Dorian Gray Aestheticism Essay Example For Students

Dorian Gray Aestheticism Essay Aestheticismlate 19th-century European arts movement which centred on thedoctrine that art exists for the sake of its beauty alone, and that itneed serve no political, didactic, or other purpose. Aestheticismfrom Europe, history ofTo those who dedicated their lives to Symbolist literature andcriticism the name of aesthetes is often given, for it was at thistime, from 1870 to the end of the century, that questions ofaesthetics became the intense concern of artists, critics, and aportion of the public. The phrase art for arts sake, which the Aestheticismfrom art, philosophy ofDiametrically opposed to the moralistic view is aestheticism, theview that, instead of art (and everything else) being thehandmaiden of morality, morality (and everything else) should bethe handmaiden of art. The proponents of this view hold that theexperience of art is the most intense and pervasive experienceavailable in human life and autotelismthe belief that a work of art, especially a work of literature, is anend in itself or provides its own justification and does not exist toserve a moral or didactic purpose. It was adopted by proponentsof New Criticism in the 1920s and is similar to the art for artssake doctrine of the Aestheticism movement of the late 19th art for arts sakea slogan translated from the French lart pour lart, which wascoined in the early 19th century by the French philosopher VictorCousin. The phrase expresses the belief held by many writers andartists, especially those associated with Aestheticism, that artneeds no justification, that it need serve no political, didactic, or