Fin de Siècle - Symbolist Art of the late 19th Century

Vincent van Gogh: A Symbolist Life

The following is an extract from a lecture 'VINCENT VAN GOGH: A SYMBOLIST LIFE', given by ALAN TAYLOR in April of 2005.

It was part of the TALISMAN SYMBOLIST STUDIES ongoing programme of lectures and study mornings on Symbolist Art and related subjects held in London. In this extract Alan Taylor first quotes Albert Aurier, from an article in which Aurier described the symbolist characteristics of Vincent's work. Taylor then goes on to give his own interesting and concise thoughts on the meaning of the word - 'Symbol'.

(Alan Taylor is a lecturer on fine art, an artist, and a psychotherapist, living and working in North London).

- Lindsay Wells

The extract follows:

The qualities which Van Gogh brought to his painting were analysed perceptively by the French art critic, Albert Aurier (1865–1892). Aurier was also a poet and member of the Symbolists group. In the first article ever written on Vincent Van Gogh, which appeared in the
inaugural issue of Mercure de France in January 1890, he wrote,

"In the case of Vincent Van Gogh …. his choice of subjects, the constant harmony of the most excessive colours, the honesty in the study of his characters, the continuous search for the essential meaning of each object, a thousand significant details unquestionably proclaim his profound and almost childlike sincerity, his great love of nature and of truth - of his own truth... This can be seen in the almost orgiastic excesses of everything that he painted; he is a fanatic, an enemy of bourgeois sobriety, and of trifling details... He is no doubt very conscious of pigment, of its importance and beauty, but also, and most frequently, he considers this enchanting pigment only as a marvellous language destined to express an idea. Almost always he is a symbolist... feeling the constant urge to clothe his ideas in precise, ponderable, tangible forms, in corporeal and material envelopes. There lies in practically all his canvases, for those who know how to find it, a thought, an idea. And this idea, the essential synthesis of his work, is also at the same time its efficient and final cause. He had for a long time cherished the idea of inventing an art of painting that was very simple and popular, almost child-like, capable of touching humble people who do not care for subtlety."

Aurier concluded that great works of art should simultaneously be:

1. ideist, that is have an idea,
2. symbolic,
3. synthetist, that is have congruent forms,
4. subjective,
5. superbly decorative.

What do I mean by the word/term, symbol?

Philosophers, of course, have also envisioned nature as a reconciliation of the harmony of opposites, and conceived of art as a demonstration of these ideas. The aesthetic theories with which the symbolists became familiar are ancient Greek ideas about the effect on the psyche of forms and colours. The correspondences that bind the universe together make symbolism possible. The word symbol derives from the Greek roots "syn", meaning together, and "ballien", to throw. "Symbolon" was the name given to a bone broken by friends into two parts that were kept as tokens of their emotional union, and ‘symbol’ has therefore always signified both the physical and spiritual aspects in joining together separate parts to a unified whole. The symbol restores something incomplete to its original state of integration by reconnecting the individual to the world by synthesizing matter and spirit, form and idea. Most cultures have perceived symbols as having religious implications. A symbol conceals something yet is a revelation. A symbol is an unconscious invention in answer to a conscious problem, and a very powerful communication, such as for example, the Christian sacrament.

A visit to the Gustave Moreau Museum

This summer I had the good fortune of finally visiting the mecca of Symbolist art: the Gustave Moreau Museum at 14, rue de La Rochefoucauld in Paris. The intimate interior of this lovely but unassuming building has been preserved precisely according to the artist's own instructions, so that the effect upon the visitor is one of immediately stepping back in time, into Moreau's private world. The first floor preserves the artist's apartment, with its remarkable collection of exotic artifacts, drawings, self-portraits and collected works by the likes of Rembrandt. The remaining two floors, once the artist's studio, now collect many of his great masterpieces as well as thousands of drawings and watercolors.

My pictures of actual Moreau paintings are few, as they were quite difficult to capture in all their glory (flash photography
was strictly forbidden and glare from the natural light cast on the oil canvases ruined the rest). My small collection of photos from the visit may be found here

Ghosts of Women and Women of Ghosts

There are Women walking slowly between shrub trees’ trunks, playing in distant meadows seen as if from behind a widescreen, sitting in front of cream-white fountains. They exist and do not exist at the same time; they are ghosts from the past and echoes from the future, which had appeared in a strange dream whose revelations we still expect in real life. The watcher is mirrored in their eyes and sees, that all these women bear the watcher’s face – it is almost impossible to catch a glimpse of their own faces. It is unbearable to look at these sighing, distant Women, it is also painful to take one’s eyes off them.

]]> Who are they, where are they coming from, where are they going? What does it mean, when they put on their amazing, incredibly gorgeous and grandiose dresses, although the only eyes watching them are the eyes of autumn wind, which blows heavily through their hair? Why are their smiles to the utmost degree sad, although there are pearls of desire rolled in the corner of their eyes and shining like a poisonous liquid?...
Dante Gabriel Rossetti began to paint his worried, ghastly ladies after the death of his wife. That is why all these forever wandering women bear the same face, have the same expression and the same cloud of read hair crowning their heads: endlessly mirrored echoes from the past signify desperate calls for the bride, who – alas! – is there in this world no more... They belong neither to Heaven nor to Earth, they are still searching for their place, they do not even know, that they exist somewhere between Life and Death. They cannot speak, they cannot hear – they utter not a single sound, but their appearance is overhwelming, they pass through withered gardens and give unheard sighs under the rusty moon...
Although it may sound a bit odd, these are the ideal Symbolistic Women. This very state they are in is the most moving feature, which cannot be caught and named. They are neither live nor dead, they are weeping in the darkness of the night and they are whispering incantations in the daylight, although one cannot see their faces clearly.
These Women belong to no-one and nothing belongs to them either. They do nothing, make nothing, dream nothing. The mere sense of their existence is to exist in someone else’s eyes. They are there only to be looked at...
Lord Ewald, the main hero of Adam’s “Eve of the Future”, begs Edison to create an almost miraculous woman for him – an artificial incarnation of a certain miss Alice. Ewald cannot stand his unbearable passion towards his untouchable beloved, who is as long desireable, as long she stays behind a kind of mist. Edison, not only as a man of his word, but in the first place as a genial engineer, inventor and expert in all sciences, creates a charming woman, who thinks, speaks, who is responsible and who behaves to the utmost degree as a human being. And what is the proof that she is so natural as “real women”? These very words that she utters before a spectacle: “I love everything, that is artificial” – and thus it becomes obvious, that she is so similar to all those live women, who claim that art and flourish (and everything that turns one’s life into an endless fantasy, as, for instance, Huysmans in his “A rebours” brilliantly displays) is the core of life in this poor old “real world”... Artificial being with artificial opinions is as genuine as never before...
All symbolistic women bear a great Enigma inside. There are no men who would be able to destroy Woman’s might by ascertaining the deepest secret. Some are too old and cannot even climb the scree to cast themselves at the Sphinx Woman’s feet. Some are too young not to catch fire at first sight and burn in flames of passion and desire. Only if one is sur enough to bear the Sphinx’ look, one may try to answer the question: “I am thy secret. Thy secret is man himself”... But only the main hero of a certain Moreau painting is strong enough not to become another Sphinx’ victim. And what about those, who died out of “lovehatred” and suffered from “devilinnocence” exhaled with incredible might by their love objects: by mysterious, ghastly, remorseless, invisible, lurking Women?...

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
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.”

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”
by Andrew Wilton, Tate Gallery Publishing Limited, barbara Bryant, Robert Upstone

Simeon Solomon Research Archive by Roberto C. Ferrari http://www.fau.edu/solomon/

Wordless Adventures with Arnold Böcklin

Due to the words of Arnold Böcklin, a painting should be as meaningful as a poem and should leave an impression as a piece of music. Sergei Rachmaninov, a great eclectic Russian composer, created a nostalgic, dark symphonic poem entitled “Isle of the Dead” after one of Böcklin’s most famous pieces. Then came the day, when David Garrett wrote a short story, which was also entitled “Isle of the Dead”, and the author did not forget to add a few certain remarks in the introduction to his work: one should contemplate Böcklin’s painting for a while, then dim the lights and follow the first chords of Rachmaninov’s composition, and then start to read Garrett’s story. Although I really liked the idea and I have tried to follow all the instructions, I had a funny feeling that there was something missing.

]]> Then I suddenly realised, what was missing – and what I ascertained, made me quite confused. There was too much material to contemplate and the imagination was somewhat bound to a particular place, having no more freedom to move. The effect was disturbing: I felt as if there was something lacking, although the situation was entirely different, while I got even more than I needed to feel the atmosphere provoked by Böcklin’s painting.

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...