Walter Pater and the Language of Sculpture

Lene Østermark-Johansen is Reader in English at the University of Copenhagen. She is the author of Sweetness and Strength: The Reception of Michelangelo in Late Victorian England (Ashgate 1998) and has published extensively on Pater, Swinburne and Wilde.

Winner, Paul Mellon Centre Publication Grant 'Øtermark-Johansen is at her best when she draws out the complexity of Pater's critical writing, as in the fine final chapter, where she extends her characterisation of Pater's sculptural aesthetic to his prose style, both in practice and in his musings on the subject in the essay 'Style' of 1888. The book ends with an intriguing discussion of the visual and material aspects of Pater's texts in both manuscript and print.termark-Johansen's key idea of 'the language of sculpture' thus reaches its point of greatest abstraction, as a concept for interpreting Pater's work, when it addresses the texts in their most concrete form, something Pater himself would surely have appreciated.' Burlington Magazine '... this is a book that will delight Paterians, surprising and instructing even those who know him well.termark-Johansen's deep respect for her subject informs every line while her impressive breadth of knowledge and imaginative scholarship make this study the essential work of reference for anyone interested in Pater and his relation to style, sculpture, and aestheticism.' The Pater Newsletter '... in her most recent book [...]termark-Johansen, who is the author of much fine previous work on Pater and nineteenth-century artistic culture, uses sculpture to trace Pater‘s development as art historian, writer, and thinker... One of the lasting impressions of Walter Pater and the Language of Sculpture is its real enthusiasm for its subject. 'Øtermark-Johansen knows Pater as only few other contemporary critics do, and she captures her subject with a winning mixture of intimacy and critical detachment... She is sensitive to the texture and shades of Pater‘s allusive prose. Her close readings tease out concealed meanings that are buried in Pater‘s notoriously knotty sentences. She offers exciting new readings of the spatial dimension of Pater‘s literary imagination and his experimental use of

• Contents: Introduction 1. Pater and the Italian Renaissance Paragone2. Pater and German Aesthetic Thought3. Pater and French Aestheticism 4. Pater and Aestheticist 'Painting'5. Pater and Greek Sculpture 6. Style and the language of sculpture Bibliography; Index.