Details you may have missed. The #aestheticsmovement fired up around 1870. It was a movement that said things should be pretty or engaging or delightful or fascinating just because joy is a valuable human experience. Even if all art communicates, the statement doesn’t have to be emblematic or overt beyond just being darn pretty. The movement was influential in the “applied arts,” which is stuff like architecture and design and media. As such, it was a movement that empowered the middle and lower classes to take appreciation and value in beauty as something we can all engage. Sure, the movement was cloistered among intellects and the privileged, but its populist influence leaked into attitudes beyond the erudite. After all, by their own philosophy, everyone liked pretty things. #Boston has always been obsessed with showing off its forward, trendy embrace of all fads #European and all styles of the #privileged. Much of the historic #SouthEnd, #Fenway, and sections of #BackBay were influenced by the #AestheticsMovement. You can see added “bonus designs” and pilots else’s extra flourishes even tucked away in the tenement row houses that were essentially meant as humble abides. As neighborhoods were ghettoized through racism@and xenophobia, these tiny “art for art sake” details went along for the ride, gaining patina and absorbing history in their oxymoronic faces of humble vanity. And then a simple #tile seems leftover from some #ancientruins even though it’s clumsily lodged in the stoop of a #soupkitchen. So I guess, maybe, the #Aesthetes had it right. Artistry for its own sake offers dignity and value beyond its perceived immediate value. It’s a detail you might have missed. ▫️ #arthistory #bostonhistory #ceramictile #Bostonia #haleyhouse #relic #artifact #urbanart #arg #artforartsake #bostonarchitecture #design #designhistory #workingclass #antique #hiddengems #akaXN #TheRealXN (at South End) https://www.instagram.com/p/CGFT8orjJpv/?igshid=zf016gtt0fnz
