In the last decade of the nineteenth century, the term Symbolism came to represent a literary, artistic and intellectual movement of great influence. Originating in France around 1880, then spreading throughout Europe and America, it was above all a movement of protest against positivism, scientism and philistinism, and embraced all the idealist aspirations of the age, having in some respects strong links with other movements of the time such as Decadence and Art Nouveau. Symbolism turned towards the shadows of our inner nature, and explored man’s fascination for the strange, the unusual, the dark, the mysterious. Closely connected with the Romantic spirit, and inseparable from Naturalism and Impressionism through its violent reaction against them, it in many ways heralded Expressionism and Surrealism - and is thus a movement found at the very heart of our contemporary culture.
As with Romanticism, Symbolism was a powerful literary movement, and the names of Baudelaire, Mallarmé, Edgar Allen Poe, Rimbaud and Oscar Wilde spring to mind. But all artistic disciplines were influenced by it - in painting, Munch,
Gaugin, Gustave Moreau, the Pre-Raphaelites; in sculpture, Rodin; in the theatre, Ibsen, Stanislavski; in music, Debussy, Bartók, Scriabin, Richard Strauss; and close collaboration between Symbolist poets and musicians took place in the world of opera.
All these aspects of this rich and vital movement are brought together in this book, and the lives and works of all those who gave it that vitality are set out alphabetically within each section. Summaries introduce and link each relevant field, and there is a section on the journals and organisations connected with Symbolism. A list of illustrations and a full index of names complete this compact reference book to a fascinating artistic epoch.
365 illustrations, 138 in colour