Aesthetic movement

The Aesthetic Movement advocated pure beauty and the principle of art for art's sake (l'art pour l'art), emphasising the visual and sensual qualities of art and design over practical, moral or narrative aspects. Its adherents rejected the Victorian demand that art should instruct or serve a social purpose, arguing instead that a work justified itself through its existence and beauty alone. The movement flourished in Britain in the 1860s to 1880s and embraced not only painting but also the decorative arts, literature and interior design. Among its leading figures was the painter James Abbott McNeill Whistler, whose nocturnes and symphonies likened painting to music, and the writer Oscar Wilde, who became an eloquent spokesman for aestheticism. Important contributions came from Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Edward Burne-Jones. In the decorative sphere the movement expressed itself through motifs of the sunflower, the peacock feather and Japanese art. The Aesthetic Movement prepared the ground for Symbolism, Art Nouveau and the modernist idea of the autonomy of art.