L ate Victorian Literature AESTHETICISM AND DECADENCE Aesthetic movement origins: universities and intellectual circles in the last decades of the 19th century, in France. It reflected the sense of frustration and uncertainty of the artist, his reaction against the materialism and the restrictive moral code of bourgeoisie and his need to redefine the role of the art. As a result French artists left the political and social scene and “escaped” into aesthetic isolation (“Art for art’s sake”).  The English Aesthetic Movement: the roots can be traced back to the Romantic poet John Keats, as well as to Dante Gabriel Rossetti (who was dedicated to his art). John Ruskin, in his search for beauty in life and art, paved the way for the works of Walter Pater, who’s the main theorist of the English Aesthetic Movement. Walter Pater’s in the History of the Renaissance and his masterpiece Marius the Epicurean were immediately successful thanks to the subversive and demoralising message. He rejected the faith and he said that the art was the only means, and certainty, to halt the passage of time. He thought that art should be lived in the spirit of art filling each moment with intense experience and