Albert Moore

Albert Moore (1841-93) was one of the most important late Victorian artists. In a single-minded quest for aesthetic perfection, he employed the female figure to embody abstract systems of ideal beauty, and created many of the iconic and defining images of the Aesthetic Movement. Yet he has remained a shadowy figure. Based on original research and unpublished family documents, Robyn Asleson's monograph presents a fresh view of the artist's allegedly reclusive personality, and firmly establishes him as a major figure and a significant precursor of Modernism. This beautiful book is now issued in a paperback format that will bring the artist to a wide and appreciative audience. The Victorian artist Albert Moore (1841-93) pursued a lifelong quest for ideal beauty — an ambitious crusade which propelled him from the naturalism of John Ruskin and the Pre-Raphaelites, through the medievalism of William Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement, to the Classicism and Japonisme of his friends Frederic Leighton and James McNeill Whistler. Before his twenty-fifth year, Moore had outstripped the aesthetic interests of his closest colleagues and embarked on a solitary search for the timeless secrets of aesthetic perfection. In a series of exquisitely executed paintings, Moore employed the female figure to embody the abstract systems of ideal beauty that he discerned in the finest examples of art and nature. Building on the artist's meticulous watercolour studies of nature and his monumental figural decorations for architecture, these paintings chart the evolution of Moore's singular artistic creed and provide many of the defining images of the Aesthetic Movement. Fiercely protective of his independence, Moore rejected the high visibility embraced by his celebrated professional colleagues. Thus, ironically, while his paintings hung prominently at annual exhibitions of the Royal Academy and the Grosvenor Gallery, Moore himself remained a shadowy figure on the periphery of the Victorian art world. He remains an enigma today. Although his paintings are among the most celebrated icons of the Victorian era, few recognize in them the unique analysis of pure form that established Moore as the most radical exponent of English Aestheticism and one of the most progressive artists of the nineteenth century. A one-man avant-garde, Moore anticipated by several generations the abstract aesthetic concerns of twentieth-century Modernism. This full-length study of Albert Moore — the first to appear in over 100 years — seeks to restore the artist to his rightful place in art history, while also fleshing out his hitherto mysterious personality and lifestyle. Drawing on unpublished materials and on a mass of new and fully documented research, the book analyses the origins and development of Moore's aesthetic systems and traces his formative links to architectural theory and practice. New evidence concerning Moore's personal life and professional networks debunks the myth of his hermit-like existence, and sheds light on his notorious exclusion from Royal Academy membership. In particular, the author reveals that Moore's friendship with and influence upon James McNeill Whistler were closer and more important than has hitherto been assumed. The artist's studio practice and his relationship with patrons, models and students are also considered. In place of the taciturn recluse of Victorian legend, Albert Moore emerges as a passionate and audacious crusader for beauty, an artist well ahead of his time.