Aesthetic Movement

English artistic movement of the late 19th century, dedicated to the doctrine of ‘art for art's sake’– that is, art as a self‐sufficient entity concerned solely with beauty and not with any moral or social purpose. Associated with the movement were the artists Aubrey Beardsley and James McNeill Whistler and writers Walter Pater and Oscar Wilde .

The idea of art for art's sake, rooted in 18th‐century philosophical thinking led by Immanuel Kant, was current in Europe throughout the 19th century, but the English movement in the last two decades tended to advocate extremes of sensibility, and attracted much ridicule. John Ruskin and William Morris were staunch critics of the Aesthetic Movement.