Aestheticism - The Aesthetic Movement: evolution, Walter Pater, feautures PDF

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The Aesthetic Movement: evolution, Walter Pater, feautures...

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Aestheticism ➣ The Aesthetic Movement developed in the last decades of the 19th century! ➣ It began in France with Théophile Gautier and reflected the sense of frustration and uncertainty of the artist → his reaction against the materialism and the restrictive moral code of the bourgeoisie and his need to re-define the role of art, the artist feel isolated, different, he did not agree with the theories of his society and he took refuge in art! ➣ French artists withdrew from the political and social scene and ‘escaped’ into aesthetic isolation, into what Gautier defined ‘Art for Art’s Sake’! ➣ The bohémien, like Baudelaire, embodied his protest against the monotony and vulgarity of bourgeois life, leading an unconventional existence, pursuing sensation and excess, and cultivating art and beauty! ➣ The origins of the English Aesthetic Movement can be traced back to the Pre-Raphaelite Dante Gabriel Rossetti! ➣ Walter Pater, Oscar Wilde’s professor at Oxford, is regarded as the theorist of the Aesthetic Movement in England → ! - his two books:! • Studies in the History of the Renaissance, where he says that our life is short and we are destined to due → he was not religious so he suggest to exploit their time lesson, make the time longer by feeling it with moments of pleasure ! • Marius the Epicurean, a novel set in ancient Rome → the protagonist is Marius who lives for pleasure, in his life he tries to follow pleasures in form regardless morality because of the aim of his life! ↓! immediately successful, especially with the young, because of their subversive and potentially ‘demoralising’ message.! - he thought life should be lived in the spirit of art, namely ‘as a work of art’, filling each passing moment with intense experience, feeling all kinds of sensations.! - the task of the artist was to feel sensations, to be attentive to the ‘attractive’, the ‘gracious’! - the main implication of this new aesthetic position was that art had no reference to life, and therefore it had nothing to do with morality and did not need to be didactic! - Pater’s works had a deep influence on the poets and writers of the 1890s! - he rejected religious faith, said that art was the only means to stop time! ➣ Art is eternal! ➣ Number of features din the works of Aesthetic artists: ! • evocative use of the language of the senses, ! • excessive attention to the self, ! • hedonistic attitude, perversity in subject matter, ! • disenchantment with contemporary society, ! • absence of any didactic aim! ➣ Oscar Wilde was an exemplary Aesthete!...