The Symbolist Generation, 1870-1910

The Symbolist Generation, 1870-1910

"Beginning with the Pre-Raphaelites and those pivotal French artists (de Chavannes, Moreau, Redon and others) who assured the transition from romanticism to symbolism, this magnificent (and splendidly color-illustrated) work turns to examine Gauguin's contribution to the spread of symbolism, an international movement that boasted such fine painters as the Nabis, the artists of the Rose+Croix Salons, as well as Böcklin and Hodler in Switzerland, Rops, Khnopff, and Ensor in Belgium, Toorop in the Netherlands. Unlike impressionism, fauvism or cubism, no symbolist style exist. Rather, symbolist artists, trained at the official academies of the Beaux-Arts, tutored in romanticism or naturalism, often expressed very similar themes while using quite different techniques. Abandoning both the realist and the impressionist representation of nature, these artists favored the projection of an inner universe filled with allegories and fantasies, extatic visions and horrific nightmares drawn from the depth of their unconscious."--Jacket.

Pierre-Louis Mathieu

New York : Skira : Rizzoli

1990

ntroduction to the symbolist generation. Post-impressionism or symbolism?; Symbol, symbolism, allegory; Symbolist theorists and critics; Anywhere out of the world; Under the influence of Saturn; Music before all else; The symbolist dream-world; Arabesques; Symbolism and psychoanalysis; Salome, the myth of the femme fatale; Symbolism and Art Nouveau; From symbolism to abstract art and surrealism -- The originators of symbolism. The Pre-Raphaelites spiritual angst; Dante Gabriel Rossetti, poet and painter; Edward Burne-Jones and the metaphysical world of legends; George Fredric Watts, or the art of teaching through pictures; Puvis de Chavannes, a new vision of Arcadia; Gustave Moreau, the assembler of dreams; Odilon Redon, the rule of the unconscious; Arnold Böcklin's Darwinian mythology -- Symbolism in France. 1. From naturalism to symbolism. Fantin-Latour: from the Batignolles studio to Wagnerian fantasies; Eugène Carrière's humanitarian symbolism; Auguste Rodin and Camille Claudel; Paul Gauguin, an impressionist in search of the soul's colors; An article by Georges-Albert Aurier: "Symbolism in Painting--Paul Gauguin"; Gauguin's pictorial testament.
2. The symbolism of the Pont-Aven group. Emile Bernard and his quarrel with Gauguin over who fathered pictorial symbolism; The unstudied symbolism of Vincent Van Gogh; Gauguin's mystical disciple, Charles Filiger -- 3. The Nabis. The birth of the Nabi group; Sérusier the theorist; Maurice Denis's beautiful icons; Georges Lacombe, the Nabi sculptor; Paul Ranson, the occultist Nabi; The Nabi artistic canon -- 4. The esoteric symbolism of the Rose+Croix Salons. Joséphin Péladan, the paladin of idealist art; The disciples of Puvis de Chavannes; Georges de Feure, from symbolism to Art Nouveau; Moreau's students at the Rose+Croix Salons; The musical correspondences of Levy-Dhurmer; From symbolism to parody: Gustav-Adolf Mossa and Marcel Duchamp -- The spread of symbolism in Europe. 1. Belgium, the Netherlands, and Switzerland under the spell of the Rose+Croix. The satanic Félicien Rops; James Ensor, the disguised symbolist; Fernand Khnopff, or the retreat into oneself; Jean Delville, the quintessential Rose+Croix artist; Two portrayers of human suffering: George Minne and Emile Fabry; The nocturnes of William Degouve de Nuncques; The macabre probings of Jan Toorop; Lingering twilight of symbolism: Léon Spilliaert and Piet Mondrian; Ferdinand Hodler's pantheism; Carlos Schwabe, a mystic of death; Other Swiss artists influenced by symbolism -- 2. The Scandinavian countries. Sweden; Denmark; Finland; Edvard Munch: the torn self as source for the art work.
3. Central and Eastern Europe. The Russian artists Mikhail Vrubel and the devil's mystique; Polish symbolists; The retrograde career of Alphonse Mucha; František Kupka, from symbolism to abstraction -- 4. German-speaking countries. A German Puvis de Chavannes: Hans von Marées; Max Klinger, the engraver of life's dark side; Franz von Stuck's poisonous symbolism; Gustav Klimt and the consecration of Eros; Alfred Kubin and the lure of death; The kingdom of Hungary -- 5. English-speaking countries. A perverted Pre-Raphaelite: Aubrey Beardsley; Mackintosh and the mystique of plants; American analogies -- 6. Southern Europe. Death in the Engadine: Giovanni Segantini; Two painters of virginity: Gaetano Previati and Giuseppe Pellizza da Volpedo; An avatar of symbolism: the metaphysical art of Giorgio De Chirico; Picasso's blue period.

Book