What is decadence and Aestheticism?

Aestheticism and decadence shocked the Victorian establishment by challenging traditional values, foregrounding sensuality and promoting artistic, sexual and political experimentation. Dr Carolyn Burdett explores the key features of this unconventional artistic period.

What is Aestheticism theory?

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.

What is Aestheticism movement?

The aesthetic movement was a late nineteenth century movement that championed pure beauty and ‘art for art’s sake’ emphasising the visual and sensual qualities of art and design over practical, moral or narrative considerations.

When was the decadence movement?

Decadent, French Décadent, any of several poets or other writers of the end of the 19th century, including the French Symbolist poets in particular and their contemporaries in England, the later generation of the Aesthetic movement.

What does decadence mean in literature?

decline
decadence, a period of decline or deterioration of art or literature that follows an era of great achievement. Examples include the Silver Age of Latin literature, which began about ad 18 following the end of the Golden Age, and the Decadent movement at the end of the 19th century in France and England.

Why did the aesthetic movement end?

The Aesthetic movement denounced the sober morality and middle-class values that characterized the Victorian Age and embraced beauty as the chief pursuit of both art and life. The movement is often considered to have ended with Oscar Wilde’s trials, which began in 1895.

What caused the Aestheticism movement?

The Aesthetic Movement in Britain (1860 – 1900) aimed to escape the ugliness and materialism of the Industrial Age, by focusing instead on producing art that was beautiful rather than having a deeper meaning – ‘Art for Art’s sake’.

Was William Morris an Aesthete?

1 We can appeal to chronology to answer this question: the early Morris was a Pre-Raphaelite and Aesthete, whose work deeply influenced Oscar Wilde’s articulation of “The House Beautiful” and “The Decorative Arts” on his lecture tour of America, while the later Morris was a radical who spent the last thirteen years of …

When did the decadent movement end?

Italian literary criticism has often looked at the decadent movement on a larger scale, proposing that its main features could be used to define a full historical period, running from the 1860s to the 1920s.