Ecstasies of the Mind and Senses*
Understanding Symbolism in Art and Literature
- Date/time:
- 15 February 2011 - 15 March 2011
Tuesdays 10.45am - 12.45pm - Venue:
- 1 Berkeley Street, London W1J 8DJ
- Lecturer:
- Graham Fawcett
- Fees:
- Full course (5 lectures) £150.00. Single lecture £35.00
As a reaction to naturalism and realism, Symbolism sought to evoke emotion and a particular state of mind, by appealing to the many senses through the use of colour, sound and scent.
Was Symbolism in art different to Symbolism in the written word? Or was there a common quest between artists and poets?
In this series of lectures, we'll study the use of Symbolism in selected images, poems and music, and reveal the shared creative agendas of some of the most exciting artists and writers of the late 18th and 19th centuries.
* Words from Charles Baudelaire's great Symbolist poem Correspondence.
Course outline
15 Feb 2011 How symbols began
What is Symbolism? And do artists and poets agree about it? How did William Blake that English pioneer of the phenomenon of the artist-poet, and dubbed by one writer 'the grandfather of Pre-Raphaelitism', discover, and practise, its secrets?
22 Feb 2011 What Raphael had to do with it
No sooner had Dante Gabriel Rossetti painted a picture than he would write a poem to it. Entering the world - and the rules - of the Pre-Raphaelites, we explore how Rossetti, Burne-Jones and G.F. Watts used Symbolism in their work.
01 Mar 2011 Only connect
Meanwhile, in France, Charles Baudelaire, for his Theory of Correspondences, was hailed as the forerunner of French Symbolism. His poetry and art criticism, and poems by Mallarme, Rimbaud and Verlaine, rubbed synesthetic shoulders with the paintings of Moreau, Puvis, Bocklin and Odilon Redon.
08 Mar 2011 Subtle shade, dream to dream, flute to horn
Baudelaire declares that poetry and painting should emulate music and that Wagner's sound 'paints space'. Art, music and words join forces in Delacroix, Redon, Munch, J K Huysmans, Mallarme, Strindberg, Poe, Maeterlinck, Wagner, Schoenberg, Sibelius, Faure, and Debussy.
15 Mar 2011 The coming of Paul and Pablo
How did Symbolism's new world turn the young Impressionist Gauguin's head? And did the same thing happen to Picasso? We explore the moment of transition for both artists, not only in their canvases but also their notebooks and letters, and discover Picasso the Symbolist artist-poet.