ABSTRACT
In the late sixties, both Swinburne and Pater voiced a spirit of revolt against puritan values and in favour of a mode of life that allowed freer play to the senses and a higher value to the arts and to beauty in its distinctively sensuous forms. Pater's historicism distinguishes him from other, more extreme exponents of aestheticism. In his dialogue, 'The Decay of Lying', Oscar Wilde's own spokesman expressly denies that 'art expresses the temper of its age, the spirit of its time, the moral and social conditions that surround it, and under whose influence it is produced'. Pater's version of 'self-culture' is focused on the present moment: A counted number of pulses only are given to us of a variegated, dramatic life. By the late seventies, aestheticism was gaining ground, notably in the artistic theories of the American painter, James Macneil Whistler. Wilde's view of the relation of life and art reflects his pessimism.
