The Aesthetic movement is a loosely defined movement in art and literature in later nineteenth centuryBritain. Generally speaking, it represents the same tendencies that Symbolism or Decadence stood for in France, and may be considered the English branch of the same movement. It belongs to the anti-Victorian reaction and had post-Romantic roots. It took place in the late Victorian period from around 1868 to 1901, and is generally considered to have ended with the trial of Oscar Wilde.
The English decadent writers were deeply influenced by Walter Pater and his essays published in 1867-1868, in which he stated that life had to be lived intensely, following an ideal of beauty. Decadent writers used the slogan, coined by the philosopher Victor Cousin and promoted by Th ophile Gautier in France, "Art for Art's Sake" (L'art pour l'art) and asserted that there was no connection between art and morality.
The artists and writers of the Aesthetic movement tended to hold that the Arts should provide refined sensuous pleasure, rather than convey moral or sentimental messages. As a consequence they did not accept John Ruskin and Matthew Arnold's utilitarian conception of art as something moral or useful. Instead they believed that Art does not have any didactic purpose, it need only be beautiful. The Aesthetes developed the cult of beauty which they considered the basic factor in art. Life should copy Art, they asserted. The main characteristics of the movement were: suggestion rather than statement, sensuality, massive use of symbols, and synaesthetic effects - that is, correspondence between words, colors and music.
The AestheticMovement and Art Nouveau, whose roots were in the reaction to the Industrial Revolution in England in the middle of the 19
The Aestheticmovement in Britain began as a reform impulse.
Thus, although the Movement definitely had its stylistic expressions, it was not simply an artmovement but had a rather complex structure of social, political and moral ideas of the British life in during that period.
Artistic stoneware, produced also at C. Bailey's Fulham Pottery and by the Martin Brothers, indicates the elision between progressive elements of the Gothic revival and the earliest manifestations of the AestheticMovement.
During the AestheticMovement a great deal of artistic talent was applied to the decoration of ceramics: W. Coleman, H. Stacy Marks, E.
Combining elements of amateurism and philanthropy, and representing the gamut of stylistic eclecticism, the ceramics of the AestheticMovement faithfully delineate the features of an outstanding cultural epoch.
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