Symbolism

　　The year 1884 saw the appearance in Paris of a fin de sicle cult novel that was celebrated as an altogether perverse sensation on the European cultural scene. The title of the book was A Rebours (translated both as Against the Grain and Against Nature). Its author Joris-Karl Huysmans wrote it as a seductive textbook of decadence, as an antidote to banal naturalism or realism. Symbolism, whose influence was felt well into the modernist era, was an artistic religion-substitute, a spiritually charged cult of beauty. A Symbolist picture or sculpture is mysterious on purpose. In place of intellectual comprehension, the work seeks to have the beholder experience its mysterious depth like a vision. It is no wonder that Symbolists created some of the most fascinating artworks of their age.

作者簡介

　　Norbert Wolf gratuated in art history, linguistics and medieval studies at the universities of Regensburg and Munich. He took his doctorate in art history in 1983. In 1992 he wrote his professorial thesis in Munich on carved 14th-century retables. Subsequently he held visiting professorships in Marburg, Frankfurt a.M., Leipzig, Dusseldorf, Nuremberg-Erlangen, and Innsbruck. He has written extensively on art history, including the many titles for TASCHEN, such as Diego Velazquez, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Caspar David Friedrich, Expressionism, Romanesque, Landscape Painting.