Walter Horatio Pater was a prominent English essayist, literary critic, theorist and fiction author. He is known for contributing to the definition of Aestheticism in the late 19th century. Let us look at Walter Pater's aesthetic theory and discuss some of his most influential books and essays.
Walter Pater biography
Here is a biography providing a brief timeline of Water Pater's personal life, early influences, educational journey and writing career.
Fig. 1 - Walter Pater
Childhood
Water Pater was born in Stepney, London on the 4th of August in 1939. After his father's death in 1942, Walter and his family moved around several places in London, including Hackney, Enfield and Kent.
Pater received his education at The King's School, Canterbury, where he developed an interest in the study of art and literature and learnt how to craft prose. At a young age, he was largely inspired by Cantebury cathedral's beauty as well as the book Modern Painters (1843) by the Victorian art critic, John Ruskin, which taught him how to critique art.
In 1853, he continued his higher studies at Queen's College, Oxford where he pursued Classics, with the intention of becoming a priest.
Career
After graduating, Pater remained in Oxford to teach Classics and Philosophy. This gave him an opportunity to write critical articles on art and literature. His most prominent reviews were on Leonardo da Vinci (1869), Sandro Botticelli (1870), and Michelangelo (1871), which were later compiled in his most famous work The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry in 1873. In his essays, Pater focused on the beauty and quality of works of art, rather than assessing them on the basis of their moral and educational value.
Following The Renaissance, for a while, Walter Pater published fictional works, such as Marius the Epicurean (1885) and Imaginary Portraits (1887). However, he later returned to writing critical essays and published Appreciations, with an Essay on Style (1889) and Plato and Platonism (1893).
In 1894, Pater died of heart failure in his home in Oxford, aged 54. Even after his death, a former student of his published Walter's remaining few works on Greek mythology, literature and art. Among these were Greek Studies (1895), Miscellaneous Studies (1895), and Essays from The Guardian (1901).
Legacy
Pater’s early influence was confined to a small circle in Oxford, but his principles came to have a widespread influence on the Aesthetic Movement in England, particularly on leading aesthetes like Oscar Wilde. Even stylistic conventions like the stream-of-consciousness style adopted by early modernists like W. B. Yeats, James Joyce, Ezra Pound, Virginia Woolf and T. S. Eliot can be traced back to Walter Pater.
Stream of consciousness: A narrative mode where a character's thoughts and feelings are written out the same way they would pass through the character's mind.
Modernism: A literary and art movement that began in the early 20th century. Works in this genre are characterised by a break from the traditional conventions of storytelling to a more emotional and experimental style of writing.
Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) was one of the leading figures during the Aesthetic movement in England. Wilde met Walter Pater in his third year at Oxford, where Pater became his tutor.
In 1891, Oscar Wilde published "The Critic as Artist", an essay containing Wilde's philosophy on Aestheticism. In this essay, Wilde paid tribute to Walter Pater for influencing his devotion to art and literature.
Walter Pater aesthetic theory
Walter Pater is best known for his contribution to Aesthetic theory in England. In The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry (1873), Pater outlined his approach towards art, which by many aesthetes was regarded as the manifesto of Aestheticism.
Aestheticism: A 19th-century art movement that celebrated the beauty or aesthetics of art, rather than its moral or educational purpose.
According to Pater, art possesses the ability to convey intense emotions, senses and experiences. However, this effect is fleeting and only offers momentary pleasure.
Art comes to you, proposing frankly to give nothing but the highest quality to your moments as they pass, and simply for those moments' sake.1
Therefore, art's value should only be evaluated based on the pleasure it brings in that particular moment. Pater's approach towards art was summarised by the famous slogan:
This slogan means that art should be celebrated for its pleasurable effects on the reader rather than for its socio-political function or sentimental meaning. He believed that by deriving scientific rationality from art, one reduces art's ability to enchant and inspire the reader. Art has no ethical purpose, besides being sensuous and beautiful.
'Art for art's sake' became the rallying cry of the followers of Aestheticism in the 19th century.
Walter Pater's aesthetic theory was in defiance of 19th-century Victorian moralism, which believed that art should serve a greater moral or didactic purpose. Pater was seen as the antithesis of Matthew Arnold (1822-1888), a Victorian moralist and poet who advocated the principle 'Art for Life's Sake'.
Pater also believed that death is the mother of beauty. Since people are constantly under the shadow of death, it is important to enjoy the momentary pleasures of life. As a result, many of his essays seemed to celebrate decadence, moral frivolity, and even death and violence.
To burn always with this hard, gem-like flame, to maintain this ecstasy, is success in life.1
Walter Pater received much criticism following the publication of The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry (1873), for allegedly promoting amorality, hedonism and narcissism among students. This criticism came from conservative quarters such as the moralists and the church. For this reason, Pater withdrew the controversial 'Conclusion' of the second edition of The Renaissance in 1877. He later published a modified version as the third edition in 1888.
Walter Pater books
Following the controversy sparked by The Renaissance (1873), Walter Pater resorted to publishing fictional works to exemplify his ideas about art and literature. This led to the publication of works such as Marius the Epicurean (1885) and Imaginary Portraits (1887).
Marius the Epicurean (1885)
This historical-philosophical novel is set in 161–177 AD Rome. It traces the spiritual journey of the protagonist Marius, a young Roman, who pursues a life philosophy based on Walter's ideas of aestheticism. Marius abandons his pagan childhood religion in search of sensational and emotional satisfaction and sets out on a journey to test the different philosophical systems he comes across in life. Through the novel, he moves from Epicureanism to Cyrenaicism and finally Stoicism before finally finding peace in Christianity.
Walter Pater published this novel as a defence against those that believed that The Renaissance (1873) encouraged amorality and hedonism in the name of living for pleasure. The novel elaborated on Pater's idea of aestheticism, that is, pursuing sensation as an ideal in life.
Imaginary Portraits (1887)
From 1778 to 1887, Walter Pater published several semi-autobiographical sketches in Macmillan's Magazine. These stories did not have an extensive plot but were rather autobiographical 'portraits' of fictional characters in historical settings. Many of these fictional men were based on real-life painters and philosophers. These individual stories were later published as a collection titled Imaginary Portraits in 1887.
Through the relationship between his characters and their historical settings, Pater examined the tensions between innovation and tradition, sensation and science, morality and hedonism and other debates relevant to 19th-century society. He used deep psychological analysis of his fictional characters to show how their emotions and ideas shifted during key turning points in history.
Walter Pater essays
Walter Pater was best known for his critical essays, which provided a review of the works of prominent artists and writers. A few people he has critiqued in his essays include Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Morris, Leonardo da Vinci, Sandro Botticelli and Michelangelo. Many of these were compiled in The Renaissance in 1873.
In his essays, Pater's criticism was not based on facts, sources, arguments or historical accuracy or the technical details of the work. Instead, he was preoccupied with the poetic appeal of the work and the effect this had on the reader.
'Leonardo da Vinci' (1869)
In his essay about Leonardo da Vinci, Walter Pater used prose poetry to describe the beauty of the Mona Lisa (1503).
Even today, Pater's prose poetry remains one of the most quoted words used to describe the Mona Lisa. Instead of dwelling on the technical aspects of the painting, such as the colour, composition and choice of subject, Pater's criticism is solely based on the feelings and pleasure derived from looking at the painting.
Here is an extract from the essay, where Pater uses poetic language to describe the aesthetic value of the Mona Lisa.
Hers is the head upon which all "the ends of the world are come," and the eyelids are a little weary. It is a beauty wrought out from within upon the flesh, the deposit, little cell by cell, of strange thoughts and fantastic reveries and exquisite passions. Set it for a moment beside one of those white Greek goddesses or beautiful women of antiquity, and how would they be troubled by this beauty, into which the soul with all its maladies has passed!...She is older than the rocks among which she sits; like the vampire, she has been dead many times, and learned the secrets of the grave.
'The Poems of William Morris' (1868)
'The Poems of William Morris' was initially published in 1868 before it was added as the 'Conclusion' of The Renaissance (1873). This particular essay became the most famous and controversial part of Pater's book as it summarised Walter Pater's concept of Aestheticism. In this essay, Walter Pater discusses not only his approach towards art but his entire outlook on life.
According to Walter Pater, life consists of individual moments that are fleeting, inconstant, unstable and constantly in motion. Each moment brings its own fleeting thoughts, feelings and memories that eventually leave us.
a moment – and the thing has vanished, because it was pure effect; but it leaves a relish behind it, a longing that the accident may happen again.' 1
For this reason, we must try to live for momentary pleasures and appreciate the beauty of each fleeting moment. According to Pater, a successful life is one where we continuously chase intensity in senses, feelings and experiences, rather than forming habits.
This sentiment is exemplified in the following extract from the essay:
we may well catch at any exquisite passion, or any contribution to knowledge that seems by a lifted horizon to set the spirit free for a moment, or any stirring of the senses, or work of the artist's hands. Not to discriminate every moment some passionate attitude in those about us in the brilliancy of their gifts is, on this short day of frost and sun, to sleep before evening. 1
Pater weaved this in with his approach towards appreciating art, saying that art has the potential to give people momentary pleasure.
Walter Pater - Key takeaways
- Walter Horatio Pater was a prominent English essayist, literary critic, theorist and fiction writer.
- He is known for contributing to the definition of Aestheticism in late 19th-century England.
- Pater's approach towards aesthetic theory can be summarised by the famous slogan 'Art for art's sake' from his famous book The Renaissance (1873).
- Examples of his books include:
- Marius the Epicurean (1885)
- Imaginary Portraits (1887).
- Examples of his famous essays include:
- "Leonardo da Vinci" (1869)
- "The Poems of William Morris" (1868)
References
- Walter Pater. "The Poems of William Morris". 1868
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