Date of Award
Spring 4-25-2025
Document Type
Honors Project
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts
Department
Art and Art History
Department Chair or Program Director
Mentore, Laura
First Advisor
Dreiss, Joseph
Major or Concentration
Art History
Abstract
During the late nineteenth century, British artists and writers sought to create a new kind of beauty to combat the growing tedium and materiality of industrialization. This movement became known as Aestheticism, and those who practiced its tradition believed art should be created with the sole intention of eliciting aesthetic pleasure. According to the Aesthetes, art is amoral by nature and any attempt to infuse social commentary into an artwork is fundamentally wrong, adhering to the concept of “Art for Art’s Sake.” This research argues that despite the artists and writers of the Aesthetic Movement claiming that their works exist devoid of any moral value, there is still a morally edifying quality to the aesthetic experience which can be seen through the development of Modernism. The Aesthetic Movement anticipated many of the stylistic practices prominent in modern aesthetics, namely the focus on formal qualities over subject matter and early development of abstraction, which became highly moralized by artists in the early twentieth century. Through an investigation of the different philosophical approaches to morality in art and survey of moral depictions in British art history, this study will contextualize Aestheticism within the realm of moral education.
Recommended Citation
Madden, Hayley A., "Beyond the Didactic: The Morally Edifying Impact of Pure Aesthetic Experience" (2025). Departmental Honors & Graduate Capstone Projects. 631.
https://scholar.umw.edu/student_research/631