Henry Van de Velde and Oscar Wilde make an interesting pair in considering their two views on art, philosophy and society as a whole. Oscar Wilde was the founder of the aesthetic art movement, which believed that art could simply be appreciated for its own sake and should be used to beautify any environment in which people find themselves. His writings on aestheticism were very influential and influenced all of England to become interested in more visually pleasing things simply because they are visually pleasing. Furthermore, he was quite an influential writer as a whole, both as a critic, social commentator and writer of fiction. He had very deep opinions about how the world was at the time and how it should have changed for the better as time went on. On the other hand, Van de Velde was an artist in the more traditional sense of the term than Wilde. Van de Velde was an artist known for his furniture and home decorations. He was also well known for his architectural skills and the incredible buildings he designed during his lifetime. He believed that the visual quality and appeal of an object were very important. He applied it to his works of both furniture and interiors and to the buildings he designed. This application of visual appeal to everyday applied art eventually earned him the label of father of Art Nouveau ideology and movement. He felt that this movement represented a necessary break with traditional methods and ideas of design, and that such methods and ideologies should progress into the future. (Chipp 56) Overall, Wilde and Van de Velde have many more things in common than they have differences from each other. Both Wilde and Van de Velde focus on the power and beauty of lines and the arrangement of curves in his drawings. He subsequently collaborated with the Bauhaus school, following these design principles. This placed him at odds with most Art Nouveau artists, who, much like Wilde with his Aestheticism, believed that inspiration for such pieces and environments to improve people's lives should be taken from nature. Overall, these two men shared a common goal of improving people's lives by bringing beauty into everyday life and focusing on the visual quality of a piece over anything else. Although they had different methods of dealing with this problem and maintained some other differences here and there, they are actually quite similar, mainly different from each other in the sense that Wilde mainly wrote about his opinions and Van de Velde created things to help people to reach the goal. environment in which he felt they should live.