??? ???? ???? (Wile and Aestheticism)

The Aesthetic movements insistence on Art for Arts sake was just as much a search for new values as any philosophical or political movement, but its values and motivations have been called into question through the fate of Oscar Wilde (the movements most prominent figure from about 1878) and the lack of other writers of stature to affirm the doctrine of aesthetic beauty.
Aestheticism may be traced back to Keatss affirmation, Beauty is truth, truth Beauty (in Ode on a Grecian Urn, 1819). The giving of absolute values to such abstracts as art, beauty, and culture, is part of the late Victorian search for constants in a fast-changing universe. Matthew Arnolds Culture and Anarchy (1869) is an important book in this context (see pages 303-4), with its concept of philistinism. The re-evaluation of art, and the philosophical consequences of this, are found more significantly in the works of two of the most influential critics of the age - John Ruskin and Walter Pater.