Fin de Siècle - Articles, Lectures and Reflections

When You are examining a random Böcklin painting – certainly, when You are really interested in such forms of expression as paintings – You may have many associations that intermingle with each other, leave a trace in Your memory and then suddenly disappear, although they seem to have been very familiar. With similar situations we all are dealing, when we try to recall the whole dream catching only its last “ray” which appears all of a sudden during the day, provoked by something which actually had nothing in common with any plots of the very dream. This phenomenon may even be introduced, in a somewhat witty way, as a “symbolistic symptom” – while such factors were treasured by the symbolistic painters to the utmost degree. Paintings should recall something which is not at all precise or easy to explain, but which on the other hand is very well known and seems to come from the inside of the watcher. Thus, not only “beauty is in the eye of the beholder”, but also the very meaning of each painting lies in the depths of emotional attitude of the person who contemplates the work.

Impressions, which are in such a way “forced” by the overwhelming power of a Böcklin painting, should not be immediately “memorised” or transferred into large, meaningful projections – or else they will be destroyed. As Victor Shklovsky mentioned, pieces of art should be for us sources of pleasure, but let us contemplate the art works and not pay attention to the mere pleasure itself, or else will it be suddenly gone...

There are endless ways to enjoy Böcklin paintings. It is so easy, to “feel oneself into” the mood of each painting, that it is... almost impossible to do. We should capture a reflection and then take a look at all the other details, and make in such a way a journey into our long-forgotten thoughts, but we should handle our impressions with care and make such “Thought-journeys” without thinking, so to speak. We should enjoy odd shades of blue, red and brown having taken a look at the sky in “Spring Day”, but we should not ask ourselves: “what does it mean, that I feel the coldness of this day, although at first sight everything in this picture seems to be warm?”. We should be able to hear the music of the waves in “Sea Idyll”, but we should not concentrate for too long at the details of this horrifying (against its title) painting, trying to imagine various tunes which would correspond with the image. We have all the “ingredients” to prepare enthralling “intellectual meals” having Böcklin pictures as a basis, but we should dose them with extreme care and in such a way as to use the paintings and not our intellectual “tools”, paying attention to them and treating them as the end-effect of the chosen paintings itself...
That is why it will be remembered, that although Garrett’s short story is a good tale, we all are able to invent better ones – but as long, as we won’t grab for words nor search for their meaning. Let the impression remain untouched and then make another step into the depths of each amazing picture, where there are darkened villas by the sea, exhausted ruins soaking in night rain, mythical creatures playing amid the reeds or in cascades of black water...
Our impressions will be therefore dealt with as fragile dreams. But is it not the very essence and beauty of our dreams, that we cannot record them and then watch carefully the minutest details?... And still there is a chance of daydreaming over and over, while it is enough to take a look once more at “Bomb House Near Kehl”, “Triton and Nereid” or “Isle of the Dead” and to follow the unheard sounds and unthought thoughts which we let loose in the moment we fix our eyes upon Böcklin’s atmospheric works, when we want to open again the gates to this world where everything is at the same time well-known and newly electrifying...