Symbolism as Paradigm of Contradictory Modernity

Never has a movement been more contested and more conflicted than Symbolism. It is rife with reactionary elements and yet is often seen as the bridge, the necessary threshold, through which art needed to pass in order to arrive at modernism. Its artists, motifs and works were often enwrapped in a profound nostalgia and yet exhibited– indeed invented–some of the very hallmarks of visual modernism. Yet many of the Symbolist groups are tied to Neo-Romanticism, intergroup politics and nostalgia to a startling degree. Thus the study of Symbolism raises the very question of how we are to understand modernism in relation to nostalgia and to the pre-modern heritage. This essay explores pan-European Symbolism, connecting it to the neo-Romantic and nostalgic currents explored in this volume, then looks more closely at the specific manifestations in Vienna, offering comparisons and points of contact with other Symbolist groups, especially in Central Europe. I focus on Viennese symbolism, both the works of the Wiener Werkstätte as well as the works of the Symbolist Gustav Klimt. For all their stylistic modernity and often bohemian sensibilities, the varied artists within the Wiener Werkstätte form points of connection with neo-Romantics and what is termed “the Romantic.”

Epistemology · Modernity · Sociology · Eastern European Communism and Reforms · History · Philosophy