Symbolist dialogue
Symbolist artists and authors were united in their desire to express the hidden worlds that lay behind visible reality.
Georges de Feure’s print series Bruges: mystique et sensuelle, for instance, was not a literal visualisation of the novel Bruges la morte by Georges Rodenbach.
Instead, the medieval Flemish town provided author and artist alike with a foundation on which to build a parallel mystical and sensual dream world.
Working for a living
Symbolist artists chiefly made prints for expensive bibliophile editions aimed at the elite.
More down-to-earth caricaturistes-illustrateurs_ like Jules Chéret and Alexandre-Théophile Steinlen, by contrast, produced lithographic book covers and advertisements for the cheaper paperbacks that were published in large editions.
In so doing, these artists simultaneously reached a large audience with their innovative art, while ensuring they could earn a living.
Georges de Feure, Under misty skies (Sous les ciels brouillés) from the series Bruges mystique et sensuelle, 1899
Jules Chéret, Cover for the book Paris qui rit by Georges Duval, 1886
Pierre Bonnard, Poster for the novel Confession d'un homme d'aujourd'hui by Abel Hermant published in the newspaper Le Figaro, 1903
Further reading
- Pierre-Louis Mathieu, La génération symboliste, Geneva 1990
- Henri Dorra (ed.), Symbolist Art Theories: A Critical Anthology, Berkeley 1994
- Clément Dessy, Patrick McGuinness, Les écrivains et les Nabis. La littérature au défi de la peinture, Rennes 2015