The Cult of Beauty: the Victorian Avant-Garde 1860-1900

London [et al]: V & A Publishing [et all], 2011. First edition, first printing (full number line). Hardcover. Very fine in very fine fainty spine-sunned jacket. in as new dust-jacket. Folio in multicolor jacket (blue spine); 296 pages: illustrations (chiefly color), portraits (chiefly color); 30 cmbibliographical references (pages 256-260) and index. Maroon cloth case binding; illustrated dust jacket. Illustrated endpapers. Contents: 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 aesthetic 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. "Focuses on a period in the nineteenth century when a group of artists, architects and designers found themselves united in the search for a new Beauty. The Aesthetic Movement, as it came to be known, sought nothing less than the creation of a new kind of art, an art freed from outworn establishment ideas and Victorian notions of morality. This was to be "Art for Art's sake" -- art that did not tell stories of make moral points,art that dared simply to offer visual delight and hint at sensuous pleasure. This new and exciting "Cult of Beauty" joined, for a while at least, romantic bohemians such as Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones, along with maverick figures such as James McNeill Whistler and painters of grand classical subjects who belonged to the circle of Frederic Leighton. ... The book also reveals how artists' houses, their collections of beautiful things 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. Oscar Wilde made his name promoting the idea of "The House Beautiful" and the styles favoured by Aesthetic designers were among the very first to be widely exploited commercially in Britain." -Publisher Aesthetic movement (Art) -- Great Britain -- Exhibitions. Avant-garde (Aesthetics) -- Great Britain -- Exhibitions. Art, English -- 19th century -- Exhibitions. Aesthetic movement (Art) Art, English. Avant-garde (Aesthetics) Genre/Form: Exhibition catalogues. Exhibition catalogs. . This edition published to accompany the exhibition held 18 Feb. - 17 June 2012 at the Legion of Honor, San Francisco having previously been held 2 Apr. - 17 Jul. 2011 at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London and 12 Sept. 2011 - 15 Jan. 2012 at the Musée d'Orsay, Paris. **A large, heavy book. Extra shipping charges may apply for international & expedited orders. Please inquire. Weighs 4.5 lbs before packing. **.