Revelation of modernism : responses to cultural crises in fin-de-siècle painting

277 Pages·2008·3.11 MB·English

by  Boime

Revelation of Modernism
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Revelation of Modernism
Responses to Cultural Crises
in Fin-de-Siècle Painting
O
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Albert Boime
university of missouri press
columbia and london
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Copyright © 2008 by
The Curators of the University of Missouri
University of Missouri Press, Columbia, Missouri 65201
Printed and bound in the United States of America
All rights reserved
5 4 3 2 1 12 11 10 09 08
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Boime, Albert.
Revelation of modernism : responses to cultural crises in fin-de-siècle painting /
Albert Boime.
p. cm.
Summary: “Examines the work of postimpressionist painters — Van Gogh,
Seurat, Cézanne, and Gauguin — and how they responded to cultural and
spiritual crisis in the avant-garde world. Boime reconsiders familiar masterpieces
and draws analogies with literary sources and social, personal, and political
strategies to produce revelations that have eluded most art historians”—Provided
by publisher.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8262-1780-6 (alk. paper)
1. Painting, European—19th century. 2. Art and society—Europe—History—
19th century. 3. Social problems in art. I. Title.
ND457.B65 2008
759.05—dc22
2007040977
This paper meets the requirements of the American National Standard for
Permanence of Paperfor Printed Library Materials, Z39.48, 1984.
Designer and Typesetter: Kristie Lee
Printer and binder: Thomson-Shore, Inc.
Typefaces: Adobe Garamond and Bank Gothic
The University of Missouri Press offers its grateful acknowledgment to the Department
of Art History, University of California, Los Angeles, for a generous contribution in
support of the publication of this volume.
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For Clara, Sam, Leo, Daniel, and Eddie
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Contents
Preface ix
Acknowledgments xv
I
Van Gogh’s Starry, Starry Night
After the Apocalypse a Heavenly Utopia 1
II
Seurat’s La parade de cirque
A Political Allegory of Dystopia 52
III
Cézanne’s Real and Imagined Estate
A Utopia of One’s Own 102
IV
Gauguin’s D’où venons-nous? Que sommes-nous? Où allons-nous?
Millenarianism and Necromancy
in Fin-de-Siècle France 135
V
Conclusion 221
Bibliography 225
Index 239
vii
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Preface
In 1959 the Swedish art historian Sven Lövgren published a seminal work
on early modernism entitled The Genesis of Modernism: Seurat, Gauguin, Van
Gogh, and French Symbolism in the 1880s (revised 1971) that examined the cul-
tural crisis in the avant-garde art world in the last two decades of the nine-
teenth century. Although the crisis had been duly noted prior to Lövgren’s
study, no one had so systematically explored the cultural and historical cir-
cumstances that gave rise to it. Lövgren’s view was that a crisis in confidence
predisposed the painters to seek outside their fields for inspiration, thus their
close associations with writers and poets whose works often provided a takeoff
point for visual experimentation. Using as his test cases key works by Seurat,
Gauguin, and Van Gogh, Lövgren analyzed the increased dependence of these
pioneers on literary production and scientific speculation through a compara-
tive investigation of the structures of painting and certain experimental liter-
ary and scientistic forms.
Gauguin and Seurat, for example, were profoundly attracted to the Sym-
bolists and shared with many members of the coterie an interest in theosophy,
occultism, spiritualism, cabbalism, astrology, and other pseudoscientific doc-
trines becoming fashionable at that time. One of the most cherished concepts
in the circle was that all creative activity shared a common aim, so that poets,
painters, musicians, scientists, and mathematicians working in their respective
media could give expression to similar ideas, emotions, and moods. Their idol
was the German musician Richard Wagner, who provided the inspiration for
their doctrine of the unity of all the arts.
Characterizing Seurat’s composition of La grande jatte, Lövgren summa-
rized his thesis on the decisive contributions of his three masters to the devel-
opment of a modernist sensibility:
ix
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