Art for Art's Sake: Aestheticism in Victorian Painting

by Elizabeth Prettejohn and Dashka Slater

In the London circles of Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Frederic Leighton, the notion of "art for art's sake" became a shared concern: if art is not created for the sake of preaching a moral lesson, or supporting a political cause, or making a fortune, or any other objective, what might art be? Art historian Elizabeth Prettejohn traces the emergence of the debates over this issue in the 1860s and 1870s, focusing especially on the Rossetti, Whistler,...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0300135491
• ISBN13: 9780300135497
• Release Date: February 2008
• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 3.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 8.0" x 10.2"