| Summary: | European Aestheticism and Spanish American Modernismo examines the changing role of art and the artist during the turn-of-the-century period and considers the multiple dichotomies of art and life, aesthetics and economics, production and consumption, and center and periphery. Through a comparative analysis of fictional works from Wilde, Huysmans, and Mann in the European context and Dario, Silva, Casal, and Gutierrez Najera in the Spanish American context, this transatlantic study locates a shared interest in the philosophy of 'art for art's sake' in both aestheticism and modernismo. The analysis of the aims and attitudes of different types of artist protagonists considers the intersection between the artist figure and the impressionistic and creative critic (chapters 1 and 2), the producers and consumers of art (chapters 3 and 4), and the aesthete, the dandy, and the fĺneur (chapters 5 and 6). It also outlines the ways in which the artist figures avoid 'art for life's sake' (Part I), protest 'art for the market's sake' (Part II), or promote 'life for art's sake' (Part III).
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