Art Criticism - The State University of New York

More documents

Recommendations

Info

themes and images are often decadent, but if decadence can be pure in the elevated sense, then this art is an example of sublime innocent decadence, far removed from the sickly perversions commonly associated with the decadent movement of the period. "I am the bridge over which certain of you will pass" Moreau told Rouault, one of his most avid students. 52 Matisse, another of his students, shared not only his master's astonishing aesthetic sense of color, but also his predilection for the use of the arabesque. The seed of the Fauvist's daring and vibrant use of color was planted in Moreau's classroom. The dream sequences of the Surrealists acknowledge their debt to Moreau's persistent delving into his subconscious imagination. The rich foundation of humus (and decadence) yielded a healthy fresh new fruit, leading to the ultimate conclusion that Gustave Moreau's art must be a major example of decadence in its most positive sense. This conclusion has only been reached with the benefit of hindsight. A similar treatment of the subject written at the beginning of the twentieth century would most likely also have yielded a guilty verdict. The mitigating circumstances reflected in Moreau's gift to posterity would, however, have been unknown. This gift incorporates not just his marvelous artistic l.euvre, but equally importantly, the incredibly innovative art it inspired. The absence of such mitigating circumstances would have warranted the charge of unredeemable decadence against an art which had worked itself into a dead-end. The overt laudatory criticism of the decadent literati was elicited by the perception of the inherent decadence of Moreau's art. While the case for guilt by association is clear, neither Moreau nor this literary circle could envisage the grand developments in the history of art in the coming decades. Decadence is most commonly associated with death and decay, and in the case of the art of Gustave Moreau such associations most certainly exist. They are balanced if not surpassed in his art, by the regenerative, fertile aspects of decadence. Within death there is life, a life dependant not only upon the demise of an old art, but on the wealth of inheritance. The art of the Fauves and the Surrealists broke dramatically with the traditional corcept of academic art and while little of this inheritance is immediately apparent, the debt to Moreau cannot be denied. Despite all attempts in his art to the contrary, the natural rules of organic life still prevail. Notes Charles Baudelaire, The Painter of Modern Life and Other Essays, trans. Jonathan Mayne (New York, 1965), p. 26; cited in Camille Pagalia, Sexual Personae, (London and New Haven, 1990), p. 428. 2 Charles Baudelaire, Oeuvres Completes (Paris, 1961), p. 1179; cited in Rhonda K. Garelick, Rising Star (Princeton, 1998), p. 29 70 Art Criticism
3 Baudelaire, Oeuvres Completes, p. 1177; cited in Garelick, Rising Star, p. 32 4 Garelick, Rising Star, p. 32 5 Ibid., p.18 6 Charles Baudelaire, Oeuvres Completes, p. 1207; cited in' Pagalia, Sexual Personae, p. 430 7 1.K. Huysmans, Against the Grain, (New York, 1969), p. 6 8 Ibid., p. 12 9 Ibid., p. 52 10 Pierre-Louis Matthieu, Gustave Moreau (Boston, MA, 1976), p. 254 11 Jean Lorrain, Sensations et souvenirs (Paris, 1895), pp. 258 ff; cited in Matthieu, Gustave Moreau p. 255 12 Genevieve Lacambre, Gustave Moreau Between Epic and Dream (Chicago, 1999), p. 5 13 Ibid., p. 5 14 Mathieu, Gustave Moreau, p. 14 15 'Huysmans, Against the Grain" p. 50 16 Ibid., p. 53 17 Odilon Redon Gustave Moreau Rudolph Bresdin, (New York, 1962), p. 118.,,,,-,,, 18 Julius Kaplan, Gustave Moreau (Los Angeles and New York, 1974), p.23 ., 19 Mathieu, Gustave Moreau, p.122 20 'Kaplan, Gustave Moreau, p.34 21 Huysmans,Against the Grain, p.51 22 Lacambre, Gustave Moreau Between Epic and Dream, p. 255 23 Ibid., p. 18 24 Mathieu, Gustave Moreau, p. 143 25 Edouard Schure, Precurseurs et Revoltes (Paris, ,1904); cited in Odilon Redon Gustave Moreau Rudolph Bresdin p. 115 26 Huysmans, Against the Grain, p. 51 27 Ibid., p. 52 ' 28 Ibid., pp. 51,53, 54 29 Mathieu, Gustave Moreau, p. 165 30 Odilon Redon Gustave Moreau Rudolph Bresdin , p. 114 31 Huysmans, Against the Grain, p. 53 32 Ibid., p. 54 33 Gustave Moreau, introduction by J. Cas sou 'and 1. Paladilhe, notes by R. von Holten, 1961, (Paris, 1961), p. 11; cited in Odilon Redon Gustave Moreau RudQlph Bresdin, p. 124 . 34 Marcel Proust Contre Sainte-Beuve suivi de Nouveaux Melanges (GalIimard, Paris, 1954); cited in Odilon Redon Gustave Moreau Rudolph Bresdin, p. 114 35 Odilon Redon Gustave Moreau Rudolph Bresdin p. 142 36 Ibid., p. 142 37 Julius Kaplan, The Art o/Gustave Moreau Theory Style and Content (Ann Arbor, MI, 1982), p. 9 38 Gustave Moreau Archives, Small Black Notebook (Archives Musee Gustave Moreau), p. 20 cited in Pierre Louis Mathieu, Gustave Moreau, p.173 39 Gustave Moreau, Larger Black Notebook (Archives Musee Gustave Moreau), vol. ] 7, no. 1 71
Page 1:
Volume 17; Number I ART C.RIT1C1SM
Page 4 and 5:
Art Department State University of
Page 6 and 7:
4 Art Criticism
Page 8 and 9:
Breaking the Picture Plane: Reflect
Page 10 and 11:
whale saga (more recently Hesse or
Page 12 and 13:
and many of whom were born in Europ
Page 14 and 15:
printed a bullet track fired into a
Page 16 and 17:
music that (like the Mona Lisa) has
Page 18 and 19:
causing by neglect a bitterness amo
Page 20 and 21:
preserved some of the exuberance th
Page 22 and 23: which inspiration was stabilized. 5
Page 24 and 25: pain in the eyes of the cripple giv
Page 26 and 27: Bruckner did in his music) was not
Page 28 and 29: mortify into hard edges and mushy c
Page 30 and 31: with the sleep of reason. In the Am
Page 32 and 33: cent. Its fluidity of happy acciden
Page 34 and 35: And yet I can imagine these atrocit
Page 36 and 37: erature the not very evocative work
Page 38 and 39: maiden" of Marxism (unless things g
Page 40 and 41: ic he realize that artists suddenly
Page 42 and 43: The little nonsense that wise men r
Page 44 and 45: desensitized by the imitated means
Page 46 and 47: symbolism? If the arts only exist t
Page 48 and 49: The Femme Fatale as seen in the wor
Page 50 and 51: Huysmans parallels the life of De R
Page 52 and 53: ask for the unreasonable and receiv
Page 54 and 55: ennui or physical distress leads th
Page 56 and 57: ences cited herein, the femme fatal
Page 58 and 59: period."2 He traced the tradition b
Page 60 and 61: suggestion to the artist and the po
Page 62 and 63: of Moreau's works is vague and myst
Page 64 and 65: ing her as the femme fatale, or sub
Page 66 and 67: The subtitle Satanic Decameron evok
Page 68 and 69: completely mythical. Coupled with a
Page 70 and 71: Moreau was very much a man of his t
Page 74 and 75: p. 7-8; cited in Pierre Louis Mathi
Page 76 and 77: Between World War I and World War I
Page 78 and 79: shown distrust in the new styles. T
Page 80 and 81: These passages were meant to help g
Page 82 and 83: man public was voicing disapproval
Page 84 and 85: y old masters that were more suitab
Page 86 and 87: Notes 1 Alfred Barr, "Art in the Th
Page 88 and 89: From Diagnoses to Decadence: A Brie
Page 90 and 91: ate effort to reproduce fully an im
Page 92 and 93: patients. Charcot was often to be f
Page 94 and 95: Breuer attributed the presence of A
Page 96 and 97: still is traditionally associated w
Page 98 and 99: is not always recognized as such. H
Page 100 and 101: generation on which the multitude o
Page 102 and 103: 2 Elaine Showalter, The Female Mala
Page 104 and 105: 36 Freud and Breuer, 37. 37 Su'ch a
Page 106 and 107: Recasting the Art History Survey: E
Page 108 and 109: mode of self-consciousness that bes
Page 110 and 111: student-as-Other "calls" us to teac
Page 112 and 113: thesis of such descriptions into an
Page 114 and 115: In this final section of the essay,
Page 116 and 117: image-world, the picture opens up a
Page 118 and 119: history must itself be rethought in
Page 120 and 121: 15 Two of the most prominent propon
Page 122 and 123:
power: from the premodern exercise
Page 124:
~fJed in the Unikd Smtc, .• 9 ~]~
show all

Art Criticism - The State University of New York

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?