August Bromse
August Bromse (1873 – 1925) is an artist I have only recently discovered. He was a Czech artist who was strongly influenced by the Germanic Symbolists, most significantly Max Klinger. I’ve fallen in love with his macabre Girl and Death series. The critic Otto M. Urban wrote of it that:
“The series The Girl and-Death, which originated in Berlin in 1901-1902, echoes the relationship of August Bromse with the concert singer Eisa Schünemann (they had known each other since 1902 but did not marry until 1910 when he was already living in Prague and heading the print studio at the Prague Academy), as does the later Nietzsche series “The Whole Being is Burning Sorrow” (1903, awarded a prize 1905 at the Paris exhibition). “The Girl and Death” is a modern variant of the Dance of Death.”
In the Park
By the Window
Life Escaping
An Old Song
Dance
I'm Coming
The Lost Paradise
Hugo Simberg
I’m sorry it’s been so long since I last updated – coursework has been eating my life for the past couple of weeks.
Anyway, I have my life back now, so I thought I’d bring you some work by the cheery Symbolist painter, Hugo Simberg (1873 – 1917). A Finnish artist, Simberg’s work is gloomy and macabre, his favourite subject being the supernatural. Death, whom the artist called ‘that poor devil’, plays a central role in his paintings – Simberg once wrote to his brother that he wanted to paint all that made one cry within oneself. He was also a very able photographer, and took many pictures of young boys, which explored the themes of burgeoning adolescence and the loss of innocence.
Garden of Death
Wounded Angel
On the Stream of Life
The Serpent
Lord Alfred Douglas
Lord Alfred ‘Bosie’ Douglas (1870 – 1945) is best known as Oscar Wilde’s lover, and is often blamed for Wilde’s downfall. However, he was a poet in his own right. He lacked the genius of the older man, but some of his work is very lovely. The most famous, of course, is ‘Two Loves’ – one of the pieces of literature quoted at Wilde’s trial as evidence against him. One of my other favourites though, and a much lesser-known poem, is called ‘The Dead Poet’. Douglas wrote it after hearing the news of the death of his exiled former lover.
Lord Alfred Douglas as a young man
The Dead Poet
I dreamed of him last night, I saw his face
All radiant and unshadowed of distress,
And as of old, in music measureless,
I heard his golden voice and marked him trace
Under the common thing the hidden grace,
And conjure words out of emptiness,
Till mean things put on beauty like a dress
And all the world was an enchanted place.
And then methought outside a fast locked gate
I mourned the loss of unrecorded words,
Forgotten tales and mysteries half said,
Wonders that might have been articulate,
And voiceless thoughts like murdered singing birds.
And so I woke and knew that he was dead.
*
A lot of Wilde fans blame Bosie for what happened, but I actually feel more pity for him than anything. Yes, the relationship with Oscar was clearly a destructive one, and yes, Douglas was obviously very selfish at times, but with Queensbury for a father who wouldn’t have issues? Also, he truly knew how to live decadently (before he turned to Catholicism at least), and that is something I can always appreciate.
Alfred Kubin
Alfred Kubin (1877 – 1959) is usually categorised as an Expressionist, but I’m going to put my foot down, despite having no qualifications as an art historian, and call him a Symbolist.
Alfred Kubin
Kubin’s adolescence seems to have been marred by episodes of profound depression, and he attempted suicide at least twice- once on his mother’s grave, and again after the death of his fiancée. Michael Gibson writes that ‘the despair and anxiety to which that act testifies became the energies that Kubin channelled into art’, resulting in works of ‘nightmarish terror.’
Lady on the Horse
Adoration
Fright
Every Night Sleep Haunts Us
The Pond
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