In this blog post, we explore why the writing style of Walter Horatio Pater, known as the ‘Hermit of Art,’ is both beautiful and difficult.
Walter Horatio Pater, a Victorian writer who contemplated life through the window of art he constructed and lived an aesthetic life of seclusion, was born on August 4, 1839, in Shoreditch, East London, as the second son of John Pater, a physician. Orphaned at a young age, he moved with his family to Chase Side in Enfield, attended King’s School in Canterbury, and in 1858 entered Queen’s College, Oxford, immersing himself in scholarship. In 1864, he was selected as a special research fellow at Brasenose College. He broadened his knowledge of European art and philosophy through travels in Germany, Italy, and France. However, most of his time was devoted to quiet contemplation and writing in his modest Oxford study. On July 30, 1894, even as he faced his final moments, he had returned to Oxford. He passed away in a corner of his time-worn study, having completed his last work.
Within the aesthetic literary movement, Pater occupies a position between John Ruskin, Matthew Arnold, and Oscar Wilde. As biologist Thomas Huxley observed, if Arnold was the ‘apostle of culture’ and Wilde the ‘extreme hedonist,’ Pater existed at the midpoint as the ‘hermit of art.’ He regarded the intuitive capture of ecstatic beauty within art as the highest ideal, holding the conviction that the most noble good in life was beauty itself. His aestheticism was not mere sensual indulgence or licentiousness, but a sophisticated, high-level pursuit of beauty transcending human relationships and earthly desires.
Despite this philosophy, many misunderstand aestheticism as ‘sensual indulgence,’ often miscategorizing Pater’s writings as light decadent literature. However, he strongly rejected being labeled a hedonist, instead identifying himself as an ‘aesthete’ – a spiritual writer. In his works, one finds no trace of the moral transgression or hint of licentiousness seen in Wilde; instead, they flow with restrained beauty and tranquil contemplation.
The figures who most profoundly influenced Pater’s intellectual formation and literary maturation were arguably Plato and Goethe. Yet he thoroughly converged the intellectual influence of these two masters into a single direction: aestheticism, the aesthetic exploration of art. Rather than cursing human wickedness or negative nature, he walked the path of the connoisseur who extols the purest and most sublime beauty. His gaze was always directed toward ‘the best beauty,’ not as a result of deliberately turning away from the ugliness and evil of reality, but as the outcome of a relentless and pure pursuit of artistic truth.
In terms of style, too, Pater’s thorough pursuit of perfect beauty sometimes led to eccentricities in expression. Because he infused his writing with his own unique sensibility and aesthetic sense, his sentences often felt excessively subjective, artificial, and suggestive, sometimes seeming somewhat unnatural to readers. While his delicate expression of emotion sometimes carried with it an air of obscurity and illogicality, within it lay an exquisite artistic fragrance, a harmony of thought, and rich emotion. This captivated the reader’s spirit, calmed the mind, and filled the heart with feeling. His sentences were not merely read; they permeated the reader’s senses and spirit like fragrance, leaving a lingering resonance.
Examining Pater’s beautiful essay Portrait of the Imagination, written as he recalled his childhood inner world, reveals his spiritual growth process and philosophical foundation. The protagonist Florian deeply contemplates the relative weight of sensory and conceptual elements within human knowledge. This reflection leads him to conclude that greater emphasis should be placed on tangible, perceptible objects and experiences rather than abstract ideas. This metaphysical thinking further solidified his existing attitude of intuitively embracing the world. He accepted Christianity as a meaningful philosophical stance, noting that like ancient Greek religion, it explained spiritual truths through visible objects and humbly acknowledged the limitations of human senses.
Walter Pater was an artistic hermit who viewed the world through the filter of ‘beauty’. He believed art stood closest to the essence of human existence and was convinced that through art, one could contemplate, reflect upon, and celebrate life. His writing, where sensation and intellect, thought and style harmonized, reveals a refined spiritual world beyond mere literature. The reason Pater’s writing still shines quietly without losing its light today is likely because the language he left behind is not merely a product of its time, but a philosophy of beauty that transcends it.
