Oscar And The Aesthetes

I attend last night's opening party of the wonderful V&A exhibition "The Cult of Beauty, the Aesthetic Movement 1860-1900." The reception in the main entrance under the magnificent Chihuly chandelier, which is now a permanent fixture (previously on loan). The Great and the good ensemble drinking champagne flutes while nibbling hors d'oeuvres. We are escorted into the gallery and treated to romantic bohemians Dante Gabriel Rossetti, James Whistler and Frederic Leighton and G.F. Watts. Oscar Wilde surely has a part to play and so receives a commemorative (from the V&A gallery):

"Oscar Wilde, the Aesthetic Movement and Satire

"The figure of the Aesthete, with his super-subtle sensibility and passionate responses to poetry, pictures and interior decoration, had first appeared in the 1870s. Associated with "unhealthy" and possibly dangerous foreign ideas, he was greeted with suspicion by critics and public alike

"However, by the 1880s the long-haired, velvet-clad Aesthete had become the butt of more affectionate satire. Targeted with extraordinary precision, the Aesthetes were ridiculed for what Gilbert and Sullivan called their 'stained-glass attitudes', overly precious speech and enthusiasm for 'pale lilies', sunflowers, peacock feathers, blue-and-white chine and Japanese fans.

"Oscar Wilde, inventing himself asa the first celebrity style-guru, astutely adopted the role of the Aesthete and rose to prominence through lecturing on Aesthetic ideals. His name and appearance became synonymous with the movement to such an extent that his fall in 1895 discredited the Aestheticism for a generation."