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Review of “The Cult of Beauty: The Aesthetic Movement 1860-1900”, V&A, London, April 2, 2011 to July 17, 2011 Karen Yuen, Department of English at the University of Victoria, Canada Utter the word “Aestheticism” in a conversation with Victorianists and you will likely get one of two reactions. You may get a slow, polite nod; or you may get a wide grin and eyes the size of saucers. From April 2 to July 17 of this year, those belonging in the latter category had much to celebrate, for the Victoria & Albert Museum in London hosted The Cult of Beauty: The Aesthetic Movement 1860-1900, arguably the most visually-tantalising exhibition ever produced on the Aesthetic Movement. To lovers of aesthetes and all things Aesthetic, the exhibition fulfilled a long-held desire that could not, over the years, be extinguished by wearing velvet jackets and collecting Morris hammers and pliers. To those who have looked upon Aestheticism with indifference, the exhibition offered a reason to consider its importance (if not to like it). As a cultural phenomenon that took Britain by storm during the latter half of the nineteenth century, the movement was, in a nutshell, a sincere attempt at steering art in a new direction, to move it away from narrative moralizing to a celebration of form and colour. For the most part, The Cult of Beauty succeeded in conveying this idea. In fact, it did it so well that, after seeing the exhibition, you would have been hard pressed not to have given your plain sofa in your living room a chintz facelift. Part of its success was no doubt due to the careful presentation and arrangement of Aesthetic items. Visitors were greeted at the entrance by not only Thomas Jeckyll’s brass Pair of Andirons (c. 1876) and Edward Burne-Jones’ oil on wood A Peacock (1886), but also Walter Hamilton’s book The Aesthetic Movement in England (1882), Frederick Hollyer’s platinum print Flower Study, Lilies (c. 1890), William de Morgan’s earthenware Charger (c. 1888), and Frederic Leighton’s plaster for bronze Sluggard (1885). This selection is significant. For starters, through Jeckyll’s work and Burne-Jones’ work, two of the most conspicuous symbols of the Aesthetic Movement were highlighted – sunflowers and peacocks. But it also highlighted a key idea that the curators obviously wanted viewers to take away with them: that Aestheticism was never expressed through one medium. The tentacles of octopus aestheticus wrapped itself around everything. The entrance items set the stage for those found in the rest of the exhibition, items that ranged from dishes, chairs, and dresses, to teapots, paintings, and sculptural pieces – some from the V&A’s own impressive collection, and others on loan from galleries and private collections from inside and outside the United Kingdom. To ensure that viewers could make sense of all these pieces, the curators arranged them under chronological and thematic headings (“The Search for a New Beauty, 1860s”, “Art for Art’s Sake, 1860s-1870s”, “Beautiful People and Aesthetic Houses, 1870s-1880s”, and “Late-Flowering Beauty: 1880s-1890s”). For each thematic heading, there were even sub-thematic headings (for example, under “Art for Art’s Sake, 1860s1870s” could be found “The Grosvenor Gallery”, “Whistler and Godwin in the 1860s-1870s”, “Imagined Japan”, “Grecian Ideals”, etc.). This arrangement was a particularly smart one. Visitors could easily observe the contribution of each item to a specific theme/thread and, at the same time, situate it in the broader, Aesthetic universe. Indeed, when placed alongside other manufactured Aesthetic items, Christopher Dresser’s almost Cubist-looking teapot with ebony handle (c. 1879) shines with brilliance, and the importance of the V&A kimono (1860-90) in the