In Pursuit of Beauty: Americans and The Aesthetic Movement

Burke, Doreen Bolger, et al.

New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art / Rizzoli, 1986. Softcover. Color-illus. wraps with brown lettering on yellow spine. 511 pp. 94 color, 426 bw illus. With a few bits of relative ephemera laid in. VG. Clean and tight interior pages; light wear and folds to cover edges. Item #4839000001

A monumental exhibition catalogue. Essays written by: Roger B. Stein (Artifact as Ideology: The Aesthetic Movement in Its American Cultural Context); Catherine Lynn (Decorating Surfaces: Aesthetic Delight, Theoretical Dilemma) and (Surface Ornament: Wallpapers, Carpets, Textiles and Embroidery); Marilynn Johnson (The Artful Interior) and (Art Furniture: Wedding The Beautiful To The Useful); Alice C. Frelinghuysen (A New Renaissance: Stained Glass In The Aesthetic Movement) and (Aesthetic Forms in Ceramics and Glass); David A. Hanks (Metalwork: An Eclectic Aesthetic); Doreen Bolger Burke (Painters and Sculptors in A Decorative Age); James D. Kornwolf (American Architecture and The Aesthetic Movement) and Jonathan Freedman (An Aestheticism of Our Own: American Writers and The Aestetic Movement). Following this essay, there is a tremendous Dictionary of Architects, Artisans, Artists and Manufacturers associated with the Aesthetic Movement, compiled under the leadership of Catherine Hoover Voorsanger. A stunning catalogue which becomes only more useful each time it is consulted.