Aesthetic Freedom: Walter Pater and the Politics of Autonomy

Walter Pater is often criticized for claiming that the aesthete is a solipsist and that art exists for its own sake. However, an analysis of Pater's intellectual ties at Oxford and of his essay "Winckelmann" reveals that Pater actively questions aesthetic autonomy as theorized by German idealists. Skeptical of Hegel's argument that art offers access to a sense of freedom, Pater asserts that aesthetic experience emphasizes our subjection to a material world of sensation. This challenge to the liberal individualism of German aesthetics has been overlooked by politically oriented interpretations of Pater's work that focus on his queerness.