#7 SYMBOLISM AND ART NOUVEAU

SYMBOLISM AND ART NOUVEAU

As you probably remember, Vincent van Gogh died in 1890. It's almost as if his death marked the passing of an era, because in the 1890s a new era began. The 1890s were later dubbed the "Gay 90s" because there was a festive atmosphere in high society. Many people had become enriched by the industrial revolution and colonialism, and they wanted the good life that had always belonged to the aristocracy.

In England and America, this period was marked by an interest in celebrity for celebrity's sake. The frivolous nature of society led critics to call it decadent. Some artists and writers took up the name and started the Decadent movement. It was the fin de siècle, the turn of the century — a time of change, a time of throwing away the old and taking up the new.

One of the most famous and notorious figures from this period was playwright Oscar Wilde, who was a celebrity before he ever did anything noteworthy in literature. He associated with artists and promoted the idea of aestheticism, an appreciation of what is beautiful in art, furnishings, and literature. The aestheticists believed that life should be lived to its utmost and that beauty was the most important of all ideals.

OBJECTIVES

Discuss the work of the Pre-Raphaelites.
Define Symbolism and discuss its impact on art.
Characterize the work of Edvard Munch and Gustav Klimt.
Describe the Art Nouveau movement.

VOCABULARY

SYMBOLISM AND THE PRE-RAPHAELITES

Portrait of John Ruskin

"Better the rudest work that tells a story or records a fact, than the richest without meaning." – John Ruskin

Not all artists of the nineteenth century were painting in the Realist, Impressionist, or Post-Impressionist style. A group of English painters who called themselves the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood sought to represent historical and literary subjects in a highly detailed and realistic manner. They were tired of the imitators of Raphael, who dominated the academies, and they were not interested in the ugliness of the industrial, urban world. Instead, they combined realistic depictions with symbolic or allegorical subjects.

Highly influenced by the famous art critic John Ruskin, they were unimpressed with the artificial manner of art being taught in the academies. They admired the spirituality and idealism of the past, especially the periods of the Middle Ages and Early Renaissance.

Take a visit to The Liverpool Museum's website and look at this famous picture by John Everett Millais. Be sure to read the accompanying text.

The Pre-Raphaelites influenced the Symbolist movement that occurred at the turn of the century.

Symbolism

"Tell all the truth, but tell it slant." Emily Dickinson

When you hear the word "symbolism," you probably think of art and literature in general. You've been trained to see universal symbols in works of art and in great writing. But when we speak of Symbolism (with a capital S) in the context of art history, we are referring to an artistic and literary movement that occurred between 1885 and 1910.

The Symbolism art movement began in France, where a group of artists rejected both Realism and Impressionism. They tended to be influenced by the Romantic tradition's fascination with mysticism and sublime emotion.

The Symbolists were not interested in descriptive work as much as in wanting to evoke emotion through the use of line, color, and contour. According to the movement, the connotations and concept of a work was more important than its artistic style and form.

Through the use of symbols and dreamlike imagery, Symbolist artists created a visual language of the soul. Do you remember when you learned about icons in your studies of religious art? Those icons (the cross, the fish, the faithful dog, etcetera) were symbols that had a widespread meaning. But the symbols used by the Symbolist artists were not universal. They were private and individual — open to interpretation.

The goal of the Symbolist artists was to capture absolute truths, but to do so indirectly. Symbolists portrayed mysterious images of "nature, human activities and other elements of the real world in a highly metaphorical and suggestive manner."

SYMBOLISM – MOREAU AND MUNCH

The most well-known French Symbolist painter, Gustave Moreau, portrayed mythological subjects in watercolor. His Symbolist work inspired later Surrealist painters, and as a professor at the École des Beaux Arts (School of Fine Arts), he taught future talents such as Henri Matisse, whom you will study in the next lesson.

Oedipus and the Sphinx by Gustave Moreau

According to Mario Praz, "Moreau's figures are ambiguous. . . all his characters are linked by subtle bonds of relationship... lovers look as though they were related, brothers as though they were lovers, men have the faces of virgins, virgins the faces of youths; the symbols of Good and Evil are entwined and equivocally confused." (The Romantic Agony.)

Symbolism was not limited to art or to France. It spread across Europe and also to literature and philosophy as well.

Edvard Munch (1863-1944)

The Kiss (1897-1898) Edvard Munch

You may already be familiar with Munch's most famous painting, " The Scream ." The image is unmistakable and unforgettable.

Munch was a Norwegian artist. His work was based on his obsession with grief and loss. This can be traced to his childhood when he lost both his mother and sister to tuberculosis.

Munch studied and worked in Paris and later worked in Berlin as well. He was influenced by Impressionism and Post-Impressionism, but as he matured, his painting became more personal and expressive of his inner demons. Not surprisingly, many of his paintings deal with illness and death.

In 1892, in Berlin, an exhibition of his paintings so shocked the authorities that the show was closed. Undeterred, Munch and his sympathizers worked throughout the 1890s toward the development of what became known as "German Expressionist art." His paintings can be said to be a bridge between the Symbolists and the later Expressionists.

After terrible bouts of anxiety, Munch lived out the remainder of his life in a state of tranquility, a tranquility reflected in his later murals with brightly colored landscapes.

Munch's etchings, lithographs, and woodcuts are considered a major force in modern graphic art. The style is:

simple
direct
vigorous

Look at Munch's painting, Vampire , 1895. Originally titled Love and Pain, it was believed by some to be a reference to Munch's illicit visits to prostitutes, depicting women as devouring. Others interpreted it as a macabre fantasy about the death of his favorite sister. Munch always insisted it was nothing more than a woman kissing a man on the neck.

SYMBOLISM AND KLIMT

Gustav Klimt, Apfelbaum I

Gustav Klimt lived in the Austrian city of Vienna. He and other artists founded the Vienna Secession movement in 1897, as a rejection of the staid (boring) Austrian art world of the time. The Secessionists were "seceding" from the conservative, moralistic Fine Arts Academy. Austrian artistic life revolved around the baroque history painting of the academy.

The movement also included architects, one of whom built the group's exhibition house, known as the Viennese Secession building. Later simply called the Secession, the building became an icon of the movement. Simplicity and a distinctive ornamental dome were marks of its design.

The Secession movement mirrored culture, as Vienna was struggling to break with the traditions of the nineteenth century. Political strife was mounting during the late 1800s, but the patriarchal authority of emperor Franz Joseph brought permanence and stability to Austria.

After 1898, Klimt's work moved toward greater innovativeness and imagination, taking on a more decorative, symbolic aspect.

His paintings can be characterized by the following:

flat unshadowed surfaces
translucent, mosaiclike colors and forms
sinuous, curling background lines and patterns

Look at his painting of an apple tree above and notice that while the tree and flowers are identifiable, the picture is decorative rather than realistic.

Some of his paintings such as The Kiss use gold leaf as decoration. In that painting, which you will observe in your assessment, only parts of the human bodies are depicted. The rest of the painting is a shimmering flat pattern.

Klimt's work highlights the tension between two-dimensional flat surfaces and three-dimensionality so prized by the Realists. The opulence (the gold and jewel-like decorations) of the images capture the feeling of the era's lingering decadence.

THE SECESSIONIST MOVEMENT AND THE BEGINNINGS OF EXPRESSIONISM

Egon Schiele (1890-1918)

Self portrait

Egon Schiele, an Austrian painter, followed in Gustav Klimt’s footsteps. Using angular lines lacking precision, Schiele painted lonely emaciated forms; in spite of this, however, his male and female nudes took on an erotic quality. Like Klimt, Schiele thought there was a spiritual dimension to sexual ecstasy, and his depictions of the female nude were projections of male sexual feeling.

Schiele was obsessed with the self, a modern preoccupation. His many self-portraits showed that he was probing his subconscious, specifically its dark side. Although he died from the flu at a young age, Schiele’s unique style of strokes and “splotches of sharp color” helped him create his legacy.

Art Nouveau

This book-cover by Arthur Mackmurdo for Wren's City Churches (1883)

is often cited as the first realization of Art Nouveau.

According to Earl Powell, director of the National Gallery of Art, the early 20th century "was an age of innovation, introducing modern conveniences such as the car and the telephone, electricity, the department store, and the skyscraper. Cities were mushrooming, nationalism was on the rise, religion was being questioned, and the role of women was shifting. Art Nouveau – the new art – reflected these transformations in a dynamic, linear style that emphasized individuality through a decorative vocabulary based on nature."

Art Nouveau means "new art" in French, and this movement began, where else, but in Paris. The artists involved in the movement wanted to create art based on natural forms, such as the twining plant, and they infused all decorative arts with the style.

Visit the Anatomy of an Exhibition at the National Gallery of Art's website and click on the following audio files. You may also read the text:

Tiffany Studios Wisteria table lamp
Victor Horta Tassel House, Brussels

LET'S REVIEW!

In this lesson, you have covered the following topics:

Pre-Raphaelites rejected the urban contemporary subjects of the Realists in favor of mythological subjects; their style was very detailed and tended to include symbolic meaning.
The Symbolists were influenced by this style to paint in a highly personal style, not depicting an outer reality but depicting an inner reality.
Edvard Munch's inner reality was one of grief and despair as characterized by his paintings The Scream and his lithographs such as The Vampire.
In Austria, Gustav Klimt formed the Secessionists as a reaction against the conservative Fine Arts Academy; he and Egon Schiele shocked society's strict moral codes with their depictions of sexuality.
Art Nouveau brought art into the house in the form of architectural design and home furnishings.
Art Nouveau was based on natural elements recreated as artistic designs.

Take the following quiz before moving on.

#7 SYMBOLISM AND ART NOUVEAU QUIZ

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