aestheticism
Art for art's sake
Aestheticism is devotion to beauty as a guiding principle, often prioritizing artistic and sensory experience over moral or practical concerns.
The term particularly refers to a late 19th-century movement in art and literature that championed "art for art's sake," rejecting the idea that art should serve didactic or social purposes.
More broadly, aestheticism describes any philosophy that elevates the beautiful above other values: His aestheticism led him to spend far beyond his means on paintings.
Intrinsic value of creation
- beautyAesthetic excellence
- autonomyIndependent decision-making capacity
- disinterestednessAbsence of selfish motive
- formalismPrivileging structure over substance
sensibility · contemplation · pure form · intrinsic value · purposiveness · sublime · taste · judgment
Refined, graceful quality
- graceEffortless beauty of motion
- harmonyAgreement or musical blend
- proportionComparative relation of parts
- refinementElegance of manner
exquisiteness · symmetry · delicacy · polish · cultivation · taste · sophistication · ornamentation
Victorian artists emulating earlier masters
- Art NouveauCurvilinear decorative movement, 1890s
- SymbolismArt emphasizing ideas over reality
- fin de siècleCentury's closing cultural moment
Pursuit of gratification
- sensualityPursuit of physical pleasure
- languorWeary, dreamy fatigue
- ennuiWeary, listless dissatisfaction
- world-wearinessJaded disillusionment with life
artifice · excess · morbidity · perversity · refinement · exoticism · opulence · luxury
Oscar Wilde
- Rossetti
- William MorrisVictorian pattern designer
- Gustav Klimt
art for art's sake
Intrinsic value of creation
- beautyAesthetic excellence
- autonomyIndependent decision-making capacity
- disinterestednessAbsence of selfish motive
formalism · sensibility · contemplation · pure form · intrinsic value · purposiveness · sublime · taste · judgment · pleasure
elegance
Refined, graceful quality
- graceEffortless beauty of motion
- harmonyAgreement or musical blend
- proportionComparative relation of parts
refinement · exquisiteness · symmetry · delicacy · polish · cultivation · taste · sophistication · ornamentation · sensuousness
Pre-Raphaelite
Victorian artists emulating earlier masters
- Art NouveauCurvilinear decorative movement, 1890s
- SymbolismArt emphasizing ideas over reality
- fin de siècleCentury's closing cultural moment
hedonism
Pursuit of gratification
- sensualityPursuit of physical pleasure
- languorWeary, dreamy fatigue
- ennuiWeary, listless dissatisfaction
world-weariness · artifice · excess · morbidity · perversity · refinement · exoticism · opulence · luxury · dissipation
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Novel about eternal youth's cost
- SalomeBiblical princess who danced
- D'Annunzio
- Victorianaseances, Dickens, spiritualism, Sherlock Holmes, phrenology
- philosophiesempiricism, stoicism, nihilism, idealism, materialism
- philosophyethics, logic, metaphysics, ontology, epistemology
- decadencedecadence, decay, lavishness, dandyism, self-indulgence
- literary conceptsromanticism, realism, modernism, symbolism, transcendentalism
aestheticismutilitarianism
Greatest-happiness moral theory
pragmatism · functionalism · philistinism · materialism · practicality
aestheticismphilistinism
Contempt for cultural refinement
crudeness · vulgarity · tastelessness · boorishness · barbarism
aestheticismdidacticism
Art prioritizing instruction
social realism · moralism · propaganda art · political art · puritanism