1. Aestheticism Last decades of XIX century

2. Ruskin had emphasized the i ii importance of Art and Beauty as a means of moral progress. The P PP Pre-Raphaelites had also w ww worshipped beauty above everything. The Oxford university professor W WW Walter Pater, in his essays published in 1867–68, stated that l ll life had to be lived intensely, f ff following an ideal of beauty. Therefore it was quite easy for the painter James McNeill Whistler to introduce the French doctrine of Art for Arts sake into England. This doctrine placed the a aa artists activity outside and above morals and led to the beginning of E EE English literary Aestheticism, which can be defined as.... a reaction against any utilitarian or moral conception of Art.

3. Art for Arts sake meant: art for the pleasure and sensations that it could produce, without any regard to standards of morality or utility. The fundamental principles of this movement were the following: 1.The c cc cult of beauty. 2.The c cc choice for a life beyond common morality. 3.The s ss solution of the dichotomy between senses and spirit through the theory of the spiritualization of the senses. 4.The r rr reversal of the principle of art imitating life into that of life imitating art.

4. Walter Pater (1839-1894) Pater was the defender of h hh hedonism, a doctrine according to which... pleasure is the chief good to be pursued by man, i.e. the end of all human actions. In his opinion, l ll life should be t tt treated i ii in the spirit of art, i.e. l ll life as a work of art. In his Studies in the history of Renaissance(1873) he stated that: 1.the secret of h hh happiness l ll lies i n the enjoyment of beauty; 2.the f ff finest sensations a aa are to be found i ii in art; 3.the d eepest and noblest emotions can be e ee experienced i ii in a life meant as a work of art. Through our senses we can enjoy any form of artistic beauty and thus live a deep spiritual experience. This is particularly true if we live our life as if it were a work of art. These ideas made him a sort of ascetic hedonist.