explore the

Victorian Aesthetic

an introduction

Aestheticism paved the way for worldwide, 20th-century contemporary art by abandoning art’s typically instructional duties and emphasizing self-expression.

PRE-RAPHAELITE INSPIRATION

By the 1860s, the work of the so-called pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood had acquired appeal, due in part to John Ruskin’s positive evaluations.

ART FOR ART'S SAKE

Aesthetic painters shouted their slogan, “art for art’s sake,” borrowed from Theophile Gautier’s book, Mademoiselle de Maupin (1836), and drew on a variety of influences.

STYLES AND CONCEPTS

Art, according to the Aesthetic Movement, should not be limited to sculpture, painting, or architecture, but should be commonplace in every sphere of life.

PAINTING

Painters were possibly the most qualified of all Aesthetic creatives to accomplish the movement’s purpose of making art for the sake of art.

MUSIC

There appear to have been no expressly Aesthetic musicians, despite the fact that several Victorian musicians advocated formalism.

architecture

The elegance of the structure as a representation of its multifaceted people outweighed loyalty to any one form for Aesthetic designers.

design

Designers were acknowledged and even made renowned for their exceptional craftsmanship for the first time during the Aesthetic movement. 

literature

The beauty of form superseded delivering a social or ethical statement in Aesthetic writing, as it did in the visual arts.

famous examples of aestheticism

La Ghirlandata (1873)  Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Teapot (c. 1879) Christopher Dresser

Reading Aloud (1884) Albert Joseph Moore