The pioneering exhibition "In Pursuit of Beauty: Americans and the
Aesthetic Movement" and the accompanying publication demonstrate the
continuing commitment of the Metropolitan Museum's American Wing to the
study of the arts of the nineteenth century, exemplified by the landmark
show Nineteenth-Century America (1970) and reaffirmed in such permanent
installations as the Nineteenth-Century Arts Gallery, the Greek Revival
Parlor, the John Henry Belter Rococo Revival Parlor, and the
Renaissance Revival Parlor. This project is the first comprehensive
study of a phenomenon that not only dominated the American arts of the
1870s and 1880s, but also helped set the course of such later
developments in the United States as the Arts and Crafts movement, the
indigenous interpretation of Art Nouveau, and even the rise of
modernism. In fact, the early history of the Metropolitan—its founding,
its sponsorship of a school of industrial design, and its display of
decorative works—is inextricably tied to the Aesthetic movement and its
educational goals.
"In Pursuit of Beauty: Americans and the
Aesthetic Movement" comprised some 175 objects including furniture,
metalwork, stained glass, ceramics, textiles, wallpaper, painting, and
sculpture. Some of these had rarely been displayed; others, although
familiar, were being shown in new and even startling contexts. The
exhibition and catalogue are arranged thematically to illustrate both
the major styles of a visually rich movement and the ideas that
generated its diversity.
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