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Book Cover
Book
Author Gaunt, William, 1900-1980.

Title The aesthetic adventure / William Gaunt
Edition Revised edition
Published London : Cape, 1975

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Location Call no. Vol. Availability
 MELB  700.941 GAU  AVAILABLE
Description 222 pages, 16 pages of plates : illustrations (chiefly color) ; 21 cm
Contents List of illustrations -- I. A contiental state of mind -- II. Muster of forces -- 1. Shirts and no shirts -- 2. Yankee at the court of King Arthur -- 3. Poet in frenzy -- 4. Hard gem-like flame -- 5. Intensity in the drawing-room -- 6. Café society -- III. Battle -- 1. The trials of a prophet -- 2. Butterfly in a box -- 3. Age of spite -- 4. Aestheticism rampant -- 5. Pleasures, serious and otherwise -- IV. De ́bâcle -- V. The aftermath -- 1. The end of the end of the century -- 2. The difficulty of being Earnest -- 3. A reformed character -- 4. In the days of King Edward -- VI. Threshold of a new age -- Conclusion -- Sources and acknowledgments -- Index
Summary The art and literature of mid-Victorian England reflected the materialism of an age dominated by the machine. It was not until the latter part of the century that a group of the most prominent men in the arts rebelled against the prevailing attitudes and and turned to aestheticism - the pursuit of beauty, independent of any moral end or social purpose. The ensuing works or art and literature were greeted by the general public with shock and condemnation, and the Establishment fought bitterly to prevent the corruption of their society. William Gaunt traces this search for sensation by the main characters involved in the new aesthetic movement: James McNeill Whistler, the artist who opposed John Ruskin in a famous libel action following Ruskin's accusation that he had 'flung a pot of paint in the public's face'; Oscar Wilde, who was forced to defend his writings against charges of immorality and obscenity; and the poet Swinburne, whose poems openly romanticised sin and were promptly proclaimed a danger to public morals. Theirs was a hard battle against a society unwilling to allow them artistic and moral freedom - a battle that was to end in tragedy and disillusion. The Aesthetic Adventure is the second volume in a trilogy about the artistic movements of the Victorian era. It is accompanied by The Pre-Raphaelite Tragedy and Victorian Olympus. (Back cover)
Notes Includes index
Bibliography Bibliography: pages 213-214
Subject Arts -- England.
Arts, British -- 19th century.
SUBJECT Great Britain -- Intellectual life -- 19th century. http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh85056856
LC no. 75328595
ISBN 0224011057