Symbolism
Symbolism was a trend in the late 19th century in the modernist art scene (painting, classical music and literature) in France and Belgium with jesuit Emil Verhaeren, jesuit Maurice Maeterlinck, Stephane Mallarmé, Arthur Rimbaud, Paul Verlaine, Stefan George, Alexander Scriabin, promoted by Papus and jesuit rosicrucian Joséphin Péladan. The Symbolist manifesto was published in Le Figaro, controlled by Russian secret service Okhrana. The goal of Symbolism was to revives the Greek cult of Pan (magazine Pan) and Dionysus (magazine The contemporary Parnassus) with the poet as priest/Kabbalistic magician. The Contemporary Parnassus published Charles Baudelaire, Théophile Gautier, Sully Preudhomme (first Nobel Prize of Literature), Auguste de Villiers, François Coppee, Paul Verlaine,... | ![]() |
It was promoted by Mercure de France (cult of mercury of Medici-Bonaparte's), which published the first works of Friedrich Nietzsche and André Gide and evolved into the Gallimard publishing house.
It used Greek mythology as symbols and was influenced by the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood of Dante Gabriel Rosetti (addicted to chloral hydrate, painting of Lilith as red haired woman) and the works of Arthur Schopenhauer and Edgar Allen Poe.
The Greek writer of the Symbolist manifesto, Jean Maréas influenced Charles Maurras and his Action Française.
Albert Giraud (Arnold Schoenberg composed atonal music to his Pierrot Lunaire).
Auguste Villiers de l'Isle-Adam wrote science fiction novel The Future Eve (term android, dream of creating a Golem) with Thomas Edison as a character.
Charles Baudelaire published Les Fleur du Mal in 1857.
Claude Debussy (opera Pélleas et Mélisande, based on libretto of Maeterlinck).
Félicien Rops was a freemason of the Grand Orient of Belgium.
Fernand Khnopff (Young Belgium movement with Verhaeren and Maeterlinck, Les XX with James Ensor and Jan Toorop)
published in magazine Pan with Arnold Bocklin, Ludwig Derleth, Félicien Rops.
Franz von Stück trained Wassily Kandinsky and Paul Klee (Bauhaus).
Gustav Kahn (jewish)
Gustave Moreau (Legion of Honour, paintings Jason and Medea, Prometheus, Hercules and the Hydra, Samson and Delilah, The Apparition with Salomé and head of John the Baptist, The Abduction of Ganymede, Oedipus and the Sphinx exhibited at the Met, trained Henri Matisse)
Hugo von Hoffmanstahl (Young Vienna, worked with Richard Strauss)
James Abott Whistler visited the salon of Méry Laurent with Emile Zola, Marcel Proust, Stephane Mallarmé, Antonin Proust (Minister of Culture, French Art Exhibition at World's Fair in Chicago) and Edouard Manet.
Jan Toorop was a dutch painter.
Léon Spilliaert.
Maurice Maeterlinck wrote the play The Blue Bird in 1908, performed at the Moscow Art Theatre in Russia with Konstantin Stanislavsky as director. He married Georgette Leblanc, sister of Maurice Leblanc (Legion of Honour), who created the character Arsène Lupin (similar to AC Doyle's Sherlock Holmes, reference to Cagliostro, adapted into Japanese manga Lupin III). She played in Paul Dukas' opera adaptation of Maeterlink's Ariane et Barbe-Blue. She was a friend of Jean Cocteau and had a relationship with George Gurdjieff. In 1911 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, nominated by Carl Bildt (ancestor of Carl Bildt). He collaborated with Claude Debussy on opera Pelléas et Mélissande (also used for a piece of Arnold Schoenberg, who lived near Shirley Temple).
He was president of PEN International (HG Wells, Jorge Luis Borges, Margaret Atwood, Octavio Paz) and member of the Order of Leopold (Saxe-Coburgs). Sergei Rachmaninoff composed music to his work Monna Vanna.
George Cukor made a movie adaptation of The Blue Bird in 1976 with Jane Fonda as The Night (Nuit), Elizabeth Taylor, Ava Gardner (married to Frank Sinatra of The Manchurian Candidate), Will Geer (partner of Harry Hay OTO), Cycely Tyson (married to Miles Davis).
Odilon Redon (Legion of Honour) promoted Buddhism and used butterfly symbolism.
Paul Gauguin
Paul Valéry
Paul Verlaine (gay-pedophilia agenda, Club de Hashishiens)
Pierre Louys (gay-lesbian agenda)
Remy de Gourmont influenced Georges Bataille.
Stefan George (architect of German nazism, influenced by Friedrich Nietzsche and his theory about Greek culture of Apollonian and Dionysian forces) worked with the Symbolists in Paris from 1889.
Stephane Mallarmé was a friend of occultist Auguste de Villiers (Order of St John
family) and organized meetings with Paul Gaugin, JK Huysmans, Edvard
Munch, Odilon Redon, Félicien Rops (Grand Orient de Belgique, satanic themes),...
JM Charcot (Legion of Honour) and Joseph Babinski were experimenting with hypnosis to access the subconscious and trained André Breton to create the Surrealist movement.