Symbolists and decadents
John Christian (Compiler, Writer of introduction)
"Thinkers, writers and artists in late-nineteenth-century Europe were impelled by their distrust of the growing materialism of their age tpwards a search for truths that were of personal and universal significance. The artist embarked on an interior journey and endeavored to represent his experience of it in an art that would give body and form to emotions and dreams. Originally a literary movement, Symbolism was born out of this inward search as writers and artists portrayed the longings and nightmares which epitomized the preoccupations of the fin de siècle—death and frustration, union and conflict of the sexes, cruel or superfluous beauty, the fatal woman, the siren and the sphinx. In this new introduction to these fascinating and highly individual artists John Milner traces the Symbolist and Decadent movements from the forerunners in the Pre-Raphaelite movement through the Synthetists (Gauguin and the Pont-Aven group), the Rose+Croix, the German and Austrian Secessions, the personal and fantastic vision of artists such as Odilon Redon and Arnold Böcklin. Both Symbolist and Decadent painters were concerned with the expression of ideas, mood and emotions. The Decadents, however, in their reaction to a pragmatist and materialist age, withdrew into an exclusive dandyism, and embraced the twin rituals of Catholicism and diabolism; while the search for significance in the forms of Symbolist art was the shadow of a seeking for meaning and spiritual experience in a time of good sense and clear-cut ideas. Artists of France, Austria, Belgium, Holland and Britain are represented here with 115 compelling illustrations." Publisher
Print Book, English, 1978, ©1977
St. Martin's Press, New York, 1978, ©1977