Symbolism

What were French ideologies in the 19th century?

Questioning notions of reality, truth and existence

How was Schopenhauer’s The World as Will and Representation relevant?

It was translated into French in the 1880s, stating that everything beyond the self only exists when one is conscious of it. this period is marked by pessimism.

How is Nietzsche relevant to ideology in late 19th century France?

Talks about the death of god, which resonates with declining western power at the time.

How did symbolism emerge?

Out of a dissatisfaction with impressionism, and a call for a greater emphasis on experience and feeling.

What were discoveries at the time, influencing symbolism?

Microbiology, X-rays, increased interest in the occult, more psychotic drugs like opium.

Who wrote the symbolist manifesto, and what did it claim?

Jean Moreas in 1886, claiming the symbolist should create objective works of art that don’t describe but express

What are characteristics of symbolist art?

Reveals bit by bit, through nuance and suggestion

Who was considered a precursor to symbolist art?

Gustave Moreau: through use of the morbid, dandy, decadent and the femme fatale

Oedipus and the Sphinx

Moreau 1864: classical and mythological mixed. The focus more on the subject makes it symbolist. Odeipus faces a sphinx who taunts with riddles, the origins of the femme fatale

The Apparition and Salome dancing before Herod

Moreau 1876 and1874-76: a watercolour painting and oil painting. Salome = a New Testament figure who performs for Herod, who offers her a gift. Her mother tells her to ask for st. johns head (femme fatale). On the left, there is a goddess of fertility, executioner and black panther. On the right, there is an apparition of the beheading to come.

How are Moreau’s Salome paintings symbolist?

In Huysman’s novel, they are described as ‘the symbolic incarnation of undying lust’ it is decadent and uses motifs to reveal meaning.

Odilion Redon

Charcoal drawings in homage to goya, wanting to make ‘implausible beings live human lives’

The Poor Fisherman

Puvis de Chavannes 1881 (another precursor): the mother is dead and the daughter watches over her baby brother. Formal devices such as downward lines, hands held before, muted colours and matte surface through mixing wax with oil. All creates gloomy mood. Crown of thorns meaning Christ’s suffering. He uses painting as a meditation conveying feeling via direct visual devices.

The Isle of the Dead

Arnold Bocklin (another precursor): had 5 versions of this work, had 15 children and lost 8, so familiar with death. not focused on landscape but meaning. Island = a place for eternal rest. A rowing boat with a ghost, Cyprus trees associated with funerals.

How did symbolism spread?

Puvis de chavannes and bocklin = spread to Catalonia, in Rusinol’s depictions of religious enclosures.

Rusinol’s Gardens

A national project of depicting Spain through its gardens, shows the decline of an empire through nostalgic symbolism.

The Night

Ferdinand Hodler 1889: a different depiction of death. Influenced by death of family from TB. A claustrophobic atmosphere and almost no escape from the central figure of death. Self-portrait of fear and powerlessness. Use of color, white being purity, black as evil, and purple as sadness.

What is parallelism?

A repetition of natural patterns to prove the eternal element of nature and beauty.

The Scream

Edvard Munch 1893: a more pessimistic view, despair and suffering being emblematic of modern life. Represents a psychotic episode where Much heard a scream. The foreground flows into background, color and swirl as an expressive force.

Summer Nights Dream

Munch 1893: standing alone and rigid like the trees, also matches the moonlight.

Vision after the Sermon

Paul Gaugin 1888: He went to Germany studying religious traditions. This depicts women having a vision of the sermon they heard. The tree divides dream and reality. Breaks the laws of perspective, is tilted towards us and the tree is asymmetrical. Derived from Japanese prints. The cow too small, startling red. also an outline of a cow. Paved the way for artists like matisse

What is Aurier’s definition of symbolism?

1. it is ideological, through expression over desription

2. idea expressed through forms

3. synthetic as forms presented in a way to be generally understood

4. subjective as just a sign of an idea

5. decorative

The Yellow Christ

Gaugin 1889: decorative via its color. Purposefully crude in form, with a lack of modelling or perspective. The time period is subjective.

Where did Gaugin move and why?

To Tahiti, to be more ‘childlike like the natives.’ He wanted to be rid of the influence of modern civilisation

Spirit of the Dead Watching

Gaugin 1892: Depicts powerlessness before modernity. Married a 13 year old girl for three years. The painting has feathery light forms as she stares fearfully. He wanted to capture terror, in shades of purple. Expresses fear of ghost, or the fear of him as a sexual predator.