George Frederic Watts: English Symbolist

George Frederic Watts - Dweller in the Innermost, 1885-86, oil on canvas, Tate Gallery at LondonEnglish artist George Frederic Watts (1817-1904) was a popular English Victorian painter and sculptor associated with both the Pre-Raphaelite and Symbolist movements. Although begun primarily as a literary movement, Symbolism in art was related to the Gothic component of Romanticism--and put forth the idea that “truth” could only be expressed indirectly. The goal of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was to reject the mechanistic approaches they believed began with the later works of Raphael. Watts’s art is a fascinating synthesis of these two movements.

There’s More to Munch Than “The Scream”

Edvard Munch - Vampire - 1893 - Oil on canvas - 100 x 110 cm - Private collection (click photo for larger image)Edvard Munch - Ashes - 1894 - Oil on canvas - 120.5 x 141 cm - National Gallery, Oslo (click photo for larger image)Edvard Munch (1863-1944) grew up in Christiania (now Oslo, Norway) and studied art under Christian Krohg, a Norwegian naturalistic painter. Munch's parents, a brother, and a sister died while he was still young, which probably explains the bleakness and pessimism of much of his work. Paintings such as Vampire (1893-94), and Ashes (1894) show his preoccupation with the darker aspects of life. The anxiety that haunts Munch’s art is expressed in a highly creative manner that taps into our emotions--even before we are wholly aware of the subject matter. Munch’s work had a powerful influence on the early Expressionists and continues to be felt today.

Maurice Denis: Where the Symbolists and Les Nabis Meet

Maurice Denis - The Muses in the Sacred Wood, 1893, oil on canvas, Musée d'Orsay at Paris (click photo for larger image)French painter and writer Maurice Denis (1870-1943) was a member of both the Symbolist and Les Nabis movements. (Nabis means prophet and refers to new forms of expression in art.) His theories contributed to the foundations of cubism, fauvism, and abstract art.

Denis was among the first artists to insist on the flatness of the picture plane, one of the great starting points for modernism, in the visual arts. In a famous proposal for the definition of painting, offered in 1890, he stated: "Remember that a picture, before being a battle horse, a nude, an anecdote or whatnot, is essentially a flat surface covered with colors assembled in a certain order."

In 1898, he produced a theory of creation that found the source for art in the character of the painter: "That which creates a work of art is the power and the will of the artist." Denis was an important precursor of abstract art, although he was far more interested in finding the divine in the everyday. Many of his later works are devotional images.

Gustave Moreau: Bizarre Sensuousness

Gustave Moreau - The Apparition - c. 1874-76 - Oil on canvas - 142 x 103 cm - Musee Gustave Moreau, Paris (click photo for larger image)One of the leading Symbolist artists, Gustave Moreau (1826-1898) had a unique feeling for the bizarre and developed a style that is highly distinctive in subject and technique. His preference was for mystically intense images evoking long-dead civilizations and mythologies, treated with an extraordinary sensuousness. Although he had some success at the Salon, he had no need to court this and much of his life was spent in seclusion. In 1892 he became a professor at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and proved an inspired teacher, bringing out his pupils' individual talents, rather than trying to impose his style on them. His pupils included Marquet and Matisse, but his favorite was Rouault, who became the first curator of the Moreau Museum in Paris (the artist's house), which Moreau left to the nation on his death. The bulk of his work is preserved there.

Pierre Puvis de Chavannes: Recipes of Classicism and Mystery

Pierre Puvis de Chavannes - The River - 1865 - Oil on paper laid down on canvas - 51 x 99 1/4 in. (129.5 x 252.1 cm) - Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (click photo for larger image)Pierre Puvis de Chavannes (1824-1898) was the foremost French mural painter of the second half of the 19th century. He decorated many public buildings in France and also the Boston Public Library. His paintings were done on canvas and then affixed to the walls (marouflage), but their pale colors imitated the effect of fresco. He had only modest success early in his career (when a private income enabled him to work for little payment), but he went on to achieve an enormous reputation. He was universally respected even by artists with very different aims and outlooks from his own. Gauguin, Seurat, and Toulouse-Lautrec were among his professed admirers. His work is a unique synthesis of Symbolist objectives with a Baroque-style flair.