Fin de Siècle - Articles, Lectures and Reflections
November 27, 2004
Sad Soul - Simeon Solomon’s Symbolist Legacy
Once called by Burne-Jones “the greatest of us all”, Simeon Solomon has nonetheless remained in the shadows of obscurity, shunned then forgotten by his contemporaries following an imprisonment at the height of his career.
He was born the youngest of 8 children to a family of prominent Jews, among the first to be allowed into the city of London. Artistic talent shone through the Solomon children and several studied and exhibited at the Royal Academy. Simeon followed in his sublings’ footsteps in 1857, exhibiting at the RA for the first time at the tender age of 18. A mere year later he was to meet Rossetti, Burne-Jones and others of the Pre-Raphaelite circle, who embraced him as a fellow and extolled his abilities. In 1858 he embarked, along with his sister, on a journey to France, where he was first introduced to the work of Gustave Moreau. The latter’s rich Byzantine style and exotic subjects Solomon later emulated in works like “Heliogabalus, High Priest of the Sun” (1866)
Throughout the 1860’s Solomon exhibited frequently at the Royal Academy, contributed illustrations to William Morris’ publishing company and continued building his reputation as a precocious and versatile talent. On a trip to Italy circa 1866 Solomon discovered Botticelli and other Italians, who helped shift his attentions to more classical subjects and forms, sparking a revival of the style. Botticelli’s weightless, delicate forms appear in works like “Love in Autumn”. Towards the end of the 60’s, however, Solomon’s work was gradually evolving into more abstract composition of monumental scale, with narrative subject matter substituted for large, expressive heads floating in ether, hinting at some secretive emotion.
By the age of 30, Solomon was widely recognized as a brilliant colorist, illustrator as well as a prominent member of the most influential aesthetic movements of the time. But his involvement and correspondence with friends in the Victorian homosexual underground fueled his illicit passions and made his actions quite reckless. His letters to Swinburne are particularly bold, weaving sexual fantasies and exploring forbidden sensual terrain. On his last trip to Italy in 1871 (later recognized as an attempt to escape the English authorities, already aware of his crimes), Solomon first published his prose poem, “A Vision of Live Revealed in Sleep”, a prelude to Alfred Douglas’ “Two Loves” “Then, as we went along, while the shallow Not long after, in 1873, Solomon was arrested for attempted sodomy and sentenced to 18 months, reduced to parole with police supervisions. A mere year later, he was once again arrested for indecent exposure in a public urinal and sentenced to a fine and three months imprisonment. Though spared the sensationalism of the press inflicted on Wilde two decades later, the artist suffered ostracism from his circle of friends, who feared harm to their own reputation. Abandoned by those closest to him, Solomon resorted to near-extortion, threatening to sell Swinburne’s more incriminating letters. He continued drawing and selling his work to get by. By 1885, the dispirited artist who had once been one of the Aesthetes’ shining stars had moved into a half-way house, endured the tragic death of his sister Rebecca and spiraled steadily into alcoholism. He died in 1905, destitute and forsaken, of a heart failure brought on by excessive drinking. Solomon’s recurring theme of an idealized, tormented androgyne lived on in the work of the Pre-Raphaelites, particularly Burne-Jones and his imitators. But his love and pursuit of perverse and exotic subjects remained closer to the Decadent spirit of the French Symbolists. Following his release from prison Solomon’s work took on a haunted, macabre quality, often depicting floating, severed heads of Medusas and John the Baptists, subjects dear to the continental artists of the Fin-de-Siecle. In their work the spirit of Solomon’s art has survived. Sources: “The Vision of Simeon Solomon” by Simon Reynolds ”The Age of Rossetti, Burne-Jones, and Watts: Symbolism in Britain, 1860-1910” Simeon Solomon Research Archive by Roberto C. Ferrari http://www.fau.edu/solomon/
wave drew back from the grey beach, my spirit
took upon itself a great sadness, and lifting my
eyes I beheld one, whom I then knew not,
seeking shelter in the cleft of a rock. The same
that had been done him had made dim those
thrones of Charity- his eyes; and as the wings
of a dove, beaten against a wall, fall weak and
frayed, so his wings fell about his perfect body;
hid locks, matted with the sharp moisture of
the sea, hung upon his brow, and the fair
garland on his head was broken, and its leaves
and blossoms fluttered to the earth in the chill
air. He held about him a somber mantle, in
whose folds the fallen autumn leaves had
rested.”
by Andrew Wilton, Tate Gallery Publishing Limited, barbara Bryant, Robert Upstone
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