The Principal Tenet of Aestheticism Was That the Sole Justification of Art Is Its Intrinsic Beauty
"Art should be independent of all clap-trap - should stand solitary [...] and entreatment to the artistic sense of eye or ear, without confounding this with emotions entirely strange to it, every bit devotion, pity, love, patriotism and the like."
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"in that location neither exists nor can be any work more than thoroughly dignified, more than supremely noble, than... this poem written solely for the poem'south sake."
"L'art pour 50'fine art without purpose, for all purpose perverts art."
"Art for art's sake, with no purpose, for whatsoever purpose perverts art. Just art achieves a purpose which is not its own."
"Nothing is really cute unless it is useless; everything useful is ugly, for it expresses a need, and the needs of human are ignoble and disgusting, similar his poor weak nature. The most useful place in a house is the lavatory."
"...in full general, whenever something becomes useful, it ceases to exist cute."
"Fine art for art's sake is an empty phrase. Art for the sake of truth, art for the sake of the skillful and the beautiful, that is the faith I am searching for."
"All fine art is quite useless."
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"The vulgar herd stroll through the rooms and pronounce the pictures 'nice' or 'splendid.' Those who could speak accept said nothing, those who could hear take heard zip. This condition of art is called "fine art for art's sake." This neglect of inner meanings, which is the life of colours, this vain squandering of creative power is chosen "art for art's sake."
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"This idea of fine art for art's sake is a hoax."
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"...the autonomy of art is a category of bourgeois lodge. Information technology permits the clarification of fine art's disengagement from the context of practical life equally a historical development - that among the members of those classes which, at least at times, are gratuitous from the pleasures of the need of survival, a sensuousness could evolve that was not function of any needs-ends relationships."
Summary of Fine art for Fine art'due south Sake
Taken from the French, the term "fifty'art pour 50'fine art," (Art for Art's Sake) expresses the idea that art has an inherent value independent of its subject-matter, or of whatsoever social, political, or upstanding significance. Past contrast, art should be judged purely on its own terms: according to whether or not it is cute, capable of inducing ecstasy or revery in the viewer through its formal qualities (its employ of line, color, pattern, and so on). The concept became a rallying weep across nineteenth-century Uk and France, partly as a reaction against the stifling moralism of much academic art and wider club, with the writer Oscar Wilde perhaps its most famous champion. Although the phrase has been lilliputian used since the early twentieth century, its legacy lived on in many twentieth-century ideas apropos the autonomy of fine art, notably in various strains of formalism.
Key Ideas & Accomplishments
- The idea of Art for Art's sake has its origins in nineteenth-century France, where it became associated with Parisian artists, writers, and critics, including Théophile Gautier and
Renaissance artistic tradition represented past gimmicky bookish painting, which favored historical and mythical scenes, and held that art should have a clear ethical message often connected to religion or land power. - Although Art for Art's Sake withdrew from all political and ideological concerns, it was nonetheless radical in rejecting the moralizing standards of its twenty-four hour period. Artists such as Aubrey Beardsley delighted in shocking polite gustation through images which had sexual or grotesque overtones. In this regard, Art for Fine art'southward Sake was often implicitly radical, and its program of seeking scandal informed the more politically charged activities of subsequent movements such every bit Dada and Futurism.
- Although the term Art for Art's Sake fell out of favor by the end of the nineteenth century, the thought it stood for - that art had a value which stood apart from subject-matter, purely connected to formal qualities such as line, color, and tone - remained highly significant. Some such notion is at the basis of all abstraction, for example. Art for Fine art Sake tin can thus be seen to have predicted the work of artists such equally Wassily Kandinsky, for example, as well as the work of the Abstract Expressionists.
Overview of Art for Art'southward Sake
While some demanded that fine art merely focus on aethetics (and be devoid of morality and the like), others, such as the famous writer George Sand said: "Talent imposes duties. Art for the truth, art for the good, fine art for the beautiful - that is the organized religion I seek."
Do Not Miss
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The Aesthetic Motion emerged get-go in Britain in the belatedly-nineteenth century. Inspired past a rejection of previous styles in both the fine and decorative arts, its adherents were committed to the pursuit of beauty and the doctrine of 'art for art's sake'. Assertive that art had declined in an era of utility and rationalism, they claimed that art deserved to exist judged on its ain terms solitary.
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Dada was an creative and literary movement that emerged in 1916. It arose in reaction to World War I, and the nationalism and rationalism that many idea had led to the War. Influenced by several avant-gardes - Cubism, Futurism, Constructivism, and Expressionism - its output was wildly diverse, ranging from performance art to poetry, photography, sculpture, painting and collage. Emerging start in Zurich, information technology spread to cities including Berlin, Hanover, Paris, New York and Cologne.
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Ceremonial is an approach to interpreting art that emphasizes qualities of course - colour, line, shape, texture then forth. Formalists generally debate that these are at the heart of fine art's value. The conventionalities that grade can be detached from content, or subject matter, goes back to antiquity, but information technology has been particularly of import in shaping accounts of modernistic and abstruse art. In recent decades formalism has met with resistance, and a range of other approaches, including social and psychoanalytic, take gained popularity.
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Modern Art is a period of fine art making that promoted the new and industrial globe, costless from derivation and historical references. And for the new to be possible, old ideas about art were often altogether abandoned, or deconstructed.
The Important Artists and Works of Art for Art's Sake
La Ghirlandata (1873)
A woman delicately plays a harp while 2 angels circle pensively above her head. The rich velvet of the woman's green dress flows into the luxurious vegetation that surrounds her, her striking crimson hair echoed by the garland of flowers and the angels' auburn locks. William Michael Rossetti, the brother of the artist, translated this work's every bit "The Garlanded Lady" or "Lady of the Wreath," with Alexa Wilding, the model depicted in the center of the work, portrayed as the ideal of dearest and beauty.
This is a painting past Dante Gabriel Rossetti, a British creative person associated with both Aestheticism and the Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood, and known for his tempestuous and oft exploitative romantic relationships with female models and artists. This work's title, along with the arcadian treatment of subject affair, may be intended to evoke the spirit of Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa (c. 1503-19), then frequently known every bit La Giaconda ("the happy i" or "the jocund 1"), and revered by critics associated with Art for Art'south Sake such as Theophile Gautier and Walter Pater. In effect, Rossetti may have meant his idealized beauty to become an icon for the Aesthetic move simply as the Mona Lisa had become an icon of Renaissance art.
In its guide to the work, the Guildhall Art Gallery notes that the painting ushered in "a new artful of painting," equally every element contributed to the elevation of beauty. William Michael Rossetti wrote that his brother's intent was to "to indicate, more or less, youth, beauty, and the faculty for fine art worthy of a celestial audience, all shadowed by mortal doom." In this respect, the painting summed up the "Cult of Beauty" for which the Pre-Raphaelites stood, and represents an important contribution to the principles of Art for Fine art'southward Sake.
Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket (1874)
This iconic painting depicts a firework display at Cremorne Gardens in London. A few shadowy figures can be discerned in the foreground, depicting the shore of the Thames River, simply most of the canvas is given over to the black night sky, lit upwards past the rocket's falling golden sparks and the explosive smoke from the firework battery on the horizon. With its dreamy wash of colour and bathetic figures, this painting represented the emergence of a new arroyo within painting which emphasized the artist's freedom to represent a mood or emotion at the expense of representational accurateness.
This painting, the last in Whistler'southward series of so-called "nocturnes," became of import talismans of the idea of Art for Art's Sake, with the artist stating that "[a]rt should exist independent of all handclapping-trap - should stand up solitary, and appeal to the artistic sense of center or ear." Color and mood were crucial to Whistler's work, with his paintings oft adjoining on abstraction, while his titles oftentimes used musical terms such every bit "nocturne" and "harmony" to insist on painting's relationship to other artforms, specially music, which had a 'pure' artful quality not continued to themes or symbolism.
No work is a better instance of Whistler'due south artistic stance. Possibly for that reason, it became the subject of legal dispute afterwards Whistler sued the noted critic John Ruskin for attacking the painting as worthless and poorly executed. While Whistler won the instance, he received just a unmarried farthing in settlement, and his legal fees contributed to his subsequent bankruptcy. Despite this Pyrrhic victory, Whistler's defense played a key role in establishing the principles of art as an entirely liberated pursuit asunder from all conventions of society, politics, or morality, which would be important to the evolution of modernism. Art critic James Jones notes that Whistler described a painting as "an system of light, form and color," an emphasis which predicts, for instance, the movement of Abstruse Expressionism in the mid-twentieth century.
Harmony in Blue and Gold: The Peacock Room (1876-77)
The concept of Art for Fine art's Sake, via the Aesthetic motion, had a transformative upshot on interior design and architecture. Every bit art critic Fiona MacCarthy writes, "[o]ne of the primary tenets of aestheticism was that art was non confined to painting and sculpture and the imitation values of the art marketplace. Potential for art is everywhere around united states, in our homes and public buildings, in the particular of the way we cull to live our lives."
This photograph depicts the famous Peacock Room, named for the turquoise, gold, and bluish murals featuring a peacock motif and designed by James Abbott McNeill Whistler for the home of the shipping magnate Frederick Leyland. Leyland's centerpiece for his dining room was Whistler's painting The Princess from the Land of Porcelain (1863-65), while the interior blueprint embodied Whistler's enthusiasm for Japonism, a style based on western perceptions of Japanese art and blueprint. Whistler described his working process in the room as spontaneous and intuitive: "I merely painted on. I went on - without pattern or sketch - information technology grew as I painted. And toward the terminate I reached [...] a point of perfection." He said the finished interior was a "harmony in blue and gold," in effect transforming the space into an artwork and elevating design to a fine art that existed for its ain sake.
Whistler'southward blueprint was enormously influential, informing the development of both the Anglo-Japanese style and the Aesthetic movement, which included all realms of design within its dictum. In a wider sense, the decoration of this room encapsulates the idea and so important to exponents of Fine art for Art'southward Sake that, by surrounding themselves with beautiful things - non just artworks but walls, tables, chairs, so on - the artist or fine art lover could become beautiful themselves.
Useful Resource on Art for Art's Sake
Books
websites
articles
video clips
articles
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The Mystic Smile Our Pick
By Rochelle Gurstein / The New Republic / July 22,2002
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Kant and the Autonomy of Fine art
Past Casey Haskins / The Periodical of Aesthetics and Art Criticism / Vol. 47, no. 1, 1989, pp. 43-54
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The pre-Raphaelites: Art for art's sake: 5&A to gloat aesthetic movement
By Marking Brown / The Guardian / September 14, 2010
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Kandinsky on "fine art for art'south sake"
By Elena Maslova-Levin / sonnetsincolour.org / December 25, 2014
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The Aesthetic Movement Our Pick
By Fiona MacCarthy / The Guardian / March 26, 2011
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Art vs. aestheticism: the case of Walter Pater Our Selection
Past Roger Kimball / New Benchmark / May 1995
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What Is Tonalism? (12 Essential Characteristics)
By David Adams Cleveland / Artsy / July 10, 2015
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The Misty Mood of the Tonalists
By Grace Glueck / New York Times / April 25, 1997
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Pure Art, Pure Want: Changing Definitions of 'L'art Pour L'art' from Kant to Gautier
By Margueritte Spud / Studies in Romanticism / Bol. 47, no. two, 2008, pp. 147-160.
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The Beginnings of fifty'Art Pour 50'Art
By John Wilcox / The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism / Vol. 11, no. 4, 1953, pp. 360-377
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INDIVIDUALISM: Art for Art's Sake, or Art for Society's Sake?
By Suzi Gablik
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Ideas in Transmission: LeWitt's Wall Drawings and the Question of Medium
By Anna Lovatt / Tate Papers / No.14, Autumn 2010
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The Ruby Rag
Past James McNeill Whistler / Obelisk / 1878
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Artists v critics, round one
By Jonathan Jones / The Guardian / June 26, 2003
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The Historical Avant-Garde from 1830 to 1939: fifty'art cascade l'fine art, blague, and Our Pick
Past Doug Singsen / Gesamtkunstwerk / August xxx, 2020
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Théophile Gautier: Posthuman Decadence and the Philosophy of Closure
Dr. Rinaldi's Horror Cabinet / August 30, 2015
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Living Up To 1's Teapot: Oscar Wilde, Aestheticism and Victorian Satire Our Selection
Past Dr. Emerge-Anne Huxtable / National Museums Scotland / March 23, 2021
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An Introduction to the Aesthetic Movement
Victoria and Albert Museum
Content compiled and written past Rebecca Seiferle
Edited and revised, with Summary and Accomplishments added by Greg Thomas
"Fine art for Fine art'south Sake Definition Overview and Analysis". [Internet]. . TheArtStory.org
Content compiled and written by Rebecca Seiferle
Edited and revised, with Summary and Accomplishments added by Greg Thomas
Available from:
First published on 01 Jul 2009. Updated and modified regularly
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Source: https://www.theartstory.org/definition/art-for-art/
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