Oh, deviants!

THOUGH rich in symbols, paintings like Albert Moore’s “Yellow Marguerites” present female figures so self-absorbed that 19th century critics dismissed them: Why acclaim such amoral subjects when they teach us nothing uplifting? Elizabeth Prettejohn takes aim at such judgments with “Art for Art’s Sake” (Yale University Press: 344 pp., $65), in which she traces Aestheticism in Victorian art and defends its significance even if “it still seems scandalous to suggest that Leighton and Rossetti might be as important as Manet and Cezanne.”

But that’s all right: The artists certainly didn’t shrink from causing scandal to defend themselves. The author describes James Whistler’s sensational 1878 lawsuit against art and social critic John Ruskin, whom he charged with libel, and quotes from Whistler’s exchange with the judge: “Your lordship is too close at present to the picture to perceive the effect I intended to produce at a distance.” My favorite is Edward Burne-Jones’ attitude to the critics. He rebuffed them in a fittingly chivalrous way: “The more materialistic science becomes, the more angels shall I paint: their wings are my protest in favour of the immortality of the soul.” -- Nick Owchar

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nick.owchar@latimes.com