Symbolism

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• Symbolism
• Fin de Siècle Europe
• Flight from modernity and critique of European
  culture, a reaction against the19th centurys
  dominant ideologies of positivism and faith in
  progress, science and technology.
• Objective optical realism" of Impressionism is
  rejected for the representation of personal
  symbols, memory, imagination, and dreams to
  evoke a sympathetic understanding of the artist's
  Idea in the viewer, as music does.
• "Art has gone through a long period of
  aberration caused by physics, chemistry,
  mechanics, and the study of nature....Artists,
  having lost all their savagery, went astray on
  every path."
• Paul Gauguin

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Symbolism and Decadence Subjective
visions Correspondences Nature is a temple in
which living pillars Sometimes give voice to
confused words Man passes there through forests
of symbols Which look at him with understanding
eyes. Like prolonged echoes mingling in the
distance In a deep and tenebrous unity, Vast as
the dark of night and as the light of
day, Perfumes, sounds, and colors
correspond. Charles Baudelaire,
1857 Baudelaire's Theory of Correspondences in
which objects become signs for the artist's
personal ideas and feelings includes the idea of
"Synesthesia" in which the 5 senses yield
equivalent and concomitant responses, so that a
line can be "noble" or "false (Gauguin), a shade
of yellow, "sour" and clanging (Kandinsky).
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Paul Gauguin, Mallarmé (Nevermore), lithograph
published in a Symbolist art and literature
magazine, 1891
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Henry Fuseli (Anglo-Swiss ,17411825), The
Nightmare, 1781, oil on canvas, 40 x 50 in.,
Detroit Art Institute. 18th Century Romanticism.
The dreamer and the dream. The subjective vision
is a universal subject of art.
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Paul Gauguin, Spirit of the Dead Watching (Manao
Tupapau), 1892. Oil on canvas, 29 x 36 in.,
 Albright Knox Art Gallery. Symbolism. The
dreamer and the dreamed
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Paul Gauguin, Where Do We Come From? What Are We?
Where Are We Going? (D'où Venons Nous / Que
Sommes Nous / Où Allons Nous), oil on burlap, 55
148 in., 18971898. Symbolism and Primitivism
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Paul Sérusier, The Talisman, 1888, oil on cigar
box lidThe Nabis, Pont Aven School of Gauguin
(Studio of the North)

• Remember that a picture, before being a battle
  horse, a nude, an anecdote or whatnot, is
  essentially a flat surface covered with colors
  assembled in a certain order.
• Maurice Denis, Definition of Neo-Traditionalism
  , 1890

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James Ensor (Belgian Symbolist, 1860-1949), Self
Portrait with Masks, 1899
. . . and my suffering, scandalized, insolent,
cruel, malicious masks. . . I have joyfully shut
myself in the solitary milieu ruled by the mask
with a face of violence and brilliance.
James Ensor
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James Ensor, Entry of Christ into Brussels in
1889, 1888, 99 x 169, oil on canvas, The
GettyCompare Dostoyevsky's The Grand Inquisitor
from The Brothers Karamazov
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James Ensor, detail of Entry of Christ into
Brussels in 1889 Compare with (right) Hieronymus
Bosch (Netherlandish c. 1450-1516) Christ
Carrying the Cross, ca. 1515-1516, oil on wood.
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Edvard Munch (Norwegian Symbolist-Expressionist
1863-1944)Self Portrait with Cigarette, 1895,
oil on canvas, 46 x 34 in. Munch lived off and
on in Paris between 1889-1892
http//www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/02/12/arts
/design/20090213-MUNCH-AUDIOSS/index.html Open
link for a short video of the major 2009 Edvard
Munch Influence, Anxiety, Myth Chicago Art
Institute exhibition
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Edvard Munch, The Vampire, oil on canvas, 1893
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Munch, Puberty, 1895, oil on canvas, 60 x 43
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Edvard Munch, The Dance of Life, 1899-1900, oil
on canvas, 49 1/2 x 75, National Gallery, Oslo.
Part of The Frieze of Life, the series that
contained most of Munchs major paintings
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• Munch, The Lonely Ones, woodcut, 1894, and
  painting, 1935

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Edvard Munch, The Scream, 1893, Casein/waxed
crayon and tempera on paper (cardboard), 35 7/8 x
29, National Gallery, Oslo(Left) Munch, The
Scream, 1893, woodcut
I was walking along the road with two of my
friends. The sun set  the sky became a bloody
red. And I felt a touch of melancholy   I stood
still, dead tired  over the blue-black fjord and
city hung blood and tongues of fire. My friends
walked on  I stayed behind   trembling with
fright  I felt the great scream in nature.
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The version of The Scream owned by Norwegian
businessman Petter Olsen, sold at Sotheby's for a
record US 120 million at auction on 2 May 2012
http//nyti.ms/JFOAKb
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Gustav Klimt (Austrian Symbolist / Vienna
Secessionist, 1862-1918), Idyll, 1884, oil on
canvas, Vienna, decoration for the
Kunsthistorisches Museum
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Gustav Klimt, Death Life, oil on canvas, 1916
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Joseph Maria Olbrich (Austrian, 1867-1908)Vienna
Secession building, 1898, Jugendstijl (Austrian
Art Nouveau)
Above the entranceTo every age its art and to
art its freedom
Gustav Klimt was first President of the Vienna
Secession, founded in April 1897 by
Klimt, Koloman Moser,Josef Hoffmann, Joseph Maria
Olbrich
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Gustav Klimt, detail from The Beethoven Frieze
The Hostile Powers, 1902, Casein paint on stucco,
220 x 635 cm, Vienna Secession building, lower
floor
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Gustav Klimt, Beethoven Frieze, (left) 1902
exhibition (right) 2010 photo, Vienna Secession
building lower floor.
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Gustav Klimt, Beethoven Frieze Praise to Joy,
the God-descended, 1902Casein paint on stucco,
220 x 470 cm
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Vienna Secession Building, Jugendstijl details of
front. Designs attributed to Koloman Moser
(Austrian Painter and Designer, 1868-1918)
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Koloman Moser, Bookcase, 1903, made by Caspar
Hrazdil, Vienna, Thuya and Lemon Wood, Brass, and
Glazed Glass, 57 x 39 x 16 in.(right) Moser,
cover design for Ver Sacrum (Rite of Spring),
international Jugenstijl magazine of Vienna
Secession, published from January 1898 to October
1903 . Formation of the The Wiener Werkstätte
(Vienna Workshop)
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Koloman Moser, Stained glass window for St.
Leopolds Church (Kirche Am Steinhof), 1905-7,
the church of Viennas psychiatric hospital, Otto
Wagner, architect.
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The Wiener Werkstätte (Vienna Workshop), an Arts
Crafts Movement, established in 1903, brought
together architects, artists and designers
committed to design (primarily jewelry, fabrics
for clothing, ceramics and pottery, and
furniture). (right) the Stoclet Palace,
Brussels, Belgium, designed by Josef Hoffmann and
built by the Weiner Werkstätte, 1905-11, This
integration of architects, artists, and artisans
makes it an example of Gesamtkunstwerk the first
aim of the Vienna Workshop.
Wiener Werkstätte logo
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Stoclet Palace dining room, marble walls with
frieze, The Tree of Life, by Gustav Klimt, 1909,
a mosaic white and multi-colored majolica,
semi-precious stones and gold tiles. The Vienna
Secessions total work of art
detail
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Auguste Rodin, Gates of Hell, 1880-1917, with
detail (right) Symbolist and Expressionist
sometimes associated with Impressionism because
of the gestural texture of the relief
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Detail of Rodins Gates of Hell Fugit
AmorModernist aesthetics of fragmentation and
theissue of originality (vs. the copy /
reproduction) as a modernist myth
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Sculpture exhibition Paris World Fair 1900
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(left) Auguste Rodin (French Sculptor, 1840-1917)
in studio with collection of antique sculptures
fragments with Balzac study (right) artist among
his fragments
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Rodin, Detail of Gates of Hell with The Thinker
and sourcesMichelangelo and Durer
Michelangelo, Last Judgment, 1535
Night, Michelangelo, 152034
Durer, Melancholia, 1515
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Constantin Brancusi (Romania, 1876-1957) (left)
Vitellius, 1898(right) Brancusi in Paris studio,
1933The Saint of Montparnasse
Brancusi was an admirer of 17th c. Tibetan monk
and poet, Milarepa of the Himalayas
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(left) Constantin Brancusi, Sleep, 1908(right)
Medardo Rosso (Italian 1858-1917) Ecce Puer,
1896We are nothing but a play of light (Rosso)
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Constantine Brancusi, Child Supplicant, bronze
1906 and Newborn, 1915 (right)
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Constantin Brancusi, Sleeping Muse, life-size,
bronze, 1910
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Constantin Brancusi, The Origin of the World, 1924
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Brancusis quest for the essential (true) sign
is shared by Henri Matisse and many other
modernists. Constantin Brancusi, clockwise from
upper left Supplicant Child, 1906 Sleep, 1908
Sleeping Muse 1910 Newborn, 1915 and two
versions of The Origin of the World, 1920s
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Constantin Brancusi, The Kiss, 1907 version
(left) and the Memorial park at Tîrgu Jiu,
Romania showing the The Gate of the Kiss, 1937
and part of contemplation group
The Kiss, which symbolizes the marriage of the
material and the spiritual, life and death, and
in general the dialectical unification of the
dualities of human experience
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Brancusi, Endless Column, Memorial park at Tirjiu
Jiucast iron with copper coating, 1937
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Brancusi, Endless Column, (left) under
re-construction, 1999(center) Segments of
Endless Column(right) Donald Judd, (US
Minimalist sculptor, 1928-1994) Untitled, 1970
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Constantin Brancusi, Bird in Space, 1925, marble,
stone, and wood Brancusis Paris studio 1927
photographs by BrancusiAll my life I have
sought the essence of flight. Dont look for
mysteries. I give you pure joy. Look at the
sculptures until you see them. Those closest to
God have seen them