Symbolist art theories : a critical anthology / edited by Henri Dorra.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 315-371) and index.

List of Illustrations -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- Prologue: Baudelaire, Delacroix, and the Premises of Symbolist Aesthetics -- Correspondences (c. 1852-56?) -- 1. Romantic Symbolists -- Hand and Soul (1850) -- On His Beata Beatrix (1871) -- Letters to His Family (1854) -- Poems by William Morris (1868) -- Memories of Burne-Jones (1898) -- An Early Appraisal of Puvis de Chavannes (1861) -- Pierre Puvis de Chavannes (1886) -- Gustave Moreau (1889) -- Fine Arts: Odilon Redon (1882) -- Excerpts from To Oneself (1898-1909) -- Odilon Redon (1894) -- A Symbolist Painter: Fernand Khnopff (1887) -- The Ten O'Clock Lecture (1885) -- Bocklin's Villas by the Sea (1895) -- Conversations with Paul Gsell (1911) -- 2. Decorative Arts and Architecture -- Gleanings from the Great Exhibition (1851) -- The Decorative Arts in Modern Life (1877) -- The Spiritual in Art (1884) -- In Defense of the Tower (1887) -- At the Universal Exhibition (1889) -- Ornament in Architecture (1892) -- A Clean Sweep for the Future of Art (1894) -- 3. Literary Symbolism -- Baudelaire and the Decadent Movement (1881) -- The Art of Poetry (1874) -- The Unsettling of All the Senses (1871) -- Interview with Stephane Mallarme (1891) -- Small Talk - the Theater (1890) -- Notes on Wagnerian Painting (1886) -- A Literary Manifesto - Symbolism (1886) -- 4. The Post-Impressionists -- Neo-Impressionism (1887) -- Aesthetic and Technical Note (1890) -- Introduction to a Scientific Aesthetics (1885) -- Seurat (1891) -- Anarchist Sympathies (1894) -- Cloisonism (1888) -- Ensor's Vision (1908) -- Letters to Emile Schuffenecker (1885, 1888) -- Symbolism in Painting: Paul Gauguin (1891) -- Letter to Andre Fontainas (1899) -- Letters on The Night Cafe (1888) -- The Lonely Ones - Vincent van Gogh (1890) -- Cezanne (1888) -- Excerpts from His Letters (1904, 1906) -- Nabi Principles (1889) -- The Nabis in 1890 -- The "Saint-Cloud" Manifesto (1889-90?) -- The Mission of the Artist (1897) -- 5. The Artists of the Soul -- The Salons of 1895 -- Materialism in Art (1881) -- In Search of the Holy Grail (1888) -- Florence, Botticelli, La Primavera (1896) -- The Artists of the Soul (1896) -- Epilogue: Formalist Criticism and Harbingers of Surrealism -- Post Impressionism (1911) -- The French Post-Impressionists (1912) -- Cezanne's Pure Form (1914) -- The Funeral of Style (1902) -- The Dissociation of Ideas (1900) -- Barnum (1902) -- The New Spirit and the Poets (1917-18) -- Notes -- Index.

Henri Dorra, in his comprehensive new book, presents the development and the aesthetic theories of the symbolist movement in art and literature. Included are writings (many never before translated or reprinted) by artists, designers, architects, and critics, along with Dorra's learned commentary. Fifty photographs of symbolist works complement his encyclopedic coverage. Dorra traces symbolism and its roots from artist to artist and critic to critic from the mid-nineteenth to the early twentieth century. The decorative arts and architecture are examined as well as painting and sculpture. The Arts and Crafts movement, art nouveau, the work of Eiffel in France, and that of Sullivan in the United States are well represented.

The close relations between symbolist poets and artists are reflected in the chapter on literary developments. Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Verlaine, and Mallarme are here, but so, too, are writers less well known. A section on the post-impressionists and the "artists of the soul" rounds out Dorra's rich and varied text, and his Epilogue lays the groundwork for what was to follow symbolism. Here Dorra discusses, on the one hand, the new trend toward abstraction and the related development of formalist criticism and, on the other, the new stress on interplay between the tangible and the intangible, fact and dream, that eventually led to surrealism.

Dorra beautifully integrates the different aesthetic branches of symbolism, the different media, and national variations, without ever losing sight of the whole. The historical context provided makes this a particularly appealing collection for students and scholars of art history and literature, as well as for anyone interested in the evolution of symbolism.

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