The Aesthetic movement describes the philosophy and products of designers who created, as they termed it, “art for art’s sake.” Costly materials, complex craftsmanship, elaborate patterning, and learned references in motifs were emphasized in the fine and decorative arts of the Aesthetic movement, even at the expense of narrative and functionality.
The underpinnings of the movement can be found with design reformers and art critics such as William Morris and Clarence Cook, who were disturbed by the shoddy products of industry. The movement began in Britain and was swiftly disseminated through the burgeoning illustrated media, through international expositions, and through societies and clubs. While the Aesthetic movement was being formulated by artists and luxury craftsmen, its basic stylistic formulas were adopted by manufacturers of goods at all price levels. The Aesthetic movement was fueled by the era’s concern with creating beautiful domestic environments that would foster high levels of aesthetic and moral sensibility. Women, as creators and consumers, were central to the movement.
Multiplicity and synchronicity within single objects and assemblages characterized the Aesthetic movement. Furniture incorporated ceramic tiles, patinated hardware, and painted surfaces within carved woodwork. The Herter Brothers and other interior designers flourished by harmonizing furniture and textiles of their own design with objects commercially produced. Some painters branched out to work in other media: James Abbott McNeill Whistler created the Peacock Room (1876-77, Freer Gallery of Art), and John La Farge was an innovator in stained glass. Retailers like Daniel Cottier with shops in
New York City, London, and Sydney promoted aesthetic taste by selling antiques as well as contemporary goods. Industrialists became collectors and sought fine objects from all eras; designers not only incorporated collections into interiors but drew inspiration from them. Classical antiquity, colonial America, Japan, and the natural world were particularly rich design sources; motifs from all places and times were combined elegantly.
Aesthetic-movement objects were made by individual artisans and by large factories. Some influential figures, such as ceramist and metalworker M. Louise McLaughlin, worked largely alone. Others, such as Louis CoMfORT Tillany, designer of interiors, jewelry, and stained glass, were the heads of large firms. Upper-class women with leisure time were actively hand-painting china, carving wood, and creating every sort of textile. At settlement houses and through other philanthropic endeavors, leisured women encouraged old-world crafts in the name of the new aestheticism. New technologies in the printing industry led to a bloom of wallpapers with saturated hues and complex patterning. The commercial potteries of Staffordshire in England provided dinner services to the American market, while numerous small art potteries, such as Rookwood in Cincinnati and the Chelsea Keramic Art Works in Chelsea, Massachusetts, made vases, tiles, and more. Tiffany and Company in New York City sold jewelry and silver in the aesthetic style alongside more traditional models; countless manufacturers and retailers did the same. The Aesthetic movement embraced no single style; it was a philosophy that encouraged manufacturers and consumers to live artfully.
Further reading: Dorren Bolger Burke et al., In Pursuit of Beauty: Americans and the Aesthetic Movement (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art and Rizzoli, 1986).
—Karen Zukowski
World History
