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Dimensions: 84 by 63cm., 33 by 24¾in.
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Provenance: Purchased by the grandmother of the present owner; thence by descent
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Exhibited:
Brussels, Artistes Français , n.d., no. 23
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Notes: Symbolism and the Poetic VisionThe last quarter of the 19υth century was a crucial period in the development of modern art and saw the emergence of varied movements and styles. Symbolism, the artistic and literary precursor to many of the themes that dominated the twentieth century, coincided with social and economic changes sweeping across Europe at the end of the nineteenth century. In the face of advancing industrialisation and encroaching urbanisation artists and writers sought out a 'parallel world' into which they could retreat, where art idealised and the imaginary prevailed. The result was the production of some of the most haunting, exotic and enigmatic images of the time. It was in France and Belgium, the cradles of literary Symbolism, that Symbolist painting was born towards the middle of the nineteenth century. From there it quickly spread to Britain, Germany, Austria and Switzerland, then to Russia, the Scandinavian and eastern European countries and finally to the United States. The Symbolist movement accommodated a broad spectrum of artists ranging from conservative to modernist. Its main proponents were Gustave Moreau and Odilon Redon in France; Fernand Khnopff, Félicien Rops, Léon Spillaert and Jean Delville in Belgium; Franz von Stuck, Ferdinand Keller, Hans Thoma and Max Klinger in Germany; Arnold Böcklin, Carlos Schwabe, Ferdinand Hodler and Giovanni Segantini in Switzerland, and Gustav Klimt and Wilhelm List in Austria. The term Symbolism had been coined in 1886 by the French poet Jean Moréas in an article in Le Figaro, entitled 'Symbolisme'. The article outlined an agenda for a new literary movement that was based on two related convictions. One was that the material reality of the physical world hid another, more powerful spiritual reality. The other posited that the essence of that invisible reality could be communicated only through art. Art was to put its trust into intuition and, on Baudelaire's example, to try to convey thought and emotion by means of transposition. 'It means withdrawing', said an unnamed writer, 'to the innermost recesses of existence, to the dark, fantastic place where dreams and visions have their dwelling.' (Francine Claire Legrand, 'Fernand Khnopff - Perfect Symbolist', Apollo, April 1967, vol. 62, p. 287).
Symbolism was eclipsed by the First World War, however, Abstraction evolved from Symbolism under the aegis of painters such as Kandinsky, Mondrian, Malevich and Kupka, and there are few movements in 20υth century art whose roots do not lie in Symbolism. It underlies Expressionism, Fauvism, Futurism and Surrealism.
PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE BELGIAN COLLECTION
Lucien Lévy-Dhurmer trained at the Ecole Supérieure de Dessin et Sculpture in Paris. After a trip to Venice in 1895, he returned to Paris and had his first one-man show at the Galerie Georges Petit in 1896. It was around this time that Lévy-Dhurmer started to work primarily with pastels, a medium which gave his compositions an ethereal, velvety texture and soft tonal contrasts which heighten their dream-like qualities. His talent was discovered by the Belgian Symbolist writer Georges Rodenbach, a popular poet in Paris, for his book Bruges-la-Morte of 1892, who helped to popularise the artist's work both in France and Belgium. As Jean Cassou has pointed out: '(Lévy-Dhurmer's) pastels reveal an artist who can reconcile a technique of academic precision with an Impressionist vision of the world, and can thus treat his Symbolist subjects loaded with mystery.' (Concise Encyclopaedia of Symbolism, Ware, 1984, p. 99). The present work bears clear parallels to the work of Henri Le Sidaner and Claude Monet, both of whom evoked the grandeur and mystery of Venice in their work, and also, like Lévy-Dhurmer, exhibited at Galerie Georges Petit.
