Impressionism versus the aesthetic movement

Magazine Antiques, Nov, 2002 by David Park Curry

The Importance of Being Earnest (1895), Oscar Wilde's redoubtable Lady Bracknell announces, 'We live, I regret to say, in an age of surfaces." (1) Her observation sets the tone for an exploration of the aesthetic movement and its relation to impressionism, two movements ordinarily considered distinct. Dominating the art world of the l870s and 1880s, the aesthetic movement began in England, touting art as a matter of uplifting beauty. Simultaneously, impressionism was born in France but was initially received as harsh and ugly. Aestheticism became a matter of lifestyle, chiefly concerned with decoration; impressionists were more interested how and what to paint. The differences between the two can be summed up by comparing the charming asthetic domesticity of My Lady's Chamber, Walter Crane's frontispiece to a popular book on decoration (Pl. IV), (2) with the chilling realities of Parisian street life in the contemporaneous In a Cafe' by the impressionist Edgar Degas (Pl. III). But in the quest for wider patro nage, artists of both movements also shared moments of intersection, including similar theoretical sources, similar subject matter, an interest in surface patterns, the influence of japonisme, and a recognition of the need to package the arts and pose the artist.

Both impressionism and the aesthetic movement had a particularly lasting impact in the synthesizing realm of American painting. (3) For example, Charles Caryl Coleman's Quince Blossoms (Pl. V) of 1878 and Frederick Carl Frieseke's Blue Interior (Pl. VI) of about 1912-1913 are separated by more than three decades, yet their resonance of palette, pattern, and surface is not simply fortuitous. Coleman's quintessential aesthetic movement canvas is filled with an array of man-made and natural beauty, plucked from multiple cultures and housed in a coordinated frame (not shown) designed by the artist. Frieseke's painting represents mainstream, slightly academic American impressionism as it had evolved by the early twentieth century. Together, the two works by expatriate American artists gather threads from various sources to signal the internationality of both the aesthetic movement and impressionism, while bracketing the decades when certain concerns of the two movements coincided.

James McNeill Whistler's unabashed denouncement of aestheticism in his "Ten o'clock" lecture (1885) did much to foster a sense of opposition between the two movements. He began with diatribe.

Art is upon the Town!--to be chucked under the chin by the passing gallant! -- to be entired within the gates of the householder -- to be coaxed into company, as a proof of culture and refinement! -- If familiarity can breed contempt, certainly Art, or what is currently taken for it, has been brought to its lowest stage of intimacy! (4)

However, Whistler's own deft maneuvering between aestheticism and impressionism--a tireless effort to avoid being typecast-hints that we should be reading between the lines.

In the United States, the Centennial Exposition of 1876 in Philadelphia is credited with popularizing the aesthetic movement, which flourished here from the mid-1870s to the mid-1880s, (5) following hard on the heels of earlier developments in Britain. There, during the l860s, architects as well as designers fostered the movement--a fact germane to its eventual link with impressionism. Elizabeth Aslin has described how in England aestheticism

gathered force until, in the 'eighties, it embraced every art form from the greetings card to domestic architecture. It introduced Japanese art to children's story hooks and red brick Queen Anne architecture to the streets of London; it led to changes in fashionable dress, to the first garden suburb and to the vogue for painted dark green or Venetian red front doors and railings which lasted for half a century in England. People described themselves as "going in" for "High Art", for Art Decoration, Art Embroidery ar Art Furniture, this last expression becoming so general that by the mid 'seventies the London Trades Directory lists "Art Furniture Manufacturers" quite separately from ordinary cabinetmakers and furnishers. (6)

Populist commercialism, scorned in Whistler's Ten o'clock lecture, resounds in Aslin's summary. (7)

Painting does not play much of a role in either of these boilerplate definitions, but painters furthered the alms of the aesthetic movement by creating pictures reliant on formal pattern, texture, and color. (8) Portraits, figure paintings, interiors, and still lifes were filled with images of delicate decorative arts, often Asian or in the Asian taste. In Roses on a Tray (cover and PL Viii), an early and extreme example, John La Farge painted a Japanese tray literally as well as figuratively, using a piece of lacquer as a support. (9) The flowers are seen against a curtain whose shimmering white-on-white surface reminds us that La Farge's work is coeval with 'Whistler's "White Girls" (see P1. VII).

Nonnarrative images grew more acceptable during the years that the aesthetic movement held sway. If, for example, Symphony in White, No, 2; The Little White Girl (Pl. VII) creates any sensation, it is one of distilled beauty. Such subjects permitted viewers to project any number of interpretations upon the image. While intending that the picture be seen as a wistful reverie, Whistler sensed the potential difficulty for his 1865 audience, corroborated by his decision to affix an equally wistful poem to the flame of the painting for its exhibition at the Royal Academy that year. But a more specific reading requires access to information neither on the canvas, nor in the poem. The model before the mirror had a good reason for looking forlorn. Although Whistler gave Joanna Hiffernan (b. c. 1843) a wedding band, she was only his mistress; their stormy relationship ended in 1867.