aestheticism
/ˌæsˈθɛ.tɪˌsɪ.zəm/
aestheticism means A doctrine which holds aesthetics or beauty as the highest ideal or most basic standard.
aestheticism is pronounced /ˌæsˈθɛ.tɪˌsɪ.zəm/.
Why “aestheticism” is a great word
A doctrine that holds aesthetic value and beauty as the highest ideal or most fundamental standard, often above moral or practical considerations. From aesthetic (from Greek *aisthētikos*, 'perceptive, sensitive,' from *aisthanesthai*, 'to perceive') + the suffix -ism (denoting a system, principle, or ideological movement). First attested in English in 1855. Unlike utilitarianism (which measures worth by function and consequence) or didacticism (which seeks to instruct), aestheticism venerates perception itself as the final arbiter. It is the deliberate cultivation of lilies in a room where bread could grow, the wearing of velvet in a season of mud, and the insistence that a sentence sound beautiful before it mean anything at all—a wager that the sensuous surface of the world might be deep enough to live inside, where beauty becomes its own ethic and lingers like perfume in the absence of meaning.
Etymology
From aesthetic + -ism.
noun
- A doctrine which holds aesthetics or beauty as the highest ideal or most basic standard.
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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