HOW DID THE ROMANTICISM, DECADENT AND SYMBOLISM MOVEMENTS AFFECT ILLUSTRATION IN THE 19th CENTURY
The reason that i want to look into this area of art and illustration is because of the meanings behind the art. I want to know what caused these movements to produce such dark and melancholy images. It is crucial for me to indulge myself in theses movements, only then can i begin to recognize the key points of the movements in the artwork and illustrations.I am greatly inspired by not just the art of the 19th century but the literature, so i want to understand the connection between them and how the literature and lifestyle affected the visuals.
Two of the movements that i will look at for my essay involve the American poet and writer Edgar Allan Poe. It was his work that included a lot of my favorite illustrators such as Gustave Dore and Harry Clarke. Poe was a pioneer of literature writing the first ever Sci-Fi novel as well as his famous Gothic horror stories. He inspired many people but did his writings and the movements inspire illustrations of that time? That is what i will aim to find out.
A few interesting web pages that i looked at a while ago, I have researched into 19th century illustrators before this brief was given because it is something that i am extremely interested in:
These are illustrations by Dublin born illustrator and stained glass artist Harry Clarke. I love his work for his figures, they seem to be slightly more comic based rather than the more seriousness of say Gustave Dore. These illustrations are typical of the 19th century however these were done in the early 20th century, 1916 to be precise. Again we return to Edgar Allan Poe as these were created for an edition of his "Tales of Mystery and Imagination". When i first looked upon these works the figures reminded me of some of the characters from the movies by Tim Burton who is known for his dark humor and strangely Gothic characters.
These are Two characters from Two of Tim Burton's movies, Edward Scissorhands on the top and Jack Skellington from The Nightmare Before Christmas on the bottom. Burton is well known for his stop frame animation movies (The Nightmare before Christmas, Corpse Bride, James and the Giant Peach) and his very Gothic characters, scenes and story-line's. Burton was heavily inspired by the works of Edgar Allan Poe and is an example of how the movements from the 19th century are still able to inspire in the modern day.
This is a link to Tim Burton's website which must be one of my all time favorites, to make your way around the web page you have to control one of Burton's creations with the arrows on your keypad, a link to one of Burton's famous animations. http://www.timburton.com/ The book that is advertised "The Art of Tim Burton" is on my list of "Things i want to buy immediately" list.
In my proposal i said how i want to present my essay in a book form, so i have been looking for a company that prints and bounds books. It would be a great piece of work to have and great to take to interviews and possibly send to a publisher to see what they think. There are many books on illustration of this period but many focus on one certain artist rather than a few. Plus non of the books that i have read concentrate on the relationship and influence Edgar Allan Poe had on them and how closely illustration and literature were. Here is a great website that i could use to get my book printed:
There is a limit of 20 pages which is quite a lot, this essay is only 2000 words so i would have to include full page images and maybe 1 double page spread image. Here are the different sizes of books available, at this stage i am thinking of Standard Portrait size, hardcover with image wrap. This would cost £19.95 for 20 pages. http://www.blurb.com/create/book/pricing#standard-portrait. I have never priced book printing before and i am surprised at how cheap it is.
Watched the movie Dorian gray the other night, based on the novel "A picture of Dorian Gray" by infamous decadent writer and poet Oscar Wilde. The movie was tremendous and extremely helpful in getting across the whole feel of what the decadents were all about and the overall feel of the movement. I was never fully aware of just why Oscar wilde was looked upon with such "distaste" back in the 19th century but after watching the movie it is no wonder his novel caused a stir. Decadence is all about "luxurious self indulgance" including smoking opium, cigarettes, orgys with men and women and generally being morally corrupt. this movie gave me alot of information and Ammo to help me find decadent images and to recognize links between decadent illustration and the movement.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1235124/ A link to information about the film including a description, images and also some video clips from the movie.
In my essay i also want to touch on how leaders of my chosen movements have inspired people in the modern world. I great example and also alot of help to me are a German band by the name of "Sopor Aeternus" They are a goth/Darkwave band inspired by the movements and life of the 19th century in fact some of their songs have been Edgar allan poe poems that they turned into hauntingly beautiful masterpieces.
They are one of my personal favourites i will be listening to them throughout the writing of my essay to inspire me and to help me get into the real spirit of these movements. Music is a very powerful tool, my writing will be stronger and more in depth because i will be immersing myself in the themes from the movements.... just wandering if i should write this essay by candlelight? maybe. on a typewriter? no.
This band isn't for everyone, it is very dark and extremely gothic. perfect for quite contemplation, funerals and also writing this essay. Below are 2 links for songs by Sopor Aeternus.
This is called The conqueror worm part 2 and is a reworked instrumental based on their previous song called "The conqueror Worm" taken from the poem of the same name by Edgar allan Poe. The lyrics in their first song were taken straight from the poem.
This is another instrumental song, from a Sopor album i bought recently. This is a favourite of mine, chillingly beautiful yet slightly menacing. I love looking through illustrations by Dore and Clarke whilst listening to this.
USEFUL LINKS
Alot of the work at the moment really seems to be getting on top of me and i need a break. Where better to clear my head than the Lake District. One of the main reasons to have a day up north is to relax and unwind but also to visit the grave of Wiliam Wordsworth. Wordsworth, along with Samuel Taylor Coleridge revived the Romantacism movement in Britain following on from Lord Byron and Alexander Pope.
Wordsworth has always been a particular favourite of mine due to our similar love of the Lake District. I went to St Oswalds church in Grasmere to visit his grave and to walk past Dove Cottage where he once lived. It gave me a chance to read up on his life and get some information that i can use in my essay. It was great to walk through the churchyard where Wordsworth himself used to walk, so much history. The day really let me unwind, have a good walk with my camera and forget about the stress of my workload for a day. ( The photos are on my flickr ).
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Wordsworth's grave |
The poem:
ODE ON SOLITUDE by Alexander Pope
"Happy the man, whose wish and care
A few paternal acres bound,
Content to breathe his native air,
In his own ground.
A few paternal acres bound,
Content to breathe his native air,
In his own ground.
Whose herds with milk, whose fields with bread,
Whose flocks supply him with attire,
Whose trees in summer yield him shade,
In winter fire.
Whose flocks supply him with attire,
Whose trees in summer yield him shade,
In winter fire.
Blest! who can unconcern'dly find
Hours, days, and years slide soft away,
In health of body, peace of mind,
Quiet by day,
Hours, days, and years slide soft away,
In health of body, peace of mind,
Quiet by day,
Sound sleep by night; study and ease
Together mix'd; sweet recreation,
And innocence, which most does please,
With meditation.
Together mix'd; sweet recreation,
And innocence, which most does please,
With meditation.
Thus let me live, unseen, unknown;
Thus unlamented let me dye;
Steal from the world, and not a stone
Tell where I lye."
Thus unlamented let me dye;
Steal from the world, and not a stone
Tell where I lye."
The last stanza really makes me smile. Pope wrote this when he was 12 YEARS OLD! amazing. I found a paragraph that sums up the meaning of the poem:
In second stanza he described the farmer’s life. He has his own milk from his own cows, he makes his own bread from the grain he grows in his own fields, he makes his own clothes from his own sheep’s wool, and his trees shade him from the sun in summer and supply wood for heating his home in winter.
Also in third stanza the farmer has “health of body” and “peace of mind. In the forth stanza he said how the farmer sleep without noisy. He passes his days harmlessly and enjoys his hours of quiet meditation. The young Pope paints a scene that many would find ideal.
In the fifth stanza He wants to be like the farmer at least in his status as a commoner who lived silently and did not intrude on others. And when the speaker dies, he wants no fanfare. He just wants to flit off from the world and not even have his name engraved on a tombstone."
The poem seems to reflect Popes yearning to have a life like this, to be totally self sufficiant, a life of Solitude. I have never found any piece of writing that i feel i connect with more than this. I see so much of myself in the poem, this is the life i dream of, solice and peace, alone with nature. A true masterpiece of the Romantacism era.
I struggle to imagine that this would be anybodys idea of a perfect life in the modern day. There are not many totally remote places left in Britain, due to the urban sprawl. People rely to much on gadgets and technology and are blind to the world around them.
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| Alexander Pope |
Its 2am in the morning now, in 5 hours my alarm will sound for college. Once again i got lost in poems, illustrators and movements. However since Ode on Solitude got a mention as my favourite poem, and the fact i'm on a bit of a roll tonight with this blog i must mention Lord Byron. Tonight seems to be poets and poems who represent ME as a person, poets who i feel have similar views to mine and the next is no different.
Still sticking with the Romanticism, Lord Byron is perhaps the most known poet of the Romanticism movement. The particular piece of work i mention, only quickly is called "Epitaph to a Dog". It was wrote after Byrons dog died of Rabies. Byron reportadly nursed his pooch, Boatswain, from his contraction of the disease until his death without fear of being bittern or contracting the disease himself. The 26 verse poem is engraved on Boatswains tomb, which is larger than Byrons. Below is the opening lines, which was not actually written by Byron but by his friend John Hobhouse, there are as follows:
"Near this Spot
are deposited the Remains of one
who possessed Beauty without Vanity,
Strength without Insolence,
Courage without Ferosity,
and all the virtues of Man without his Vices.
This praise, which would be unmeaning Flattery
if inscribed over human Ashes,
is but a just tribute to the Memory of
BOATSWAIN, a DOG,
who was born in Newfoundland May 1803
and died at Newstead Nov. 18, 1808."
are deposited the Remains of one
who possessed Beauty without Vanity,
Strength without Insolence,
Courage without Ferosity,
and all the virtues of Man without his Vices.
This praise, which would be unmeaning Flattery
if inscribed over human Ashes,
is but a just tribute to the Memory of
BOATSWAIN, a DOG,
who was born in Newfoundland May 1803
and died at Newstead Nov. 18, 1808."
The rest of the poem can be found here http://www.dogquotations.com/epitaph-to-a-dog-by-lord-byron.html
The best book for my Romanticism section of the essay is "Art of the Romantic Era" by Marcel Brion. It contains many artists but there are 2 in particular that i want to look at and they are John Constable and Caspar David Friedrich. Constable seems to be the typical Romantic and what i would think of as Romanticism , however Friedrich seems a little darker his work seems to be a more gothic Romanticism, i need to research these two artists a little more.
This is the dark work of Friedrich, its a much more gothic side of romanticism. These symbols of death also relates to symbolism, its almost as the 2 movements are merging. I found out that it was at this time when Romanticism was fading and had moved away from interest, the symbolist artists had started to become more popular. This is evidence that as movements changed so did the art. I am definatly using Friedrich in my essay, he is key to the end of Romanticism and the start of symbolism.
The work of Constable is typical English Romanticism, Constable would be a good artists to look at to sum up Romanticism in England when it was at its prime. I need to analyze his work and learn what Romanticism was about, the book i got has some good stuff in it, need to go and read now.
Front of my Essay Book.
back of my Essay Book.
I wanted my book cover to represent the look of the 19th century. The grey worn texture is simlilar to the texture of photographs from that period. I created a sort of Art Noveau design for the front, i kept it very simple, i did not want it to be crowded and overdone. On the back i placed a quote from a poem by Edgar Allan Poe about how he was different from everyone else and how he saw things differently. This is reflective of me and this book, its looking at art but instead of the typical movements like impressionism i look at Decadence, a darker sinful movement, much more interesting and exciting.
I wanted my book cover to represent the look of the 19th century. The grey worn texture is simlilar to the texture of photographs from that period. I created a sort of Art Noveau design for the front, i kept it very simple, i did not want it to be crowded and overdone. On the back i placed a quote from a poem by Edgar Allan Poe about how he was different from everyone else and how he saw things differently. This is reflective of me and this book, its looking at art but instead of the typical movements like impressionism i look at Decadence, a darker sinful movement, much more interesting and exciting.
While researching symbolism in the books, a name that keeps coming up is Carlos Schwabe. He seems to be a leading figure in Symbolist art. His image of Death of the Gravedigger seems to be the image that sums up Symbolism, similar to Wanderer above the sea of fog by Frierich in the Romanticism movement. The image above is one of a number of studies for his painting The Wave. There are many meanings behind the image, i will go more indepth in my essay.
The hidden meanings of many symbolit art seems to be Death. Death is a common theme in Symbolism. Romantic Friedrich also included symbols of death in his later life, right as Romanticism became extinct and Symbolism became more popular. This image above is of Death coming to take the Gravedigger, Schwabe often used to personify forces as Women.
Romanticism seemed to be a very stable and comfatable movement, with men declaring their love for the countryside through literature and poetry, painting expressive beautiful images with paints and words. It took the depression of Friedrich to change his work to a gothic/symbolist Romanticism. Depression and lonliness usually plagued the symbolist artists and a slightly mad outlook on life sometimes gave the best results.
Edvard Munch is best known for The Scream, and to be honest i have never looked into any other works. I have just got a book all about Art Nouveau and it was explaining the symbolists love of dangerous and infected women like Vampires and women with Syphilis. Munch painted the image above about this fixation. The strange creature in the corner is a deformed foetus which can happen as a result of getting pregnant while having Syphilis. This odd mindset and weirdly eerie paintings has made me look more into Munch's work.
I have found a quote by Munch talking about his most famous work The Scream (above). This shows just how unstable and mad he was. I will definatly be including Munch in my essay, he is such a charachter and the real essence of Symbolism.
"I was walking down the road with two friends when the sun set; suddenly, the sky turned as red as blood. I stopped and leaned against the fence, feeling unspeakably tired. Tongues of fire and blood stretched over the bluish black fjord. My friends went on walking, while I lagged behind, shivering with fear. Then I heard the enormous, infinite scream of nature. For several years I was almost mad… You know my picture, 'The Scream?' I was stretched to the limit—nature was screaming in my blood… After that I gave up hope ever of being able to love again."
Just found an artist who was inspired by Edgar Allan Poe! Leon Spillieart.
The piece below is called "Gust of Wind". A chillingly beautiful work, full of pain and anguish.
His vague lonely figures usually stood in large spaces create a melancholy mood of silence and solitude, a fantastic setting in which to write or paint. Aspects of his inspiration are distinguishable, dark, lonely, dreamlike locations similar to those described by Poe.
ABSINTHE! look up.
http://www.opendemocracy.net/ecology-foodwithoutfrontiers/article_1745.jsp
ABSINTHE! look up.
http://www.opendemocracy.net/ecology-foodwithoutfrontiers/article_1745.jsp
about absinthe.
Absinthe ↑ , a high-alcohol drink flavoured with wormwood and anise, was venerated as a healing draught by the ancients and treated as such at the beginning of the 19th century. By the end of the century it had become the ‘the scourge’, ‘the plague’, ‘the enemy,’ ‘the queen of poisons’ ↑ , and was blamed ↑ for the near-collapse of France in the first weeks of the Great War ↑ .
It was accused of filling the asylums, of the murder of whole families, of leading to spontaneous human combustion in habitual users.
Absinthe originated in Switzerland in the late 18th century. It arose to great popularity as an alcoholic drink in late 19th- and early 20th-century France, particularly among Parisian artists and writers. Owing in part to its association with bohemian culture. Ernest Hemingway, Charles Baudelaire, Paul Verlaine, Arthur Rimbaud, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Amedeo Modigliani, Vincent van Gogh, Oscar Wilde, Aleister Crowley and Alfred Jarry were all known absinthe drinkers.
Absinthe ↑ , a high-alcohol drink flavoured with wormwood and anise, was venerated as a healing draught by the ancients and treated as such at the beginning of the 19th century. By the end of the century it had become the ‘the scourge’, ‘the plague’, ‘the enemy,’ ‘the queen of poisons’ ↑ , and was blamed ↑ for the near-collapse of France in the first weeks of the Great War ↑ .
It was accused of filling the asylums, of the murder of whole families, of leading to spontaneous human combustion in habitual users.
Absinthe originated in Switzerland in the late 18th century. It arose to great popularity as an alcoholic drink in late 19th- and early 20th-century France, particularly among Parisian artists and writers. Owing in part to its association with bohemian culture. Ernest Hemingway, Charles Baudelaire, Paul Verlaine, Arthur Rimbaud, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Amedeo Modigliani, Vincent van Gogh, Oscar Wilde, Aleister Crowley and Alfred Jarry were all known absinthe drinkers.
I was thinking of looking at Aubrey Beardsley, a very well known Decadent illustrator, who was good friends with Oscar Wilde. However i have found another artist from Austria called Franz Von Bayros. Much more decadent images. much more, extremely pleased with this find. Found on Decadents handbook.
Oscar Wilde was imprisoned for his work in Dorian Gray and his sinful lifestyle of homosexuality, these images of beastiality and lesbian sex acts would have caused complete outrage, they are some of the most Decadent imagery i have found so far.
I seem to have began this essay with many artists who i wanted to research but through the research i have found more artists that are better suited to telling the story of how the literature and themes of these movements affected the genre. This is by no means a bad thing however, many artists lead to others and many movements lead to different themes. It was hard to pick out the most specific information from each movement. I have not yet spoke of Oscar Wilde and Charles Baudelaire. They are leading figures in Decadence yet i need to focus more on the work rather than the literature. It was a trap that i have fell into a few times, however i went back and took the waffle out to put the focus back on the link between the movement and the art that stemmed from it.
With the madness of Munch representing Symbolism i found another complety bonkers artists more inclined to decadence. Alfred Kubin. Similar to Munch but darker more gothic but still as crazy.
Many artists were researched for the essay but only a few were chosen, this was due to their importance in the movement and their style. They may not be the most known in their respective movements, but they represent the real epitome of their movements and that was key evidence that they were inspired by that period.
A great piece of evidence in answering my question lay in the work of Romantic artist Caspar David Friedrich. During his life Romanticism was at its peak, his paintings of beautiful cliffs echoed this, however as he got older Romanticism was becoming outdated and passing from fashion. His work then contained many symbols of death and gloom, at just the time when many artists of the Symbolist movement were coming to fruition such as Edvard Munch. This is concrete evidence that as a movement died and was replaced, the art of the period changed with it. The views of society affected art and literature.
No movement was affected by lifestyle more than the Decadence. The sinful behaviour of its patrons was plainly visible in the literature and art. So plain that it lead Oscar Wilde to be incarcerated and Charles Baudelaire to have some of his poems banned. The art reflected the sexual and depraved lifestyle of drink and drugs. The Green Muse by Albert Maignan showed the "poison of choice" of the decadents and Franz Von Bayros’s pornographic images summed up the main aspect of the movement. These images of sexual experimentation and corruption of innocence are key traits of decadence, evidence that art reflects the times. It reflects the dreams of the time, the lifestyles of the time and most importantly it reflects, categorically, the key points of the current movements.
It is clear that through extensive research and immersion in 3 different yet not unfamiliar movements that they did indeed have a profound effect
