Music as Aesthetic Paradigm: Frederic Leighton, Albert Moore, and James McNeill Whistler

This dissertation examines the communal approach towards absolute instrumental music as an aesthetic paradigm in the works of three Victorian artists: Frederic Leighton (1830-1896), Albert Moore (1841-1893), and James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903). It argues that their interest in music, as painters associated with Aestheticism and art for art’s sake, formed an integral and influential part of their artistic oeuvres and that they formed a subset within Victorian Aestheticism because of this communal interest in music as an aesthetic ideal. Central to this argument are ideas of artistic autonomy, abstraction, form, temporality, and aesthetic contemplation. Using a contextual, interdisciplinary, and theoretical approach to situate their interest in music within wider nineteenth-century musical developments involving critical reading of music and aesthetic theory, this dissertation shows that Leighton, Moore, and Whistler attempted to find a confluence between art for art’s sake and the theoretical ideal or condition of music. By analysing their works against contemporary music theory and aesthetics of music, this study proposes that this paradigm offered the exploration of non-narrativity, abstraction, and pictorial autonomy through the lens of musical metaphor. Artistic correspondence, colour theory, musical terminology, and the aesthetics of reception are deemed important within this context. This involves close readings of a wide range of primary and secondary sources, framing an approach that is interdisciplinary and methodical. This dissertation provides an analytical Section I, focusing on music theory, music developments, and their confluence with art for art’s sake. This leads into Section II, containing Leighton, Moore, and Whistler as case studies, to synthetically test out how this proposed model of absolute instrumental music as paradigm works itself out in their art