aestheticism

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The aestheticism , often used in high vernacular in the derogatory sense, is an era of literature, which lasted from 1890 to 1920 and in beauty (the aesthetic looks) the highest value. Ethics , knowledge , religiosity , social affairs are subordinate to and subordinate to the “beautiful” (aesthetic amoralism ). Aestheticism also influenced philosophical and scientific aspects, such as the views of Ernst Haeckel or Carl Gustav Carus on the question of the liveliness / soulfulness of crystals.

history

The first aesthetic tendencies emerged in the Renaissance , when art emancipated itself from its religious canon and artistic activity detached itself from its medieval connection with monastic work or urban handicrafts. In the 18th century, Immanuel Kant defined “ beauty ” as pleasure without interest .

Modern aestheticism is rooted in romanticism ( Friedrich Schlegel , Chateaubriand ). Théophile Gautier's foreword to his novel Mademoiselle de Maupin , written in 1834, is regarded as groundbreaking , in which he only admits beauty to the purposeless and describes everything useful as ugly. In 1891 Oscar Wilde's foreword to The Portrait of Dorian Gray became a kind of manifesto of aestheticism. Ludwig Tieck had suggested stylizing life as a work of art. In the 19th century, the English-Scottish term dandy came up and has been used since then to describe aestheticism as a way of life.

From 1885 to 1915, Aestheticism influenced impressionism , symbolism, and the individual poetologies of absolute poetry. Countercurrents were realism , naturalism and, in Germany from 1900 onwards, neoclassicism .

Representatives of aestheticism are Walter Pater , John Ruskin , Oscar Wilde , Aubrey Beardsley , Frederic Lord Leighton , Stéphane Mallarmé , Stefan George and Gabriele D'Annunzio . Thomas Mann's story Tristan parodies aestheticism and dandyism .

exhibition

See also

literature

  • Stephen Calloway, Lynn Federle (Eds.): The Cult of Beauty. The Aesthetic Movement 1860-1900 , Victoria and Albert Museum, London 2011, ISBN 978-1-85177-694-8 .
  • Robert V. Johnson: Aestheticism . Methuen, London 1973, ISBN 0-416-14550-7 .
  • Lionel Lambourne: The Aesthetic Movement . Phaidon, London 1996, ISBN 0-7148-3000-3 .
  • Annette Simonis: Literary Aestheticism: Theory of the arabesque and hermetic communication of the modern age . Niemeyer, Tübingen 2000, ISBN 3-484-63023-X .
  • Ian Small (Ed.): The Aesthetes. A sourcebook . Routledge & Kegan Paul, London 1979, ISBN 0-7100-0146-0 .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Birk Engmann: Ernst Haeckel on the ninetieth anniversary of his death. His reflections on Theophysis, the crystal soul and consciousness and their significance today. Ärzteblatt Thüringen 11/2009, pages 681 to 684 ( PDF; 988 kB ), ISSN  0863-5412
  2. ↑ Walter Killy, Volker Meid (Ed.): Literaturlexikon , Volume 13,: Bertelsmann, Gütersloh / Munich 1992, p. 18 f, ISBN 3-570-04713-X
  3. ^ Friedrich Kluge, Elmar Seebold (editor): Etymological dictionary of the German language , 23rd edition, de Gruyter, Berlin / New York, NY 1999, ISBN 3-11-016392-6 .
  4. ↑ What we owe Oscar Wilde , by Gina Thomas, London, in FAZ of June 14, 2011, page 33