Walter Horatio Pater 1839-1894 Late Victorian Aestheticism

Walter Horatio Pater

1839-1894

Late Victorian Aestheticism

“She is older than the rocks among

which she sits; like the vampire, she

has been dead many times, and

learned the secrets of the grave; and

has been a diver in deep seas, and

keeps their fallen day about her; and

trafficked for strange webs with

Eastern merchants, and , as Leda, was

the mother of Helen of Troy, and, as

Saint Anne, the mother of Mary; . . .

The fancy of a perpetual life, sweeping

together ten thousand experiences, is

an old one…”

Pater, “La Gioconda” 1511



“Let us begin with that which is without—our

physical life. Fix upon it in one of its more

exquisite intervals, the moment, for instance,

of delicious recoil from the flood of water in

summer heat. What is the whole physical life in

that moment but a combination of natural

elements to which science gives their names? .

. . Our physical life is a perpetual motion of

them—the passage of the blood, the waste and

repairing of the brain under every ray of light

and sound—processes which science reduces

to simpler and more elementary forces.”

Conclusion to The Renaissance

1511


“To burn always with this hard, gem-

like flame, to maintain this ecstasy, is

success in life. In a sense it might

even be said that our failure is to form

habits: for, after all, habit is relative

to a stereotyped world, and meantime

it is only the roughness of the eye that

makes two persons, things, situations,

seem alike. While all melts under our

feet, we may well grasp at any

exquisite passion, or any contribution

to knowledge that seems by a lifted

horizon to set the spirit free for a

moment, or any stirring of the sense,

strange dyes, strange colours, and

curious odours, or work of the artist’s

hands, or the face of one’s friend.”

Conclusion to

Renaissance 1512

Aubrey Beardsley, “The Dancer’s Reward” (1894) illustration for Oscar Wilde's Salomé

A George du Maurier, Punch cartoon

(30 Oct. 1880) in response to the

theories of aestheticism in the

“Conclusion” to Pater’s Studies in

the History of the Renaissance:

“For art comes to you proposing

frankly to give nothing but the

highest quality to your moments as

they pass, and simply for those

moment’s sake”

Pater, “Conclusion” 1513

***************************************

“Aesthetic Bridegroom: ‘It is quite consummate, is it not!’

Intense Bride: ‘It is, indeed! Oh, Algernon, let us live up to it!’”


George du Maurier, Punch (c1897)


Aesthetic Youth: “I hope by degrees to have this room filled nothing but the most perfectly beautiful things.” Simple-Minded Guardsman: “And what are you going to do

with these then?”

Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde 1854 – 1900


Wilde’s mother Lady Jane Wilde, she used the pseudonym Speranza in literary

circles


Matthew Arnold

1822-1888


“The critical power is of lower rank than

the creative. . . . It is undeniable that the

exercise of a creative power, that a free

creative activity, is the highest function

of man . . . . The critical power . . . see[s]

the object as in itself it really is. . . .”

The Function of Criticism 1385-6

Henry Furniss, Punch, July 30, 1881


“Criticism is itself an art. And just as

artistic creation implies the working

of the critical faculty, and, indeed,

without it cannot be said to exist at

all, so Criticism is really creative in

the highest sense of the word.

Criticism is, in fact, both creative

and independent.”

“The Critic as Artist”

1692

Lord Alfred Douglas (“Bosie”), the love of Wilde’s life and the son of the Marquess of Queensbury


“I would say that the highest Criticism,

being the purest form of personal

impression, is in its way more creative

than creation . . . . That is what the

highest criticism really is, the record of

one’s own soul. It is more fascinating

than history, as it is concerned simply

with oneself. . . . It is the only civilized

form of autobiography, as it deals not

with events, but with the thoughts one’s

life . . . . with the spiritual moods and

imaginative passions of the mind.” “The Critic as Artist”

1693

“Who, again, cares whether Mr. Pater

has put into the portrait of Mona Lisa

something that Leonardo never dreamed

of? . . . [S]o the picture becomes more

wonderful to us than it really is, and

reveals to us a secret of which, in truth,

it knows nothing, and the music of

[Pater’s] mystical prose is as sweet in

our ears as was that flute-player’s music

that lent to the lips of La Gioconda those

subtle and poisonous curves.”

Wilde, “The Critic as Artist” 1694



Thomas Nast, Harper’s Weekly (1882)

Contra Arnold, Wilde believes that “the

highest Criticism,” treats art “simply as a

starting point for a new creation.” It

“criticizes not merely the individual work

of art, but Beauty itself, and fills with

wonder a form which the artist may have

left void, or not understood, or understood

incompletely.” The aim of the critic, then,

is “to see the object as in itself it really is

not.”

“The Critic as Artist”

1694-5

Oscar Wilde’s tomb at Père Lachaise cemetery, Paris


“The critic reproduces the work

that he criticizes in a mode that is

never imitative and part of whose

charm may really consist in the

rejection of resemblance, and

shows us in this way not merely the

meaning but also the mystery of

Beauty, and, by transforming each

art into literature, solves once for

all the problem of Art’s unity.”

“The Critic as

Artist” 1697


Breathe, keep breathing, don’t lose your nerve

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Walter Horatio Pater 1839-1894 Late Victorian Aestheticism