The Franco-Belgian Symbolist Movement (April 2013)

Presentation by Dr. Sylvie Douche of the Université Paris-Sorbonne 

The Symbolist Movement involved all the arts, but its original formulation is found in literature. This interdisciplinary dimension, characteristic of what may be called a "cultural movement," is particularly observed in musico-pictorial creation. Symbolist literature, music, and visual arts often emphasized dream and fantastic, mystical, or esoteric subjects. The fruits of deciphering such poetically inspired music and painting helped spread the cults of individualism and idealism.

Although Europe as a whole gave the Symbolist Movement its face, France and Belgium played an important role in its birth. Dr. Sylvie Douch will look at Franco-Belgian symbolism vis-à-vis the artistic movements that preceded and co-existed with it.

Some essential figures that will be discussed briefly are Baudelaire, Verlaine, Mallarmé, Mockel, Rodenbach, Maeterlinck, Wagner, Franck, Fauré, Debussy, Knopff, Moreau, Gauguin, Denis, Redon, Rops, Rodin, Mellery, Degouve, Puvis de Chavannes, Carrière, Schwabe, and others.

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