Four French Symbolists

A sourcebook on the major French Symbolist painters, this work includes nearly 3000 entries covering a variety of materials. Each artist receives a primary and secondary bibliography with many annotated entries. Art works, personal names, and subject indexes facilitate easy access. The volume is designed for art historians, art students, museum and gallery curators and others interested in this major art style of the last half of the 19th century and the first quarter of the 20th century. Art museums and art libraries in both the United States and abroad were gleaned for sources. Symbolism is one of the most difficult art movements to define. Its primary meaning is the representation of things by symbols, by the imaginative suggestion of dreams and the subconscious through symbolic allusion and luxuriant decoration. The writings of Charles Beaudelaire on the arts powerfully influenced the aesthetic theories of Symbolist artists and critics from 1860-1900, much as Baudelaire's poetics were the root of Symbolist literature. The Symbolist work, be it painting or poem, is above all personal and revelatory, precious not commonplace, reflecting and evoking a journey of the imagination. French Symbolist artists explored this style, attitude, and atmosphere from the 1880s to the early 20th century. This sourcebook organises biographical, historical and critical information on four major French Symbolist artists: Pierre Puvis de Chavannes (1824-98), Gustave Moreau (1826-98), Odilon Redon (1840-1916), and Maurice Denis (1870-1943). The first three artists are recognised as originators of the movement. Denis is regarded as Symbolist's foremost theorist and profoundly religious practitioner.