Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
In this major reinterpretation of the Victorian AestheticMovement, Linda Dowling argues that such classic works of Victorian art writing suchas Ruskin's Stones of Venice of Morris's Lectures on Art or Wilde's Critic as Artistbecome wholly intelligible only within the larger ideological context of the Whigaesthetic tradition.
The Vulgarization of Artexplores the tragic consequences for the Aesthetic Movement when a repressed andirresolvable conflict between Shaftesbury's assumption of aristocratic soul andthe Victorian ideal of aesthetic democracy repeatedly shatters the hopes of suchwriters as Ruskin, Morris, Pater, and Wilde for social transformation through theaesthetic sense.
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. [119]-129) and index.