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The cult of beauty : the aesthetic movement, 1860-1900

Archive Print Item: Bedford Collection C219

Details

Type of record: Book

Title: The cult of beauty : the aesthetic movement, 1860-1900

Other titles: Aesthetic movement 1860-1900

Level: Item

Classmark: Bedford Collection C219

Additional creator(s): Calloway, Stephen (Editor); Orr, Lynn Federle (1947-) (Editor); Whittaker, Esmé (Editor); Bedford, John Victor (1941-2019) (Former owner); Victoria and Albert Museum (Host institution); Musée d'Orsay (Host institution); M. H. De Young Memorial Museum (Host institution)

Publisher: V & A Publishing

Publication city: London

Date(s): 2011

Language: English

Size and medium: 296 pages

Persistent link: https://explore.library.leeds.ac.uk/special-collections-explore/733912

Printed items catalogue: https://leeds.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/fulldisplay?vid=44LEE_INST:VU1&docid=alma991019978495205181

Description

Published to accompany the exhibition of the same name held at the V & A, London, 2 Apr-17 Jul 2011; Musée d'Orsay, Paris, 12 Sep 2011-15 Jan 2012; de Young Museum, San Francisco, 18 Feb-17 Jun 2012.


Includes bibliographical references (pages 256-260) and index.


This book focuses on a period at the end of the nineteenth century when a group of artists, architects and designers found themselves linked by the search for a new Beauty. "The Aesthetic movement", as it came to be known, united romantic bohemians such as Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones, along with maverick figures such as James McNeill Whistler. The book brings together the finest pictures, furniture and decorative arts of this extraordinary era, setting them in the context of this glittering cast of characters. This beautiful book also reveals how artists' houses and their extravagant lifestyles became the object of public fascination. The influence of the 'Palaces of Art' created by Rossetti and Morris, Lord Leighton and others led to a widespread revolution in architecture and interior decoration, while Oscar Wilde made his name promoting the idea of 'The House Beautiful'.


The search for a new beauty / Stephen Calloway -- The cult of beauty: the Victorian avant-garde in context / Lynn Frederick Orr -- 1. Literature and the Aesthetic movement / Susan Owens -- Walter Pater (1839-1894) / Colin Cruise -- 2. Aestheticism in painting / Elizabeth Prettejohn -- Early aesthetic photography: Julia Margaret Cameron and David Wilkie Wynfield / Hope Kingsley -- The Musical ideal in asethetic art / Suzanne Fagence Cooper -- 3. The palace of art: artists, collectors and their houses / Stephen Calloway -- Japonisme / Christine M.E. Guth -- Blue-and-white china / Stephen Calloway -- Leighton and Aitchison / Esmé Whittaker -- The Aesthetic movement and architecture / Stefan Muthesius -- 4. Furnishing the aesthetic interior: manuals and theories / Penny Sparke -- Wallpapers / Gill Saunders -- Aesthetic textiles / Sonia Ashmore -- Art and utility: furniture fit for purpose / Frances Collard -- Ceramics / Sonia Solicari -- Aesthetic metalwork / Eric Turner -- 5. The Grosvenor
gallery, patronage and the aesthetic portrait / Barbara Bryant -- The "Aesthetic" woman / Margaret D. Stetz -- Artists' frames / Lynn Roberts -- Much in little space: Whistler's white and yellow exhibition as an Aesthetic movement bell-wether / David Park Curry -- 6. Aestheticism in the marketplace: fashion, lifestyle and popular taste / Christopher Breward -- Women's dress / Edwina Ehrman -- Jewellery / Clare Phillips -- Punch and satire / Leonce Ormond -- Oscar Wilde / Susan Owens -- Patience and the theatre / Catherine Haill -- "Tired hedonists": the decadence of the Aesthetic movement / Stephen Calloway -- Religion and sexuality / Colin Cruise -- Late paintings / Elizabeth Prettejohn -- The new sculpture / Robert Upstone -- "The cult of indistinctness": art photography in the 1890s / Hope Kingsley -- The book beautiful / Stephen Calloway.

Provenance

Leeds University Library copy at Bedford Collection C219: From the John Evan Bedford Library, gifted in 2019. Twenty-first-century pictorial bookplate on front pastedown: John Evan Bedford. Former reference: ST/52.

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This material is not subject to restrictions under Data Protection or other relevant legislation that might limit access. However, other protections, such as donor conditions or conservation considerations, may still apply where advised.

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