many of the works discussed: certainly considered and creative, but doesn't add up to much, I appreciated the discussion of Ophelia and found the other explorations wanting, If you were ever a goth kid but hated sexy vampires, eyeliner, and electronic dance goth clubs, and you didn't know what you really liked, well then this book will tell you everything you liked.
If you're into death/black metal or Christian Death, you will find many album covers in this book, Including the very cover. Great introduction to the decadent artists in all mediums, but mostly painting, Gustave Moreau is your GOD! An excellent journey through the eerie and often disconcerting world of Decadent art, Using Moreau's work as a point of departure, Jullian introduces the reader to the leitmotifs used by Decadent artists, These include mythology, flower symbolism, Byzantium, spiritualism, and homosexuality, An interesting and useful feature of this book is the generous sampling of quotations from various Decadents provided at the end of the text it allows one a doorway into what these artists thought they were doing and why.
Im not sure who the target audience for this book is, . . Jullian references so many artists and their works without providing an accompanying picture that I assume the reader is just supposed to be familiar with the entire oeuvre of all Decadent artists.
Although if thats the case, why read this book, which is more of a list of artists and themes than it is a synthesis or analysis of key features of Decadent art I loved the pictures but didnt get as much out of the text as I had hoped.
Informative, entertaining, and frustratingguide to the French painters of thes ands who were influenced by the PreRaphaelites and reactive against Impressionism and realism.
Among the familiar artists are many discussed in a paragraph or two, often teasingly and incompletely, The author does a fine job of recreating the era through contemporary quotes from Huysmans, Wilde, Verlaine, and other litterateurs and Jullian's history and critical appraisal set the art in brilliant context.
The most frustrating element of this book though is a paucity of color plates and the apparent disconnection between the placement of line illustrations and the surrounding text.
A picture described in loving detail may be, apparently randomly, inserted in grainy black and whitepages away from its description or may not be included at all.
An index of artists and works helps a little but, for a book primarily concerned with visionary, colorful art, the presentation is sorely lacking.
Fortunately the elusive paintings can be found with a few clicks online and the book makes an excellent guide for an
afternoon of online gallery hopping.
Fascinating look at a section of the art world that has always resonated with me, The book added a lot of connective tissue to my patchy knowledge and introduced or reacquainted me with many artists of whom I am inordinately fond.
Odilon Redon, Moreau, Bocklin. One artist whose work I knew slightly, I learned much more of, the Dutch/Balinese Jan Toorop, His atmospheric symbolist imagery, heavily inflected with Javanese and Balinese style, I have become deeply enamoured of, Having been originally published inthe book also links the movement through to hippies and surrealism in ways that give me insights into the development of my own tastes.
Even H P Lovecraft gets a mention, Written at a time when fin de siècle Symbolist art was being rediscovered, Jullians book is a scholarly and often witty look at this mystical, fantastic art.
Probably, if youre interested in Symbolist art youll want to buy books for the pictures, This one features mostly black and white reproductions, with a few scattered colour plates but its text is one of the better on the subject read it for that, not the pictures though Jullian has managed to select a lot of images not usually reproduced in books of Symbolist art.
There have been few movements in the history of Western art as strange as that of the Decadents of the last quarter of theth Century.
While public attention was preoccupied with the Impressionists, many painters were reacting in a totally different, . . and more imaginative way to the grim horrors of the new industrial society around them, The roots of the Decadents, as these artists came to call themselves, were to be found in the poetic visions of the English PreRaphaelites of thes.
Their first great Continental exponent was a brilliant and neglected painter of the fantastic, Gustave Moreau their most obvious expression was 'Art Nouveau,' a style closely interwoven with sinuous and halfunconscious eroticism.
Philippe Julian takes the reader on a conducted tour through the bizarre symbolism of this halfforgotten world, introducing him to a large number of writers and artists.
Many of these artists Moreau Toorop, the brilliant halfBalinese, halfDutch painter and draftsman the French Odilon Redon, the great master of Symbolist art the Viennese Klimt and the Belgian Khnopff.
. . have been known for some time to a few enthusiasts In this lively study their inventiveness and skill are explored afresh, and their fantastic imaginings and weird symbolism exposed to a sometimes ironic light.
Proud of their romantic appearance, extravagant habits, and outrageous conduct, the artists of the 'mauve nineties' drew on a wide range of writers for their ideas, including not only Poe, Baudelaire, Swinburne, and Wilde, but also less wellknown and stranger poets.
The book ends with a short anthology of Symbolist themes taken from these writers, andpictures drawn from museums and collection in the Europe and the U.
S. Excellent overview of the symbolist art and literary movement, This was one of the first serious books on the subject, written in the earlysa time whenth century romantic and decadent art was just beginning to be retrieved from the ash heap where it was consigned for most of theth century by the modernist aesthetic or maybe the modernist lack of aesthetic.
Well worth tracking down for anyone interested in the period, I got hold of this book from a bazaar I had a copy earlier, Although it is a big beaten up, the text is good and the illustrations fine, The book is an excellent platform for anyone interested in nineteenth and early twentieth century art and thought esp Symbolism and the various cults that determined the findesiècle.
I've read this several times, Need to track down a copy of my own! The strength of this book is the attention given to the literary influence on this variably fashionable but consistently interesting period of creativity.
There are some scholarly errors here and by no means should this be considered the cornerstone work of the period.
For example the author compares Kubin to Ensor with the explanation that they are similar but Ensor doesn't show the Asian influences of Klinger.
Ensor's parents were shop owners that specialized in Asian collectibles, his sister married an Asian merchant and Ensor repeatedly painted the vases and prints that populated the shop.
He painted his sister in Asian clothing, His work is most certainly informed by a knowledge of eastern art and the author's oversight here is egregiously incorrect.
That didn't prevent me from enjoying the book and the large collection of rarely seen prints from Moreau, Schwob, Toroop and many other artists of the period that are not exactly common stock are great.
There are many references to writers such as Rodenbach, Jarry, Huysmans and the many other decadent poets that influenced these artists but I think that there is a misleading trend to define symbolism as a purely literary movement.
Much of the formalism seen in movements such as futurism had foundations in symbolist art and the innovations of artists like Klimt, Toroop and Gerstle can't be easily pinned to a literary foundation music had broken away from literary dependence long before the recognized symbolist painters reached the same conclusions.
Even the most lazy scholar can read the titles of Klimt paintings and realize that a scholarly appreciation of music informed his style.
Styledefining nitpicking aside Jullian casts a wide enough net for most fans of weird and dreamy art to find something to interest them in the often misunderstood work of symbolist visual art and fans of symbolist literature will find a wealth of resources that will enable then to draw their own conclusions about this very fertile period of creative expression.
.Stars. This book was such a landmark book and helped so many of us get into symbolist art, peraphaelite art and the decadent movement.
Essential.
“je suis l'empire à la fin de la décadence, ” Paul Verlaine
The authors' other book, sitelinkThe Symbolists, is a great supplement as well, Philippe Jullian né à Bordeaux lejuilletet mort à Paris leseptembre, né Philippe Simounet, est un écrivain, dessinateur et graveur, chroniqueur mondain et artistique de son époque.
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