Abstract

In the last two centuries aestheticism and decisionism have gained prominence among anti-enlightenment intellectual currents. Aestheticism suggests the exclusive primacy of an artistic approach to life, in opposition to science and morality. Although the term was first coined in the mid-nineteenth century in association with the Pre-Raphaelites' emphasis on the absolute purity of the artistic sphere vis-à-vis all extra-artistic concerns — a formulation that leads directly to the credo of the related l'art pour l'art movement — the aestheticist world-view originates in die romantic era, in, e.g., Schlegel and Novalis, where art is apotheosized as a secular vehicle of inner-worldly salvation.