The Aesthetic Movement

"Art for art's sake": in Victorian Britain a circle of painters and designers argued that a picture needed no moral or story, only beauty. Whistler titled his paintings like pieces of music, as arrangements and symphonies, while Leighton and Alma-Tadema lavished technique on languid classical figures, marble and flowers. The movement reached into furniture, fashion and interiors, and its ideals passed on to Symbolism and design.