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The Aesthetic Movement was one of the most important social movements of the late 19th century, yet most people are not aware of it at all. As far as our Brooklyn neighborhoods are concerned, we see the influences of the Movement everywhere, both on the exteriors and interiors of our period homes and buildings. The Aesthetic Movement, as discussed today, is mostly seen as a decorative or artistic phase of Victoriana. It was much more than that. Like many of the social and artistic trends of the time, the Movement started in England, and ran roughly from 1870-1900. If the Movement had a theme, it would have to be Art for Art’s sake. The British writers and poets of the time asserted that life should be beauty, lived sensuously without regard for societal mores. In the words of the Bradbury wallpaper website, they celebrated the virtues of a vague, opium-laced artistic nirvana where all women were pale and wan, all men were unbearably poetic and sensitive, and all their surroundings were simply too utterly utter, i.e. beautiful beyond the ponderous weight of description. They started and cultivated the cult of beauty, which entrances our society still. Oscar Wilde was perhaps the most well known of the Aesthetic writers and artists, which also included Evelyn Waugh and A.E. Houseman, and Pre-Raphaelite artists Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Edward Bourne-Jones, as well as James McNeill Whistler and Aubrey Beardsley.

As stated, one needs to live surrounded by beauty, in beautiful rooms, surrounded by beautiful things, and at this time the decorative arts rose to the forefront of a striving society, and have remained there ever since. The greatest influence of the Movement occurred when Japan opened up to Western trade in the mid 1800′s, fueling a mania in both England and the US for Japanese designs, themes, and goods. The delicate and asymmetrical art of Japan was totally new to Western audiences hungry for something different, and the designers of the Aesthetic Movement quickly became fascinated with the shapes and motifs. Leaves and flowers, butterflies, birds, and other natural themes joined with the rectilinear shapes of Japanese furniture and architecture. Charles Eastlake was very influenced by Japanese culture and design, those designs reinterpreted in the American Eastlake furniture and interior woodwork, as well as exterior incised stonework of the Neo-Grec brownstones of Brooklyn. On both sides of the Atlantic, Aesthetic Movement designers created products for bourgeoning middle and upper middle class homes. Transfer ware china with floral, animal and Japanese themes, silver-plate and sterling cutlery and hollowware serving pieces with delicate tracery graced the homes of consumers. Wallpaper in Japanned patterns was in vogue, bringing colors and patterns not seen before into the home. In furniture, Japanese-style ebonized and lacquered pieces, sometimes gilded, were popular, as was marquetry and painted surfaces. It was an age of amazing surface design.

The Aesthetic Movement was the precursor of the Arts and Crafts Movement, which, in America, was highly influenced by Japan, especially on the West Coast. But before the simplicity of that movement come the excesses of the former. If art is beauty, then surely more is more, especially in the home. The relative simplicity of the Aesthetic Movement soon ushered in the robber baron style of excessive excess. Many Brooklynites had more money to spend, and built and decorated accordingly. We’ll look at how the Aesthetic Movement has shaped parts of Brooklyn on Thursday. Please check the Flickr page for examples of interior and exterior styles.