Nature’s Experiments and the Search for Symbolist Form Nature’s Experiments and the Search for Symbolist Form
Refiguring Modernism

Nature’s Experiments and the Search for Symbolist Form

    • $41.99
    • $41.99

Publisher Description

This provocative study argues that some of the most inventive artwork of the 1890s was strongly influenced by the methods of experimental science and ultimately foreshadowed twentieth-century modernist practices.

Looking at avant-garde figures such as Maurice Denis, Édouard Vuillard, August Strindberg, and Edvard Munch, Allison Morehead considers the conjunction of art making and experimentalism to illuminate how artists echoed the spirit of an increasingly explorative scientific culture in their work and processes. She shows how the concept of “nature’s experiments”—the belief that the study of pathologies led to an understanding of scientific truths, above all about the human mind and body—extended from the scientific realm into the world of art, underpinned artists’ solutions to the problem of symbolist form, and provided a ready-made methodology for fin-de-siècle truth seekers. By using experimental methods to transform symbolist theories into visual form, these artists broke from naturalist modes and interrogated concepts such as deformation, automatism, the arabesque, and madness to create modern works that were radically and usefully strange.

Focusing on the scientific, psychological, and experimental tactics of symbolism, Nature’s Experiments and the Search for Symbolist Form demystifies the avant-garde value of experimentation and reveals new and important insights into a foundational period for the development of European modernism.

GENRE
Arts & Entertainment
RELEASED
2017
February 27
LANGUAGE
EN
English
LENGTH
264
Pages
PUBLISHER
Penn State University Press
SELLER
The Pennsylvania State University Press
SIZE
55.7
MB
Space and Time in Artistic Practice and Aesthetics Space and Time in Artistic Practice and Aesthetics
2017
History of a Shiver History of a Shiver
2016
Foucault on the Arts and Letters Foucault on the Arts and Letters
2016
The Politics Of Vision The Politics Of Vision
2018
Impressionism: A Feminist Reading Impressionism: A Feminist Reading
2019
Dada Presentism Dada Presentism
2016
Color in the Age of Impressionism Color in the Age of Impressionism
2017
’Pataphysics Unrolled ’Pataphysics Unrolled
2022
Misfit Modernism Misfit Modernism
2021
Literary Obscenities Literary Obscenities
2018
Soviet Salvage Soviet Salvage
2017
Ireland and the Problem of Information Ireland and the Problem of Information
2014