Quizzes
Read Next
Arts & Culture
Aestheticism
art movement
Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Category:
Arts & Culture
- Date:
- c. 1850 - c. 1899
- Significant Works:
- The Picture of Dorian Gray
- Related Artists:
- Théophile Gautier
- Walter Pater
- Dante Gabriel Rossetti
- James McNeill Whistler
- Oscar Wilde
Aestheticism, late 19th-century European arts movement which centred on the doctrine that art exists for the sake of its beauty alone, and that it need serve no political, didactic, or other purpose. The movement began in reaction to prevailing utilitarian social philosophies and to what was perceived as the ugliness and philistinism of the industrial age. Its philosophical foundations were laid in the 18th century by Immanuel Kant, who postulated the autonomy of aesthetic standards, setting them apart from considerations of morality, utility, or pleasure. This idea was amplified by J.W. von Goethe, J.L. Tieck, and others in Germany and ...(100 of 294 words)