Design
E. W. Godwin, "Sideboard," 1867, ebonized wood, brass, and gold paint, The National Gallery of Victoria, Australia.
Aestheticism & Design
Due to Aestheticism, the profession of design gained legitimacy as an art form. Designers such as William Morris (1834-1896), the leading proponent of the Arts & Crafts Movement; Christopher Dresser (1834-1904); Walter Crane (1845-1915); and E. W. Godwin (1833-1886), became famous.
These designers and many others created furniture, metalwork, textiles, and ceramics characterized by geometric designs and stylized floral, vegetal, and zoomorphic motifs inspired by medieval and Japanese aesthetics. Unlike fussy Victorian design, these Aesthetic products had a simplicity of form and clean lines.
Designers like Walter Crane and Christopher Dresser collaborated with manufacturers to create products for middle class homes, while others, like William Morris, founded their own firms.
Examples of Aesthetic Design
William Morris, "Evenlode'"furnishing fabric, 1883, printed fabric.
Christopher Dresser, "Persia," c. 1885, earthenware.
Walter Crane, "The Peacock's Complaint," from The Baby's Own Aesop, Being the Fables Condensed in Rhyme with Portable Morals Pictorially Pointed, 1887, wood engraving.
Napoleon Sarony, 'Oscar Wilde,' 1882, albumen silver print, Metropolitan Museum of Art, USA.
Walter Crane, "My Lady's Chamber," frontispiece to The House Beautiful by Clarence Cook, 1878, lithograph.
The House Beautiful
Arguably the most famous aesthete of the time was the novelist and poet Oscar Wilde (1854-1900). His notion of ‘the house beautiful’ asserted that a home’s interior should be as beautiful as possible with the aim of providing inspiration for its inhabitants (“The House Beautiful” lecture, April 1883).
Aesthetic shops offering such products prospered. The most famous of these was Arthur Liberty's of London, which opened in 1875 and sold textiles from the Middle East and Japan as well as specially designed Aesthetic-style consumer goods.
"Have nothing in your house that has not given pleasure to those who use it. Have nothing in your houses that is not useful or beautiful."
Oscar Wilde, "The House Beautiful" lecture (1883)