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This chair was made by Ernest William Gimson in 1905. A late piece of the Arts and Crafts Movement, it typifies all the ideology behind the movement. Gimson made the chair for Sam Barnsley, who lived in a cottage nearby. All of the furnishings in the the cottage matched the cottage itself - natural material and plain, well made pieces. This chair fit well not only in the house (where they made their own bread, beer, and still kept chickens), but in the archives of the Arts and Crafts Movement because of the meticulous craftsmanship.
http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/a/arts-and-crafts-britain-1880-1914/

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Read about how war gave the Modernism movement a push towards the radical movement we know today. War and political upheaval during and after WWI needed an art form that reflected the utopian world they wanted and yet a response to chaos. This expression helped evolve the movement into what we classify it as today.

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The years preceding World War I in Europe are generally referred to as the "Belle Epoque" -- a cultural and economic golden age. The period was hardly one of utter utopia for all citizens. But in the wake of the conflagration that would shake the globe beginning in August 1914, it came later to be seen as a period of calm before the storm. Its cultural practices, too, seem tinged with an almost naive optimism.

Modernism in art and literature had gathered momentum well before the First World War, which began in earnest 100 years ago this fall.

But with its eruption, those earlier Victorian forms no longer seemed adequate in the face of the period's upheavals, the destruction to bodies, to landscape, to culture itself. New experiments took up the task.

The violent disjunctures of Cubist collage, for example, were a fitting way to of express the political and geographic revolution.

Picasso already practiced the form during the Balkan Wars of 1912-13, often using the very newsprint that announced the latest battles. On the Great War itself, the pacifist Picasso remained silent. His innovations with different media and materials, however, influenced movements -- from war-mongering Futurism in Italy to pacifist Dada in neutral Switzerland.

While many artists claimed Cubism itself as a renewed form of classicism, French nationalists derided it as a decadent German import (and spelled it "Kubism" accordingly).

In France as elsewhere, then, culture formed a parallel theater of war. As many artists became enemy combatants with the stroke of a pen, the cosmopolitan idyll of prewar Paris gave way to an increasing xenophobia.

The war and its representations indeed seemed bound up with one another at every turn. "I very well remember," wrote Gertrude Stein, "at the beginning of the war, being with Picasso on the Boulevard Raspail when the first camouflaged truck passed. ... Picasso, amazed, looked at it, and then cried out, yes, it is we who made it, that is Cubism."

The British Vorticist artist Edward Wadsworth not only painted canvases in the sharp lines characteristic of his circle's aggressive imagery, but also supervised the "dazzle" camouflage (an angular patterning of black and white paint) of over 2,000 ships for the British Admiralty.

The seemingly gratuitous bewilderment of modernist abstraction was thus put in the more practical service of confusing rangefinders and eluding enemy fire.

But it was the Italian Futurists who most enthusiastically embraced the war, using their works to agitate for intervention against Italy's traditional ally, Austria. The Futurist ringleader, F.T. Marinetti, declared that only a giant international conflict could shock Italy out of its cultural slumber. Marinetti's hymns to danger, speed and mechanized violence found their consummate realization in the Great War -- an event he deemed "the world's greatest poem."

As volunteers along Italy's northern front, the Futurists served as avant-gardists in the literal, military sense.

Along with their rhetoric of jingoistic virility, Futurist painting and poetry nurtured a playful and subversive "anti-aesthetic" that would inspire artists for the rest of the 20th century. Ironically enough, it was the anti-war stirrings of Dada that bore out its most immediate influence, first in Switzerland and then post-war Berlin.

From Futurism, Dada borrowed strategies of shock and illogic, assaulting received truths and bourgeois morality alike. To these, however, the Dadaists married a resolute anti-nationalism, rejecting both the war and its institutional origins. Yet even politically progressive artists turned to the war's new spectacles as sources of stimulation and dynamism.

Painted while he convalesced from a mustard gas attack, Fernand Léger's "The Card Party" (1917) depicts the artist and his fellow French soldiers as virtual extensions of military machinery, their jointed arms mobile like metallic prostheses.

Many drew their inspiration from a newly transformed theater of hostilities, whether the shock of trench warfare, mobile X-ray machines or the terror and poetics of flight (the first pilotless drones were notably developed by the U.S. Navy from 1916-17).

The British sculptor Jacob Epstein's notorious "Rock Drill" (1913-15) features an armored, machine-like body mounted atop an actual rock drill, glorifying an inhuman mechanization and anticipating even the battle droids from the Star Wars franchise's prequel, "The Phantom Menace," at the century's end

Not all European artists figured the period's anxieties -- or witnessed its havoc -- in the same manner.

Following in the tradition of Goya and the Dutch Renaissance alike, Otto Dix would later complete grotesque renderings of soldiers wearing gas masks and battlefields strewn with trenches and corpses. In works made just after the war, he (like his German compatriot George Grosz and other Dadaist artists) incorporated collage into his canvases, evoking the scores of amputated veterans visible in Germany's city streets, themselves virtual assemblages of prostheses.

These artists drew not only upon Futurist experiments with newsprint, but also the Metaphysical cityscapes of the Italian painter Giorgio de Chirico, which conjure up a sense of both post-apocalyptic stillness and disquieting anticipation.

A girl rolls her hoop across a sundrenched square in de Chirico's "Melancholy and Mystery of a Street" (1914), unaware of the hearse that looms in the arcade's shadow -- the metaphor, perhaps, of a continent hurtling toward the void.

The war's traumas also spurred utopian cultural projects after the guns fell silent. During the war, André Breton worked in a neurological ward in Nantes. His contact with the stream-of-consciousness ramblings of soldiers suffering from head wounds sparked his interest in the unconscious as a source of radical social and political transformation.

Breton's Surrealist movement transformed Dadaist despair -- at both the war and the technologies that had led to it -- into a constructive assault on social and sexual norms. Holding seminars and publishing questionnaires, the Surrealists campaigned in the 1920s and 1930s against the nationalist enmity that had caused the last war and that was leading inexorably toward another.

At war's end, modernist tendencies such as Cubism, Futurism and Expressionism came -- rightly or not -- to be associated with its violence.

But artists generally abandoned the depiction of armored trains and disintegrating forms after the guns fell silent, rendering less threatening subjects in more soothing styles.

Dubbed the "Return to Order" by Jean Cocteau-- the Surrealist painter, poet, playwright, novelist and filmmaker -- this period following the Great War witnessed a reprisal of neoclassical motifs, suckling mothers and other emblems of reassuring stability.

With the gradual rise of fascism, such stability proved itself increasingly illusory, as even the most decorous of aesthetic traditions were put in the service of an aggressive, murderous ideology, and another war -- even more terrible than the first -- tore open the century.

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how world war i gave birth to the modern (opinion) - cnn

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How World War I gave birth to the modern

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The years preceding World War I in Europe are generally referred to as the "Belle Epoque" -- a cultural and economic golden age. The period was hardly one of utter utopia for all citizens. But in the wake of the conflagration that would shake the globe beginning in August 1914, it came later to be seen as a period of calm before the storm.

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The Sex Pistols were a group that rose to fame during the subculture revolution in the late 1970s. Their music reflected the postmodern spirit of going against the grain, specifically of social conformity. Their hit "God Save the Queen", along with its graphic (as seen in 'Punky') are major icons for the postmodern era because of their radical difference from the conformity and streamline design and themes of the modernist era.

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This collection of icons will help adjust your eyes to the modernist design style. https://www.pinterest.com/bpirman/modernism/

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Craftsmanship, new materials/technology, and a new concept of comfort combined to make this lounge chair a modernism icon. Tubular steel and molded plywood were in their infancy when this chair came on the market. It also reflects the clean lines and geometric trend of modern design. Most importantly, no one could seem to design it any more perfectly - which gave it a rise to fame that gives the chair and the Eames name a lasting presence today.

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The consumer explosion of plastic can be summed up in one phenomenon - the birth of Tupperware. Although many people today use the name Tupperware for anything that is plastic and holds leftovers, the name originally comes from (you guessed it) Earl Tupper, the creator of tupperware. Mr. Tupper was one of the first designers to take full advantage of the plastic technology on hand in the 1950s. And although his concept fits the ideas of the time seamlessly - a completely throw-away item, the new product didn't immediately take off. It took the adoption of women's Tupperware selling parties to really launch the brand into the limelight.
The design of Tupperware like those pictured was marketed to fit the ideals of the 50s. The cookie cutter life left people looking for choices like color and variety of price to distinguish themselves from their neighbors. Colorful varieties and endless possibilities coupled with a sleek and modern-like design makes Mr. Tupper's design an epitome of the 1950s.

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The Garden City Movement was the brain-child of Ebenezer Howard. He, along with influencers like Ruskin and Morris were appalled at the indecency of the city life and worked to better the lives of the urban working class with better and more beautiful but affordable design. Howard took that idea a step further and drew up plans for a city that would change the life of the normal citizen. By giving an individual the best of both the city and the country (as depicted below), people would live lives of unity, purpose, and happiness. This idea is a directly related to the Arts & Crafts movement because of its focus on quality of life for the poor and giving a moral obligation and utopian aspect to design.

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Dresser's Teapot and The Aesthetic Movement

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Dresser's Teapot and The Aesthetic Movement

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Christopher Dresser is a well known designer of the Aesthetic Movement, but he is important in linking European design of the mid 19th century to Japanese design. After Japan opened its borders to trade, designers started incorporating the simplicity into their own designs - creating Anglo-Japanese design.
This teapot is a perfect example of an Aesthetic Movement piece because Dresser uses a European-style teapot shape as the foundation for Japanese-style aspects like the smooth surfaces and the typical dark ebony wood on the handle. And yet, we know this is an Aesthetic fusion because of the little decorative spindle and square in the center of the pot that have no particular meaning or use, but are simply there for decorative purposes. Anything style worked in the Aesthetic movement just as long at it was pretty to look at.

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The Bauhaus was founded in 1919 by German architect Walter Gropius. Gropius introduced his radical concept of reimagining the arts to reflect the unity through a all-encompassing art school. This utopian idea is typical of a moderist view point (art was moving away from the structured and antiquated discipline into one vehicle of expression), but The Bauhaus went above and beyond. Students learned painting, weaving, pottery, typography - you name it.
This poster by Joost Schmidt boasts of modernism ideals in it's design and typography. Why? Although it may seem to not make sense, the image is made up of purely geometric shapes. The type is even rectangular in some words and then circular in "1923" in the right corner. The simplicity in the color pallete is also typical of modernism, which is known for its primary-color scheme. Asymmetrical but still visually pleasing, Schmidt's design has become a classic from The Bauhaus, even though it was produced while he was still a student there.
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/bauh/hd_bauh.htm

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Let's break all the rules - The Memphis Group sure did. After the stark lines of modernism, postmodern designers wanted to just go crazy with expression and have fun with design. No rules, no problem.
Accordingly, this piece seemingly makes no sense. The bright colors are very typical of the expressive postmodern period, but more uniquely, the little man-like figure at the top and unnecessary triangular blocks tell the viewer that this is just for fun. Why not make a bookcase with diagonal and bright colors? You can see, however, that these artists didn't completely toss out the clean line ideas from modernism, but they employed the lines in a very different style to create something conceptually different.
http://www.memphis-milano.org

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On the top floor of the new museum off High Street Kensington, both antiquated and familiar items tell the story of design through the ages.
The story now extends passed the modern story of the emergence of clean line and plastic record players to the postmodern miniaturizing and coloring of technology towards the future.

http://designmuseum.org

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Design and Technology come together to create a suit that is meticulously designed to be both visually pleasing and comfortable. This design is monumental because it gives viewers a glimpse at the importance and possibilities of design as technology advances and demands advanced design to give life to the brains.

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Industry. Technology. Unrest. All the makings for a very interesting era of art and design.

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The Smithsonian Magazine explains the digression from utopian rigid lines to diversity that is the difference in the two similar but increasingly distinctive eras of design.

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A curator from the Hirshhorn Museum explains how art historians define the two classifications

smithsonian.com

All trends become clearer with time. Looking at art even 15 years out, "you can see the patterns a little better," says Melissa Ho, assistant curator at the Hirshhorn Museum. "There are larger, deeper trends that have to do with how we are living in the world and how we are experiencing it."

So what exactly is modern art? The question, she says, is less answerable than endlessly discussable.

Technically, says Ho, modern art is "the cultural expression of the historical moment of modernity." But how to unpack that statement is contested. One way of defining modern art, or anything really, is describing what it is not. Traditional academic painting and sculpture dominated the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. "It was about perfect, seamless technique and using that perfect, seamless technique to execute very well-established subject matter," says Ho. There was a hierarchy of genres, from history paintings to portraiture to still lifes and landscapes, and very strict notions of beauty. "Part of the triumph of modernism is overturning academic values," she says.

In somewhat of a backlash to traditional academic art, modern art is about personal expression. Though it was not always the case historically, explains Ho, "now, it seems almost natural that the way you think of works of art are as an expression of an individual vision." Modernism spans a huge variety of artists and kinds of art. But the values behind the pieces are much the same. "With modern art, there is this new emphasis put on the value of being original and doing something innovative," says Ho.

Edouard Manet and the Impressionists were considered modern, in part, because they were depicting scenes of modern life. The Industrial Revolution brought droves of people to the cities, and new forms of leisure sprung up in urban life. Inside the Hirshhorn's galleries, Ho points out Thomas Hart Benton's People of Chilmark, a painting of a mass of tangled men and women, slightly reminiscent of a classical Michelangelo or Théodore Géricault's famous Raft of the Medusa, except that it is a contemporary beach scene, inspired by the Massachusetts town where Benton summered. Ringside Seats, a painting of a boxing match by George Bellows, hangs nearby, as do three paintings by Edward Hopper, one titled First Row Orchestra of theatergoers waiting for the curtains to be drawn.

In Renaissance art, a high premium was put on imitating nature. "Then, once that was chipped away at, abstraction is allowed to flourish," says Ho. Works like Benton's and Hopper's are a combination of observation and invention. Cubists, in the early 1900s, started playing with space and shape in a way that warped the traditional pictorial view.

Art historians often use the word "autonomous" to describe modern art. "The vernacular would be 'art for art's sake,'" explains Ho. "It doesn't have to exist for any kind of utility value other than its own existential reason for being." So, assessing modern art is a different beast. Rather than asking, as one might with a history painting, about narrative-Who is the main character? And what is the action?-assessing a painting, say, by Piet Mondrian, becomes more about composition. "It is about the compositional tension," says Ho, "the formal balance between color and line and volume on one hand, but also just the extreme purity of and rigor of it."

According to Ho, some say that modernism reaches its peak with Abstract Expressionism in America during the World War II era. Each artist of the movement tried to express his individual genius and style, particularly through touch. "So you get Jackson Pollock with his dripping and throwing paint," says Ho. "You get Mark Rothko with his very luminous, thinly painted fields of color." And, unlike the invisible brushwork in heavily glazed academic paintings, the strokes in paintings by Willem de Kooning are loose and sometimes thick. "You really can feel how it was made," says Ho.

Shortly after World War II, however, the ideas driving art again began to change. Postmodernism pulls away from the modern focus on originality, and the work is deliberately impersonal. "You see a lot of work that uses mechanical or quasi-mechanical means or deskilled means," says Ho. Andy Warhol, for example, uses silk screen, in essence removing his direct touch, and chooses subjects that play off of the idea of mass production. While modern artists such as Mark Rothko and Barnett Newman made color choices that were meant to connect with the viewer emotionally, postmodern artists like Robert Rauschenberg introduce chance to the process. Rauschenburg, says Ho, was known to buy paint in unmarked cans at the hardware store.

"Postmodernism is associated with the deconstruction of the idea, 'I am the artistic genius, and you need me,' " says Ho. Artists such as Sol LeWitt and Lawrence Weiner, with works in the Hirshhorn, shirk authorship even more. Weiner's piece titled "A RUBBER BALL THROWN ON THE SEA, Cat. No. 146," for example, is displayed at the museum in large, blue, sans-serif lettering. But Weiner was open to the seven words being reproduced in any color, size or font. "We could have taken a marker and written it on the wall," says Ho. In other words, Weiner considered his role as artist to be more about conception than production. Likewise, some of LeWitt's drawings from the late 1960s are basically drawings by instruction. He provides instructions but anyone, in theory, can execute them. "In this post-war generation, there is this trend, in a way, toward democratizing art," says Ho. "Like the Sol LeWitt drawing, it is this opinion that anybody can make art."

Labels like "modern" and "postmodern," and trying to pinpoint start and end dates for each period, sometimes irk art historians and curators. "I have heard all kinds of theories," says Ho. "I think the truth is that modernity didn't happen at a particular date. It was this gradual transformation that happened over a couple hundred of years." Of course, the two times that, for practical reasons, dates need to be set are when teaching art history courses and organizing museums. In Ho's experience, modern art typically starts around the 1860s, while the postmodern period takes root at the end of the 1950s.

The term "contemporary" is not attached to a historical period, as are modern and postmodern, but instead simply describes art "of our moment." At this point, though, work dating back to about 1970 is often considered contemporary. The inevitable problem with this is that it makes for an ever-expanding body of contemporary work for which professors and curators are responsible. "You just have to keep an eye on how these things are going," advises Ho. "I think they are going to get redefined."

About Megan Gambino

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Ask an Expert: What is the Difference Between Modern and Postmodern Art?

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smithsonian.com All trends become clearer with time. Looking at art even 15 years out, "you can see the patterns a little better," says Melissa Ho, assistant curator at the Hirshhorn Museum. "There are larger, deeper trends that have to do with how we are living in the world and how we are experiencing it."

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A overview of the items and people who used plastic to reshape and free the world as they knew it.

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A look into the bright and dark sides of the glorious 50s, where capitalism and the pursuit of a luxurious life were the key to a happy suburbia.

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I love the way you are choosing to summarise the text spans. This is very engaging and effective. You could do a little bit more on analysing objects - what makes them typical of their period / style / movement?

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I love the way you are choosing to summarise the text spans. This is very engaging and effective. You could do a little bit more on analysing objects - what makes them typical of their period / style / movement?

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Modernism is a combination of ideas that effected art and design in many parts of the world in many ways and movements. Why can it all be under one name? Because Modernism is a state of being which views the future in a much more utopian way, which comes out in the art, design, literature, and politics of the time.

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Art's quest for an equal society.

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All the people who made the facelift of the nursery rhymes possible.

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The story of Japan's fingerprints on Western culture.

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Zen was a concept that the West hadn't encountered before and perhaps didn't even realize they had when Japan opened it's borders. All they knew was that Japan was polar opposite from their bustling world back home. Why is Japanese style so different from Western styles? Well, to understand why Japanese art is so entirely different, you must understand the fundamental difference behind Japan's philosophy and design - a difference that begins with Zen. Multifaceted and interwoven into Japanese society, Zen is the key to the clean lines of Japanese art. But what is Zen exactly? Click the link to find out:

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Zen Buddhism

Zen in its own words

Zen Buddhism

Zen Buddhism is a mixture of Indian Mahayana Buddhism and Taoism. It began in China, spread to Korea and Japan, and became very popular in the West from the mid 20th century.

The essence of Zen is attempting to understand the meaning of life directly, without being misled by logical thought or language.

Zen techniques are compatible with other faiths and are often used, for example, by Christians seeking a mystical understanding of their faith.

Zen often seems paradoxical - it requires an intense discipline which, when practised properly, results in total spontaneity and ultimate freedom. This natural spontaneity should not be confused with impulsiveness.

Zen - the word

'Zen' is the way the Chinese word Ch'an is pronounced in Japan. 'Ch'an' is the Chinese pronunciation of the Sanskrit word Dhyana, which means (more or less) meditation.

Zen - the essence and the difficulty

Christmas Humphreys, one of the leading pioneers in the history of Buddhism in Britain, wrote that "Zen is a subject extremely easy to misunderstand." He was right.

Zen is something a person does. It's not a concept that can be described in words. Despite that, words on this site will help you get some idea of what Zen is about. But remember, Zen does not depend on words - it has to be experienced in order to 'understand'.

Enlightenment is inside

The essence of Zen Buddhism is that all human beings are Buddha, and that all they have to do is to discover that truth for themselves.

Zen sends us looking inside us for enlightenment. There's no need to search outside ourselves for the answers; we can find the answers in the same place that we found the questions.

Human beings can't learn this truth by philosophising or rational thought, nor by studying scriptures, taking part in worship rites and rituals or many of the other things that people think religious people do.

The first step is to control our minds through meditation and other techniques that involve mind and body; to give up logical thinking and avoid getting trapped in a spider's web of words.

History

Zen Buddhism was brought to China by the Indian monk Bodhidharma in the 6th century CE. It was called Ch'an in China.

Zen's golden age began with the Sixth Patriarch, Hui-neng (638-713), and ended with the persecution of Buddhism in China in the middle of the 9th century CE. Most of those we think of today as the great Zen masters came from this period. Zen Buddhism survived the persecution though it was never the same again in China.

Zen spread to Korea in the 7th century CE and to Japan in the 12th century CE. It was popularised in the West by the Japanese scholar Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki (1870 - 1966); although it was found in the West before that.

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Zen Buddhism is a mixture of Indian Mahayana Buddhism and Taoism. It began in China, spread to Korea and Japan, and became very popular in the West from the mid 20th century. The essence of Zen is attempting to understand the meaning of life directly, without being misled by logical thought or language.

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"If you want a golden rule that will fit every body, this is it: have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful."                            -William Morris

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"If you want a golden rule that will fit every body, this is it: have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful."                            -William Morris

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William Morris captures a major theme of the Aesthetic Movement with this quote. The idea that people should own things that are beautiful to just admire them was novel at the time. Art doesn't have to teach you a moral lesson, but it can enhance your life by simply being lovely.

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You're guide to the who's who of The Aesthetic Movement: 1860-1900

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A quick style guide linking artists and trends from all backgrounds during the Aesthetic Movement.

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Aestheticism was an approach to life based on the philosophy of 'art for art's sake'. It emphasised the importance of art above everything else and the pleasure to be found in beautiful things. Aetheticism was a complex mixture of a number of styles. Classical and Japanese art were particular inspirations. It was fashionable from 1870 to 1900.

Characteristics

Peacock feathers

The peacock feather, previously thought to be a symbol of bad luck, became an icon of the Aesthetic style. Its use as a motif confirmed Aestheticism's reputation for decadence.

Sunflowers

Sunflowers were the most popular Aesthetic motif. With its bold colour and simple flat shape the flower had great appeal for Aesthetes.

Blue and white ceramics

Human figures shown in Classical Greek and Roman art provided 18th century artists and designers with sources of both subject matter and style. The cameo format, where the figure is shown in profile, was particularly popular.

Strong colour

The Aesthetic style favoured strong, simple colours. Bright blues, greens and especially yellows were very popular. Such colours were used in domestic interiors, often in combination with black furniture. Black was also a dominant colour of Aesthetic-style graphic arts

Aesthetic dress

Female followers of the Aesthetic Movement dressed in distinctive loose, flowing garments in subtle colours, which were modelled on medieval styles. Fashionable men favoured velvet suits with knee breeches.

People

James McNeill Whistler (1834 - 1903)

American-born artist James McNeill Whistler was an important figure in the Aesthetic movement. In his paintings Whistler aimed to express mood and atmosphere through simple shapes, fluid brushstrokes and subtle colours. Whistler and his fellow Aesthetes believed that art was an end in itself, with no wider moral or social implications. This attitude angered John Ruskin and those in the Arts and Crafts Movement who thought that art and morality were fundamentally connected. In 1877 Ruskin reviewed one of Whistler's paintings, accusing the artist of 'flinging a pot of paint in the public's face'. Whistler sued for libel and won.

Aubrey Beardsley (1872 - 1898)

Aubrey Beardsley was one of the most original artists of the late 19th century. Principally a book-illustrator, Beardsley created striking black and white drawings in pen and ink. His expressive use of line and lack of shading showed the influence of Japanese prints. In 1894 Beardsley illustrated Oscar Wilde's play Salomé and became the art editor of The Yellow Book. These publications, which were sexually and socially provocative, shocked the public and added to Aestheticism's decadent reputation.

Oscar Wilde (1854 - 1900)

The poet and writer Oscar Wilde was the leading personality of the Aesthetic Movement. He promoted the philosophy of 'art for art's sake' in a series of lectures in America and Britain. Wilde was a famous dandy and wit. He is best known for plays such as Lady Windermere's Fan, The Importance of Being Earnest and The Picture of Dorian Gray, which was later turned into a novel. In 1895, at the height of his success, Wilde was tried and imprisoned for homosexuality. With his downfall the Aesthetic Movement lost its popularity.

Buildings and Interiors

The Peacock Room

The Peacock Room was designed in 1876 -1877 for the London home of F.R. Leyland. Architect and designer Thomas Jeckyll adapted a dining room in the house to accommodate Leyland's collection of blue and white porcelain and a painting by James McNeill Whistler. Whistler felt that the décor of the room did not suit his painting and without his patron's knowledge he painted the entire room deep blue and gold and covered the window shutters and one of the walls with glorious peacocks. Whistler's audacity, and a dispute over payment, caused a breach between artist and patron. However, despite his anger, Leyland kept the room as Whistler had left it.

The Grove, Harborne

The Grove was designed by J. H. Chamberlain in 1877-1878 for William Kendrick, a prominent Birmingham businessman. The ante-room of the house, which was acquired by the V&A just before the house was demolished, reflects the Classical and Gothic elements of the Aesthetic style. It is richly decorated with inlaid, painted and gilded wood. The room was used to display Kendrick's collection of blue and white ceramics.

Related Style

Influence of Japan 1850 - 1900

Japanese art had a great influence on Aestheticism. Aesthetic interiors were often decorated with Japanese prints, screens, fans and other objects. An appreciation of the art of Japan is seen in the work of many Aesthetic artists and designers such as James McNeill Whistler and E.W. Godwin. Arthur Lasenby Liberty, who sold Japanese art at his famous London store, was a great promoter of Aestheticism.

Read more about the Influence of Japan

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Aestheticism was an approach to life based on the philosophy of 'art for art's sake'. It emphasised the importance of art above everything else and the pleasure to be found in beautiful things. Aetheticism was a complex mixture of a number of styles. Classical and Japanese art were particular inspirations.

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"Pictures don’t have to preach or tell stories, is actually fundamental to the whole development of the 20th century and remains with us today. This notion that beauty should inform everything we do, all the ways in which we live, is absolutely crucial. You can say effectively that the aesthetic movement was the first lifestyle revolution."

This videos exploits the key players like Rosetti, Leighton, and Wilde who influenced the movement. Interestingly, the movement drew from classical art that suggests that manly beauty is just as important as women's beauty, which can be found in the bright and colorful male peacock-like fashion. It also touches on a the emergence of the red-head as a beautiful thing.

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The Aesthetic Movement (1860 - 1900) was 'Art for Art's sake' - art that didn't tell stories or make moral points, art that simply offered visual delight.