One of Oxford's most influential scholars of the 19th century was the writer and critic Walter Pater, who attracted both admiration and controversy with his contribution to Victorian attitudes and ideas.

He was one of the pioneers of the aesthetic movement, famously embraced by Oscar Wilde, who once declared: "There is no Pater but Pater, and I am his prophet".

Wilde regarded Pater's most celebrated work, Studies in the History of Renaissance, as "the holy writ of beauty" and called it "the Golden book".

Yet behind the public figure lurked a shy, reclusive and inscrutable man, of whom little is known. Not without reason did Henry James call him "the mask without the face". More than a century after his death, the real Walter Pater remains shadowy and elusive, an intriguing enigma that may never be solved Walter Horatio Pater was born in East London on August 4, 1839, the second of four children born to Richard Glode Pater, a surgeon, and Maria Hill. His childhood was marred by tragedy, as both his parents died prematurely; his father in 1842, when Walter was only two, and his mother just over a decade later. Many scholars believe this explains his apparent preoccupation with "the awful brevity" of life, which he discussed in Studies in the History of the Renaissance.

Walter was educated at Enfield Grammar School and King's College, Canterbury, and in 1858 he won a scholarship to Queen's College, Oxford, to read Classics.

It was at Queen's that Pater began to imbibe the ideas that would later shape his own theories. In particular, he absorbed the ideas of John Ruskin and Matthew Arnold, who remained a constant source of inspiration throughout his life.

Another significant influence was William Wolf Capes, his history master, who encouraged him to explore the aesthetic ideals of European theorists. At that time, he often spent his long vacations in Heidelberg with his sisters, Hester and Clara, and his Aunt Bessie, and he seized the opportunity to learn German and to study the works of philosophers such as Goethe, Hegel, Lessing and Wincklemann. All had a profound effect on the aesthetic principles rapidly forming in his young mind.

So engrossed was Pater in developing his theories that his studies suffered, and he graduated with a second class honours degree in Literae Humaniores. Despite this, within two years he was invited to become a Fellow at Brasenose College, where he taught and wrote for most of his working life. He also became a member of the Old Morality Society, a controversial agnostic group founded by Swinburne some years before. Here he first began propounding the values of aestheticism through a series of unpublished essays, and ruffled a few feathers by advocating the substitution of religious faith with the "religion of art".

This contentious view was fully realised in the 1873 publication of Studies in the History of the Renaissance, which caused uproar both within the University and in the national press due to its perceived anti-Christian stance. The book was a collection of essays on key figures in the Renaissance, but in his Conclusion Pater suggested that "experience itself is the end", which was felt to contradict the Christian belief in the afterlife.

His further suggestion that we should enjoy every moment to the full was seen as hedonistic in an age of moral restraint: "To burn always with this hard gemlike flame, to maintain this ecstasy, is success in lifeOf this wisdom, the poetic passion, the desire of beauty, the love of art for art's sake, has most, for art comes to you preferring frankly to give nothing but the highest quality to your moments."

The critical backlash wounded Pater deeply, and it was twelve years before he published his next book, Marius the Epicurean (1885). Marius, the "Aesthetic Hero", had a profound influence on other aesthetes of the day. Despite the disapproval of "the Establishment", Pater became something of a hero himself in the Oxford literary and artistic scene; his disciples included Oscar Wilde, Gerard Manley Hopkins, W.B. Yeats, Henry James, Vernon Lee and Thomas Hardy. It was Yeats who later summed up the great man's influence when he recalled: "We looked consciously to Pater for our philosophy".

Over the next few years, Pater published Imaginary Portraits (1887), Gaston de Latour (1888) and Plato and Platonism (1893), and these, along with Marius the Epicurean, sought to develop and explain the viewpoint represented in Studies in the History of the Renaissance.

Pater's fears about the "awful brevity" of life were poignantly justified when he died on 30th July 1894, aged only 54. His death heralded the decline of aestheticism. He now lies in Holywell Cemetery, his grave marked by a simple cross.

For much of his working life Pater lived with his two sisters, Hester and Clara, at 2 Bradmore Road, Oxford, and it was here that a blue plaque was unveiled in July 2004. The plaque also commemorates Clara's contribution to Oxford life, for she was one of the pioneers of women's education in the city, helping to establish Lady Margaret Hall and Somerville College in 1879.

The joint plaque is a fitting tribute to a remarkable brother and sister, an acknowledgement of their legacy to the city.