Aestheticism - SFU

2. Characteristics of Aestheticism Belief in Art for Art�s Sake Appreciation of Beauty at the expense of utility and social value Pursuit of Pleasure & Worship of the Senses (The New Hedonism) High Culture: Upper Class aesthetic, anti-philistine, public Reaction against Realism, Didacticism, and Morality that characterised earlier and even concurrent cultural fashions Anti-Natural: belief in the ornate, extreme artifice, performance, and exotic Symbols: the peacock feather (exotic), the butterfly (beautiful and transient), the sunflower/orchid (beautiful, exotic), masks (artifice, theatricality, disguise) In a nutshell, Walter Pater �to burn always like a hard gemlike flame�

3. �The studio was filled with the rich odor of roses, and when thelight summer wind stirred amidst the trees of the garden there came through the open door the heavy scent of the lilac, or the more delicate perfume of the pink-flowering thorn.From the corner of the divan of Persian saddle-bags on which he was lying, smoking, as usual, innumerable cigarettes, Lord Henry Wotton could just catch the gleam of the honey-sweet and honey-colored blossoms of the laburnum, whose tremulous branches seemed hardly able to bear the burden of a beauty so flame-like as theirs; and now and then the fantastic shadows of birds in flight flitted across the long tussore-silk curtains that were stretched in front of the huge window, producing a kind of momentary Japanese effect, and making him think of those pallid jade-faced painters who, in an art that is necessarily immobile, seek to convey the sense of swiftness andmotion. The sullen murmur of the bees shouldering their way through the long unmown grass, or circling with monotonous insistence round the black-crocketed spires of the early June hollyhocks, seemed to make the stillness more oppressive, and the dim roar of London was like the bourdon note of a distant organ� (PDG 43).

11. Oscar or Harry?� I have nothing to declare except my genius.� Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the sense but the soul.� I have put my talent into my works. I have put my genius into my life. The first duty in life is to be as artificial as possible. What the second duty is no one has yet discovered. Being natural is simply a pose, and the most irritating pose I know. A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal. The only duty we owe to history is to rewrite it. To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance. Men marry because they are tired; women, because they are curious; both are disappointed. My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One or the other of us has to go. Modern morality consists in accepting the standards of the age. I consider that for any man of culture to accept the standards of his age is a form of the grossest immorality. �

12. Oscar or Harry?� I have nothing to declare except my genius.� W Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the sense but the soul.� H I have put my talent into my works. I have put my genius into my life. W The first duty in life is to be as artificial as possible. What the second duty is no one has yet discovered. W Being natural is simply a pose, and the most irritating pose I know. H A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal. W The only duty we owe to history is to rewrite it. W To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance. W Men marry because they are tired; women, because they are curious; both are disappointed. H My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One or the other of us has to go. W Modern morality consists in accepting the standards of the age. I consider that for any man of culture to accept the standards of his age is a form of the grossest immorality. H �