“I want bad things – strong bad things”: Ouida, Walter Pater, and aestheticism in Dorothy Richardson’s Backwater (1916)

This article argues for the centrality of notions of personality and persons in the work of Walter Pater and asks how this fits in with his critical reception. Pater's writing is grounded in ideas of personality and persons, of personification, of personal gods and personalised history, of contending voices, and of the possibility of an interior conversation with the logos. Artworks move us as personalities do in life; the principle epistemological analogy is with the knowledge of persons – indeed, ideas are only grasped through the form they take in the individuals in whom they are manifested. The conscience is outwardly embodied in other persons, but also experienced as a conversation with a person inhabiting the most intimate and sovereign dimension of the self. Even when personality is conceived as the walls of a prison-house, it remains a powerful force, able to modify others. This article explores the ways in which these questions are ultimately connected to the paradoxes of Pater's own person and personality, and to the matter of his ‘style’.

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The Unique Fictional World of Walter Pater

Nineteenth-Century Fiction ◽

10.1525/ncl.1958.13.3.99p0389t ◽

1958 ◽

Vol 13 (3) ◽

pp. 217-226

Author(s):

Eugene J. Brzenk

Keyword(s):

Walter Pater ◽

Fictional World

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: Religious Humanism and the Victorian Novel: George Eliot, Walter Pater, and Samuel Butler . U. C. Knoepflmacher.

Nineteenth-Century Fiction ◽

10.1525/ncl.1966.21.1.99p0088t ◽

1966 ◽

Vol 21 (1) ◽

pp. 94-97

Author(s):

Thomas Pinney

Keyword(s):

George Eliot ◽

Victorian Novel ◽

Walter Pater ◽

Samuel Butler

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Berensonian Formalism and Pragmatist Perception

Zeitschrift für Ästhetik und Allgemeine Kunstwissenschaft ◽

10.28937/1000108017 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 62 (2) ◽

Author(s):

C. Oliver O'Donnell

Keyword(s):

Recent Work ◽

20Th Century ◽

William James ◽

Walter Pater ◽

Historical Scholarship ◽

Philosophy Of Perception ◽

20Th Century Art ◽

Pragmatist Philosophy

The ramified legacy of Bernard Berenson’s writings within 20th century art historiography is both celebrated and maligned. In an effort to help reconcile this situation, this essay argues for the partial validity of Berenson’s peculiar version of art historical formalism by detailing its historical connections to the Pragmatist philosophy and psychology of William James and by analytically correlating Berenson’s arguments with recent work in aesthetics and the philosophy of perception. The essay examines the specific example of Berenson’s analysis of Giotto’s paintings and leverages a Pragmatist interpretation of Berenson’s writings to frame Berenson’s known connections with other writers: including Adolf Hildebrand, Giovanni Morelli, and Walter Pater. In conclusion, the failure, potential, reception, and legacy of Berenson’s art historical scholarship are assessed in relation to Pragmatist ideas. Der vielfältige Einfluss von Bernard Berensons Schriften auf die Kunstgeschichte des 20. Jahrhunderts wird ebenso geschätzt wie verachtet. In dem Bestreben, diese Divergenzen zu berichtigen, versucht dieser Beitrag den Nachweis für die bedingte Gültigkeit von Berensons eigentümlicher Variante eines kunsthistorischen Formalismus zu erbringen, indem er einerseits seine historischen Verbindungen zur pragmatischen Philosophie und Psychologie von William James aufzeigt und indem er andererseits Berensons Argumentation ins Verhältnis zu aktuellen Debatten der wahrnehmungstheoretischen Ästhetik und Philosophie setzt. Am Beispiel von Berensons Interpretation der Gemälde Giottos führt dieser Essay eine pragmatische Analyse von Berensons Schriften durch und stellt diese ins Umfeld seiner Kontakte zu anderen Autoren: darunter Adolf Hildebrand, Giovanni Morelli und Walter Pater. Schließlich soll das Scheitern, das Potenzial, die Rezeption und das Erbe von Berensons kunsthistorischen Studien unter pragmatischen Gesichtspunkten bewertet werden.

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