Paire de chaises en bois doré et noirci du mouvement esthétique, Angleterre, fin du 19ème siècle

 65 x 48 x 43 cm

The Aesthetic Movement in Britain (1860 – 1900) aimed to escape the ugliness and materialism of the Industrial Age, by focusing instead on producing art that was beautiful rather than having a deeper meaning – 'Art for Art's sake'. The artists and designers in this 'cult of beauty' crafted some of the most sophisticated and sensuously beautiful artworks of the Western tradition and in the process remade the domestic world of the British middle-classes.

These new Aesthetic artists included romantic bohemians such as Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones; maverick figures such as James McNeill Whistler, then fresh from Paris and full of 'dangerous' French ideas about modern painting; avant-garde architects and designers such as E.W. Godwin and Christopher Dresser; and the 'Olympians', the painters of grand classical subjects who belonged to the circle of Frederic Leighton and G.F. Watts. (source and more on the subject: Victoria and Albert Museum, London)