Symbolism munch

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ART HISTORY 4450 Symbolism

Symbolism (c. 1885-1915) • term: applied to both visual & literary arts (e.g., Rimbaud) • aim: not to see things, but to see through them to a significance and reality far deeper • definition: subjective & free interpretation of nature – reject observation of optical world – favor fantasy forms based on imagination – color, line, & shapes used as symbols of personal emotions, rather than to conform to optical image • function: artist as visionary (re: “avant garde”) – to achieve seer’s insight, artists must become deranged – systematically unhinge & confuse everyday faculties of sense and reason

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Odilon Redon (1840-1916) • • •

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biography: born to prosperous family – 1870: served in Franco-Prussian War training: fails entrance exams at École des Beaux-Arts – briefly studied painting w/ Gérôme career: relatively unknown until 1884 – cult novel by Huysmans featured decadent aristocrat who collected R's drawings aesthetic: noirs (visionary) & coloré tradition aim: ambiguous and undefinable – "My drawings inspire, and are not to be defined. They place us, as does music, in the ambiguous realm of the undetermined" – “… [to bring] to life, in a human way, improbable beings and making them live according to the laws of probability, by putting – as far as possible – logic of visible at service of invisible” media: charcoal; lithography; oils subject matter: “fantastical” – strange amoeboid creatures, insects, plants w/ human heads, etc. themes: fantastical & mythological scenes

(Left) Redon’s Symbolist Eye Balloon (1878); and (right) Crying Spider (1881)

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(Left) Redon’s Symbolist Eye Balloon (c. 1895) vs. (right) Daumier’s Nadar (c. 1860)

Redon

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Cyclops (1914) –

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subject: mythological • Polyphemus & Galatea • narrative  loving moment vs. jealously theme: psychological • conscious vs. unconscious • waking vs. sleeping tone: haunting brushwork: painterly • Impressionist dabs vs. PostImpressionist logic composition: dynamic color: vibrant • whimsical • harmonious perspective: aerial

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(Left) Redon’s Symbolist (1914) vs.

Carracci’s Italian “Classicizing” Baroque (c. 1600)

Henri Rousseau (1844-1910) •

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biography: – served in French army – bureaucrat in Paris Customs Office (1871-1893) • took up painting as a hobby • accepted early retirement in 1893 to devote himself to art training: self-taught aesthetic: “naïve” career: suffered ridicule; endured poverty themes: jungle scenes sources: – claimed inspiration from his military experiences in Mexico – in fact, sources were illustrated books & visits to zoo/botanical gardens in Paris

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Rousseau’s Sleeping Gypsy (1897)

Rousseau’s The Dream (1910)

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James Ensor (1860-1949) • • •

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nationality: Belgian training:, Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts in Brussels (1877 to 1880) personal crisis: – family forbade him to marry woman he loved – plunged to depths of despair – returned to painting religious subjects – sold contents of his studio in 1890s career: avant-garde – during late 19C, his work rejected as scandalous • challenged rules of perspective • free use of brushwork, color, and space to enhance psychological impact – Les XX (the Twenty) • goal to promote new artistic developments throughout Europe • group’s leader/founder • treated harshly by art critics • disbanded after a decade mood: macabre – people shown wearing masks – cannot distinguish their true faces

Ensor •

Skeletons Warming Themselves – –

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date: 1889 inscription: “The fire is out. Will you find any tomorrow?”

• fire  inspiration or patronage • reflects his own difficult economic condition setting: artist’s studio • vertical stripe of white paint at left probably edge of ambitious canvas theme: allegorical (Dance of Death) • vanities of profession or social type • satirizing painters – studio littered w/ skulls from previous failed efforts » X-ray photographs reveal another finished picture beneath this scene

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Ensor’s Christ Entering the City of Brussels (1889)

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The Intrigue (1911) –

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late career: won acclaim/respectability • Knighted; given title of Baron • 1908 publication confirmed his standing and reputation aesthetic: macabre narrative: revives horror of his dashed hopes for marriage • sister’s engagement to Chinese art dealer caused scandal in E’s home town • artist, in retaliation, depicts town gossips – disguised in their masks – point, stare, & laugh at couple setting: ambiguous outdoor landscape figures: grotesquely masked composition: frieze-like color: vibrant brushwork: painterly

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Edvard Munch (1863-1944) • •

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nationality: Norwegian biography: childhood and family tragedy – mother dies at age of five (5) – favorite sister dies age fifteen (15) – mid-age crisis: profound depression • spent eight months in sanatorium in Denmark career: spent several years in FR/Germany • 1896  moved to Paris • 1896  returns to Norway • 1899  traveled to Italy • 1900  moved to Berlin • 1902  displayed works thematically at Berlin Succession aim: to describe “modern psychic life” – powerlessness over love & death – emotional states of jealousy, loneliness, fear, desire, & despair themes: obsessed by sickness, insanity, and death aesthetic: influenced by Post-Impressionists – color, line & figural distortions

Munch

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Puberty (c. 1895) – – – – – – –

theme: ages of life subject: biographical (?)

• death of sister composition: stable color: muted light/shadow: evenly distributed figure: realistic pose: frontal; modest

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Munch

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Madonna (1884-95) – –

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theme: biblical subject: biographical (?)

• death of mother • erotic, pre-Freudian wish fulfillment (?) composition: stable • enlivened by – Classically arranged upraised elbow – tilted head color: muted w/ primary accents light/shadow: evenly distributed figure: realistic pose: Classical sensuousness

Munch’s Symbolist Madonna (1895) vs.

Hellenistic Greek Sleeping Satyr (c. 250 BCE)

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Munch

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The Scream (1893) –

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theme: from a series “Frieze of Life” • described by himself as 'a poem of life, love and death’ subject: mental anguish aesthetic: abstract • distortion of colors and form composition: dynamic color: vibrant perspective: mannered linear & aerial

Munch’s The Dance of Life (1899-1900)

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Gustav Klimt (1862-1918) • •

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ethnicity: Austrian (Vienna) significance: Vienna Secession (1897) – Motto: “To every age its art and to art its freedom" – reaction to stifling chokehold of the Academy – aimed to bring more abstract and purer forms to designs – target of violent criticism • images sometimes displayed behind screen to avoid corrupting youths’ sensibilities – Klimt w/drew eight years later due to dismay of strong trend towards naturalism themes: (sexual) desire and anxiety aesthetic: decorative – flattened spatial order – sumptuous surfaces/tracery – surrounds figures in gold background – luxurious forms/figures – vivid juxtaposition of colors • derived from Rococo

(Left) Klimt’s Nude Veritas (1899) and (right) Portrait of Emilie Floge (1902)

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Klimt

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Unchastity, Lust & Gluttony (1902) – – –

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theme: carnal desire figures: contrast between ideal & grotesque aesthetic: decorative • sumptuous surfaces/patterns • surrounds figures in gold background spatial order: flattened composition: blends stable/dynamic, undulating forms color: vibrant light/shadow: negated

Klimt’s The Kiss (1907)

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IMAGE INDEX •

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REDON. (Left) Eye-Balloon (1878), Charcoal, 42.2 x 33.2 cm., The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York; and (right) The Crying Spider (1881), Charcoal, 49.5 x 37.5 cm., Private collection, The Netherlands.

(Left) Redon’s Symbolist Eye Balloon (c. 1895); and (right) Daumier’s Nadar (c. 1860).

REDON. The Cyclops (c. 1914), Oil on canvas, 64 x 51 cm., Museum Kroller-Mueller, Otterlo, The Netherlands.

(Left) REDON’s Symbolist Cyclops (c. 1895); and (right) CARRACCI’s Italian Baroque (c. 1600) Polyphemus and Ariadne (c. 1600).

ROUSSEAU. Myself, Portrait-Landscape (1890), Oil on canvas, 56 1/4 x 43 1/4 in., National Gallery, Prague.

ROUSSEAU. The Sleeping Gypsy (1897), Oil on canvas, 4’3" x 6'7"; The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York.

ROUSSEAU. The Dream (1910), Oil on canvas, 6' 8 1/2" x 9' 9 1/2“, The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York.

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ENSOR. Self Portrait.

ENSOR. Skeletons Warming Themselves (1889) Oil on canvas, 29 1/2 x 235/8 in., Kimball Art Museum, Fort Worth, TX. ENSOR. Christ’s Entry into Brussels (1889), Oil on canvas, 99 1/2 x 169 1/2 in. 5/ 8 in., J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles.

ENSOR. The Intrigue (1911), Oil on canvas, 37 ¼ x 44 ¼ in., Gift of Mrs. John S. Pillsbury, Sr., Minneapolis Institute of Art. MUNCH. Self-Portrait with Burning Cigarette (1895), Oil on canvas, 110.5 x 85.5 cm., National Gallery, Oslo.

MUNCH. Puberty (c. 1895), Oil on canvas, 59 5/8 x 43 1/4 in., Nasjonalgalleriet (National Gallery), Oslo, Norway.

MUNCH. Madonna (1895), Oil on canvas, 91 x 70.5 cm., National Gallery, Oslo, Norway.

(Left) MUNCH’s Symbolist Madonna (c. 1895); and Hellenistic Greek Sleeping Satyr (c. 250 BC).

MUNCH. The Scream (c. 1895), Casein/waxed crayon and tempera on cardboard, 35 7/8 x 29 in., Nasjonalgalleriet (National Gallery), Oslo.

MUNCH. The Dance of Life (1899-1900), Oil on canvas, 49 1/2 x 75 in., National Gallery, Oslo.

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IMAGE INDEX •

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MUNCH. The Scream (c. 1895), Casein/waxed crayon and tempera on cardboard, 35 7/8 x 29 in., Nasjonalgalleriet (National Gallery), Oslo.

MUNCH. The Dance of Life (1899-1900), Oil on canvas, 49 1/2 x 75 in., National Gallery, Oslo.

Photograph of Gustav Klimt.

(Left) KLIMT’s Nude Veritas (1899), Oil on canvas, 252 x 56 cm., Theatre Collection of the National Library, Vienna; and (right) Portrait of Emilie Floge (1902), Oil on canvas, 71 1/4 x 26 1/8 in., Historisches Museum der Stadt Wien, Vienna.

KLIMT. Beethoven Frieze: central narrow wall (detail): Unchastity, Lust and Gluttony (1902), Casein paint on plaster, 220 cm high, Austrian Gallery, Vienna.

KLIMT. The Kiss (1907-08), Oil and gold on canvas, 180 x 180 cm., Osterreichische Galerie, Vienna.

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