Aesthetic Movement in Europe (Art & Literature)

“l’art pour l’art”
                           - Théophile Gautier (1836), preface to Mademoiselle de Maupin.

Before the word aesthetic started being used by the internet to describe anything that looks visually pleasing, there was the Victorian aesthetic movement. A movement based on defiance of strict Victorian social order and hypocrisy, the movement believed in making art just to look beautiful.  Influenced by science and German philosopher Schopenhauer, followers of this movement rejected religious, moral and conventional values and used art as a substitute for them. The subjectivity of art was a primary means of judging a work of art; aestheticism asks if art is beautiful even when it is devoid of moral lessons (social usefulness) or its realism. Art appreciated used to be art that depicted scenes from the Holy Bible. Poems appreciated were ones that taught lessons entrenched in scripture. Aestheticism believed that art just needs to exist. Art just needs to look and feel pleasing to someone.

How did the Aesthetic literary and artistic movement influence Oscar Wilde’s life?

Oscar Wilde is perhaps the most famous member of the aesthetic movement. Influenced by his professors at Oxford and Trinity College. Wilde was important because of his high visibility in fashionable London clubs and theaters. He dressed flamboyantly, sparking fashions that others copied. He was a brilliant self-publicist, and quipped that his life was a work of art. In a society that valued social conformity, Wilde dressed and acted in a way that shocked Victorians. Wilde’s writing, especially threw off Victorian ideas about earnest and serious argument, instead relishing playfulness and paradox. Wilde was a propounder of aesthetic socialism and encouraged individuality. His works are littered with witty epigrams and clever satire of the society he lived in, calling out the hypocrisy of Victorian lords and criticizing the social structure. A lot of his work is very queer-coded.

Define the term “Dandy” in your own words

A dandy was a man that payed attention to his appearance, speech, leisure and pleasure. Cutting wit, epigrams, cynicism and a good sense of fashion and individuality were identifying factors of a dandy. Almost like a modern day socialite but with a twist. Dandyism can be seen as a political protest against the ideals of "the perfect gentleman" or social codes. Oscar Wilde was actually accused of not being a true dandy; Nigel Rodgers saw him as a man that just assumed dandyism in passing but not in principle.

Analyze the Preface to the novel – what does it tell us about art?

The preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray consists of a list of Wilde's observations about art, artists, critics and audience in relation to the novel. 

According to Wilde-

• An artist has one job; create beautiful things.
• Art must not show how the artist feels about something.
• Those who add negative meaning to an innocent piece of art are trash and corrupt
• Morality is subjective and you as a creator have to right to try and impart your own morals onto someone who simply wants to consume something beautiful 
• Victorian people hate to see their hypocrisy (Realism) but also relish in it. It is the unknown that frightens them (Romanticism)
• The true artist is not out to prove anything and makes no judgments of right or wrong. 
• Those who attempt to go beneath the surface of a work, or to read meaning into a symbol, do so at their own risk. 
• The artist might consider the moral or immoral lives of people as part of the subject matter of a work is not meant to instruct the consumer. 
• Art can never be morbid, because its just art. There is beauty in tragedy too
• People who look for meaning in art are just looking at their own selves. Art can be interpreted in different ways, which is just another way of saying there is no true meaning to a work of art.
• Disagreement about a work of art only proves that the work is worth being talked about and relevant 
• It's okay to create something useful so long as it is not admired as art.
• The only reason for creating something useless is to admire it a great deal. 
• Art exists for its own sake as art and not for some moral purpose.

Lets just say a lot of shade was thrown.