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'Useless Art' Or 'Practical Protest': the Fin ‘Useless Art’ or ‘Practical Protest’: The Fin-de-Siècle Artist between Social Engagement and Artistic Detachment Author: Jutta Mackwell PhD The University of Edinburgh 2007 Abstract This thesis follows recent scholarly interest in the British fin de siècle, focussing on the artist and the notion of art within the context of capitalisation and rapidly changing social strata. It claims that the artist can be understood as a socially orientated rather than purely economically motivated player, who tries to position himself and his art within a distinctly transformed cultural landscape. It demonstrates how many texts and art works of the fin de siècle are permeated by a socio-critical and didactical discourse, which serves to legitimize the artist and his art work on the one hand, and aims at the aesthetic education of his audience on the other. This approach allows for a reconciliation of the paradoxical co- existence of socio-critical engagement and the concept of ‘art for art’s sake’ in fin-de-siècle art works. Chapter One, “Leaving the Ivory Tower,” provides a temporal framework for the discussion of the fin de siècle by tracing the development of the eighteenth-century, idealized notion of the artist through the writings of John Ruskin, Matthew Arnold and Walter Pater. It also gestures towards the connection of this tradition to Theodore Adorno’s understanding of ‘social art’. Examining Oscar Wilde’s “The Critic as Artist” within the context of this temporal trajectory, this chapter aims to establish an understanding of the paradoxical demands that face the artist in the light of capitalisation and the development of a mass readership at the end of the nineteenth century. Chapter Two, “Social Aestheticism,” investigates Oscar Wilde’s “The Soul of Man under Socialism” and several of his fairy tales and George Moore’s Confessions of a Young Man in view of their affiliation with Aestheticism. These texts, while insisting on the autonomy of art and voicing their opinions in the disdainful tone of the disinterested artist, are striking because of the social awareness and criticism that they express. By showing how these opposing concepts aim for the legitimization of the artist, this chapter draws attention to the aesthetic-didactical element of Aestheticism, positioning its artists as social critics and educators rather than otherworldly figures. Chapter Three, “A Map of Utopia,” considers William Morris’ News from Nowhere as an example of the artist as visionary and the importance of artistic imagination in the process of social evolution and change. It argues that Morris’ utopia can be read as supporting the concept of autonomous art in that it expresses the omnipresence of art and the realization of a perfect society that this entails. As such, the text demonstrates the social effectiveness of autonomous art which, in turn, supports an understanding of the artist as social agent. Chapter Four, “Periodical Education,” looks at The Yellow Book as an example of audience education and the positioning of the artist through the medium of art. It contrasts The Yellow Book’s aspiration to be an ‘art for art’s sake’ publication with its socio-critical content, evidencing how the concept of autonomous art is used at the fin de siècle for the selection and education of an audience. Chapter Five, “The Author at a Distance,” examines Max Beerbohm’s essays in the light of their aesthetic-didactical tone and the artist-audience relationship they establish. By including a selection of Beerbohm’s later essays, this chapter also gestures towards the difference between the artist-audience relationship implied in fin-de-siècle art as opposed to Modernist art. This attests to the distinct character of fin-de-siècle art. Further, the chapter investigates the effects of these aspects in terms of artist legitimization and the promotion of autonomous art, and thus shows how Beerbohm’s essays contribute to an understanding of fin-de-siècle art as didactical, aesthetic and autonomous at the same time. In conclusion, this thesis reveals how artists at the fin de siècle used their art in order to legitimize an idealized position of the artist within society, to promote the separation between art and life and to create an audience that would appreciate and understand this view. It thus also demonstrates how the paradox between the concept of autonomous art and artistic socio-critical engagement can be reconciled. i Contents Acknowledgements__________________________________________________ iv Abbreviations _______________________________________________________ v I. Introduction ______________________________________________________ 1 1.1 Legitimising the artist: the hybridisation of art __________________________ 13 1.2 Appropriating an ideal ______________________________________________ 21 1.3 From Arnold to Beerbohm: chapter synopsis____________________________ 26 II. Leaving the Ivory Tower: The Artist as Social Agent ____________________ 33 2.1 Art as means or art as end? __________________________________________ 36 2.2. Artist, critic, teacher: the autonomy of art and the artist as critic __________ 55 III. Social Aestheticism in Oscar Wilde and George Moore _________________ 68 3.1 George Moore’s confessions __________________________________________ 74 3.2 Oscar Wilde’s ethics ________________________________________________ 83 3.3 The artist as role model______________________________________________ 93 IV. A Map of Utopia: Life as Art in News from Nowhere __________________ 104 4.1 Aesthetic liberation or, a dream fulfilled_______________________________ 108 4.2 Prophet and seer: Guest as artist _____________________________________ 114 4.3 Picture perfect: Nowhere as aesthetic experience________________________ 117 4.4 The intrusion of time _______________________________________________ 123 4.5 Utopia as art______________________________________________________ 127 V. Periodical Education: The Artist and The Yellow Book _________________ 132 5.1 Periodical culture and The Yellow Book_______________________________ 136 5.2 Yellow Book or Yellow Press? _______________________________________ 143 5.3 The art of social criticism I: criticism of shock__________________________ 146 5.4 The art of social criticism II: subversive criticism _______________________ 152 5.5 The art of social criticism III: educating the reader______________________ 162 ii VI. The Author at a Distance: Beerbohm and his Readers _________________ 169 6.1 Beerbohm, spirit of the 1890s ________________________________________ 174 6.2 Teaching detachment: Beerbohm’s use of irony_________________________ 179 6.3 The enjoyment of art _______________________________________________ 191 VII. Conclusion ___________________________________________________ 203 Bibliography ______________________________________________________ 209 Declaration _______________________________________________________ 218 iii Acknowledgements This thesis could not have been written without the continuous support of my supervisor, Dr Michèle Mendelssohn. I would like to thank her for her enthusiasm for my ideas, her guidance and her good advice throughout the time of writing this PhD. Also, I would like to thank my second supervisor, Dr Andrew Taylor, for being a calming influence in the middle of PhD-induced panic attacks. I also wish to thank Dr Jonathan Wild and Dr Marion Schmid for their helpful feedback in the course of writing this PhD. Very special thanks go to Kristin Cook, Penny Faulkner and Lesley Mackwell for battling their way through this thesis to eliminate my grammatical and spelling mistakes. I also would like to thank my husband for his prayers and his patience, and my family for bearing with me and supporting me through the three years of writing this PhD. iv Abbreviations Matthew Arnold CA “Culture and Anarchy.” Culture and Anarchy and Other Writings. Ed. Stefan Collini. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. FC “The Function of Criticism as the Present Time.” Culture and Anarchy and Other Writings. Ed. Stefan Collini. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. George Moore CM Confessions of a Young Man (1888). Ed. Susan Dick. Montreal & London: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1972. William Morris NfN News from Nowhere Or An Epoch of Rest. Being Some Chapters from a Utopian Romance. Ed. Clive Wilmer. London: Penguin Books Ltd., 1993 John Ruskin SW Selected Writings. Ed. Dinah Birch. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004 Friedrich Schiller AE On the Aesthetic Education of Man. In a Series of Letters (1795). Eds. and trans. Elizabeth M. Wilkinson & L.A. Willoughby. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967. Oscar Wilde SF Oscar Wilde: Complete Short Fiction. Ed. Ian Small. London: Penguin Books Ltd., 2003. SM “The Soul of Man under Socialism.” The Soul of Man and Prison Writings. Ed. Isobel Murray. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998. MW Oscar Wilde: The Major Works. Ed. Isobel Murray. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989. YB The Yellow Book v I. Introduction The past is of no importance. The present is of no importance. It is with the future that we have to deal. For the past is what man should not have been. The present is what man ought not to be. The future is what artists are. (Wilde, “The Soul of Man under Socialism”) The figure of the artist—creator, genius, bohemian, bearer of culture and outcast—has fascinated people throughout the ages. Feared by Plato as a disruption to a perfect state, the artist found himself elevated to the position of quasi-deity during the Romantic
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