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The English decadent writers were deeply influenced by Walter Pater and his essays published in 1867- 1868, in which he stated that life had to be lived intensely, following an ideal of beauty. Decadent writers used the slogan, coined by the philosopher Victor Cousin and promoted by Théophile Gautier in France, " Art for Art's Sake" (L'art pour l'art) and asserted that there was no connection between art and morality.

The artists and writers of the Aesthetic Movement tended to hold that the Arts should provide refined sensuous pleasure, rather than convey moral or sentimental messages. As a consequence they did not accept John Ruskin and Matthew Arnold's utilitarian conception of art as something moral or useful. Instead they believed that Art does not have any didactic purpose, it need only be beautiful. The Aesthetes developed the cult of beauty which they considered the basic factor in art. Life should copy Art, they asserted. The main characteristics of the movement were: suggestion rather than statement, sensuality, massive use of symbols,and synaesthetic effects - that is, correspondence between words, colors, and music.

Aestheticism had its forerunners in John Keats and Percy Bysshe ShelleyPercy Bysshe Shelley ( August 4, 1792 July 8, 1822) was an English Romantic poet. He is now most famous for poems such as " Ozymandias", " Ode to the West Wind", "To a Skylark", and "The Masque of Anarchy"; for his association with contemporaries John Kea, and among the Pre-Raphaelites. In Britain the best representatives were Oscar Wilde and Algernon Charles Swinburne, both influenced by the French SymbolistsFor an account of the late 19th-century movement in poetry and the arts, known as Symbolism see symbolism (arts). Symbolism is the systematic use of symbols to represent or allude to something. In the most literal sense, all language is symbolic. In a nar. Artists associated with the Aesthetic Movement include James McNeill WhistlerJames Abbott McNeill Whistler ( July 14, 1834 July 17, 1903) was an American painter and etcher. He is perhaps best known for his nearly black-and-white full-length portrait of his mother, titled Arrangement in Gray and Black, No. 1 but usually referred t and Dante Gabriel RossettiDante Gabriel Rossetti ( May 12, 1828 April 10, 1882) was an English poet, painter and translator. The son of emigre Italian scholar Gabriele Rossetti, D. Rossetti was born in London, England and originally named Gabriel Charles Dante Rossetti . He was th. Writers include Oscar Wilde. The movement had an influence on interior design. 'Aesthetic' interiors were characterised by the use of such things as peacock feathers and blue-and-white china. This aspect of the movement was satirised in Punch magazine, and in Gilbert and Sullivan's operetta "Patience".