Symbolism

Question 1

Overview

Answer 1

-Epoch of Fin de Siecle, pivoting moment of pessimism about the end of the century, attitude that it was the last chance to live it up, decadence.
Awareness about the psyche, anxiety, laissez-faire attitude
-industrialisation of Paris, Haussman 1853-1870
All these thing
impacting the art world as this is where public/social concerns are outwardly expressed.
Disjuncture with the truth of the turn of the century as it brought about many progressions and advancements, industrial revolution/capitalism.
Exploring negative angle of capitalism and consumerism, materialism, gluttony
-Emphasis placed on the meaning behind the images, the emotional reaction/impact, the artists intention.
-“belief in the superiority of human creativity over logic and the natural world” Michelle Facos, Symbolism in Context

Question 2

Examples

Answer 2

Grasset, ‘The Morphine Addict’, very pessimistic, indulging in the extremes, decadence, devouring the body, sexualisation popularised, physiological decline, apocolyptic attitude
Frantisek Kupka: ‘Money’, conflating sexuality and commerce, encompassing symbolist themes, kneeling man resembling a jew with a key hole for a belly button, suggesting Jews are responsible for capitalism and sinful greed - anti-semitic.
Odilon Redon - ‘Silence’, ‘Cactus Man’, abstract beings created in a totally surreal space, satirising the shallow realism of other art
Oscar Wilde: Dorian Gray, novel about a man who is obsessed with his own beauty, decadent.
Aubrey Beardsley: sartirical illustrator, use of strong lines to suggest things
Gustave Klimt, ‘Nudas Veritas’, very decorative but packed full of hidden meaning, complete nudity of the female body, mirror to reflect the viewing, asking society to look at itself and the sin of capitalism
Gaugin: ‘Vision after the Sermon’

Question 3

Reading/Commentary

Answer 3

Aurier, Symbolist Manifesto, 5 stipulations of symbolist art, ‘ideist’, ‘symbolist’, ‘sythetist’, ‘subjective’, ‘decorative’, artist as ‘semi-divine’. Used Gauguin as example in manifesto
Charles Baudelaire, very important writer, dealing with hidden symbolism in poetry.
On Redon, “I have made art according to myself alone”, Redon a firm belief in autonomy and organic vision of the artist, intellectual structures inflicted upon art only took away the true essence of idea/emotion. The indeterminate was longed for, esoteric symbols, different and ambiguous to every one.
Redon criticised Impressionism for being too aesthetic.
Robert Goldwater: on the symbolist’s use of line, “reveals the impulse of its creator; its curves retain a weight and awkwardness which are evidence of a struggle to give shape to a compelling idea, of a conflict between control and expression”