated with the movement, such as Harold Bloom, who 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.[6]

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