Princes of Bohemia: the art world and Victorian society -- The Victorian artist's house: art and architecture -- Amateurs and aesthetes: patronage and the aesthetic milieu: artistic decoration and dress -- The houses and their owners. George Frederic Watts, Frederic Leighton and the Holland Park Colony in Kensington ; William Morris and the "palace of art": Red House and the two Kelmscotts ; Dante Gabriel Rossetti, James McNeill Whistler and others in Chelsea ; Edward Burne-Jones at The Grange in Fulham ; Regent's Park and St John's Wood: Lawrence Alma-Tadema, James Tissot and friends ; "Sweet Hampstead": northern retreat -- Afterword: a summary and three case histories. Little Holland House, 6 Melbury Road, Kensington ; Alma-Tadema's house, 17 Grove End Road, St John's Wood ; The Magpie and Stump, 37 Cheyne Walk, Chelsea
Summary:
Artists' houses and their gardens formed a distinct and influential strand in Victorian architecture and decoration, eliciting public interest and coverage in the popular press of the day. The artist's home and its contents were essential components of the Aesthetic Movement, in which artists - as home-owners, interior designers, producers and consumers - drove the movement into the mainstream. Artists such as Frederic Leighton, G.F.Watts, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Edward Burne-Jones were the product of the phenomenon of the Victorian art world which brought fame and public adulation to its most successful exponents. "Artistic Circles" takes the unique approach of examining Aestheticism from a social perspective and reveals how the art movement influenced the development of domestic building and homemaking for an emerging section of Victorian society, the educated middle-class professional.
