Term used to describe a movement of the 1870s and 1880s that manifested itself in the fine and decorative arts and architecture in Britain and subsequently in the USA. Reacting to what was seen as evidence of philistinism in art and design, it was characterized by the cult of the beautiful and an emphasis on the sheer pleasure to be derived from it. In painting there was a belief in the autonomy of art, the concept of ART FOR ART’S SAKE, which originated in France as a literary movement and was introduced into Britain around 1860.

• Aesthetic Movement
  • Armstrong, Thomas
  • Art for Art’s Sake
  • Arts and Crafts Movement, §2: British Isles
  • Display of art, §II, 4: Paintings, after c 1870
  • Gay and lesbian art, §2: Assertion and evasion of identity, 1890s–1960s
  • Ionides
  • Moore: (1) Albert Joseph Moore
  • Orientalism, §2(iii): Harems and slave and street markets
  • Romanticism, §4: The legacy
  • Victorian style
  • Whistler, James McNeill
  • Wilde, Oscar
  • architecture
    • England, §II, 5(ii): Architecture, c 1830–c 1914: Styles
    • Godwin, E. W.
  • etchings
    • Whistler, James McNeill, §1(iv): Life and work, 1877–94
  • exhibitions
    • Lindsay, Coutts
  • frames
    • Frame, §IV, 10: Britain: Pre-Raphaelite and Aesthetic Movement
  • furniture
    • Wicker, §1: Before 1900
  • interior decoration
    • Australia, §V: Interior decoration
    • England, §V, 6: Interior decoration, 1831–1900
    • Scotland, §V, 3: Interior decoration, 1791–1914
    • Whistler, James McNeill, §1(iii): Life and work, 1866–77
  • ornament
    • Ornament and pattern, §II, 8: Western: 19th-century reform movements
  • textiles
    • Liberty, Arthur Lasenby
  • see also ART FOR ART'S SAKE