Aestheticism and Decadence

The Decadent movement

Pejoritive term (originally)

Rejection of progress

The Aesthetic Movement Britain

literature, fine art, the decorative arts interior design.

 Lart pour lart - Thophile Gautier (18111872) cr.

Art should be independent of all claptrap should stand alone [...] and appeal to the artistic sense of eye or ear, without confounding this with emotions entirely foreign to it, as devotion, pity, love, patriotism and the like J. M. Whistler

 Language of the senses, art and beauty

Use of symbols and synaesthetic effects

Attention to the self Hedonistic attitude the unconventional

Disenchantment with contemporary society

Desire to escape ugliness and materialism of the age Absence of didactic aim

A essayist, critic and Wildes tutor at Oxford University, Paters thinking became one of the major influences on the Aesthetic Movement,

Subversive, rejected religious faith Art as the only means to stop time Life should be lived as a work of art Intense feelings, experience and emotions The Artist should feel emotions Art has no reference to life, it has nothing to do with

morality and need not be didactic

Its Artists
Painters such as Dante Gabriel Rossetti, J. M. Whistler and Lord Leighton chose as their models women whose looks and lifestyles were at odds with conventional Victorian ideals of demure femininity. In doing so, they created entirely new types of beauty. Dante Gabriel Rossetti - Aurelia

 Aubrey Vincent Beardsley (187298) was an English illustrator and author. A leading figure in the Aesthetic movement, his drawings were done in black ink and influenced by the style of Japanese woodcuts. They emphasized the grotesque, the decadent, and the erotic.
One of Beardsleys drawings for Wildes play, Salom which premiered in Paris in 1896

Characterised by:
Ebonized wood with gilt highlights Far Eastern influence Prominent use of nature, especially flowers and

peacock feathers. Blue and white porcelain and other fine china.

In 1882, whilst touring Canada, Wilde gave a lecture entitled The House Beautiful, in which he extolled the merits of these new decorative arts and interiors.

Aesthetic Fashions
Liberty & Co., Dress, about 1894.

Arts & Crafts Movement

Beauty AND utility Rejcts Industrial Revolution

William Morris, Artichoke Wallpaper, c1897.

The studio-house built for the artist Frederic Leighton (1830-96) is a rare and remarkable example of an Aesthetic Palace of Art. From the opulent Arab Hall lined with Islamic tiles to the studio where Leighton painted such masterpieces as The Bath of Psyche.

Flaming June, by Fredrick Lord Leighton (1830-1896).

Leightons studio in his home on 12 Holland Park Road