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Definition of "aestheticism" []

  • Devotion to and pursuit of the beautiful; sensitivity to artistic beauty and refined taste. (noun)
  • The doctrine that beauty is the basic principle from which all other principles, especially moral ones, are derived. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Use "aestheticism" in a sentence
  • "The combination Nietzsche-Wilde-Mallarmé, incongruous as it is, recurs frequently in English aestheticism and it is amusing and symptomatic to find it back in the early Gide, Mr. Scott, however, was clearly not amused."
  • "From a late lecture by the 20th-century theologian Paul Tillich: When I came to this country and first used the word aestheticism in a lecture, a colleague of mine at Columbia University told me not to use that word in describing Americans."
  • "In Germany, whenever there is a debate about the great Catholic liturgical tradition, it only needs someone to utter the accusation of 'aestheticism', and it is all over."