The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum has headed into the mystic. Diving into a rarely seen realm of late 19th-century art, the institution's newest show is Mystical Symbolism: The Salon de la Rose + Croix in Paris, 1892-1897, on display through October 4 and featuring an intriguing series of Rosicrucian art.
The movement highlighted here focused on stylized imagery, the imaginary, and a search for the ”ideal.” Sources often lay in mythology and mysticism, and were largely influenced by literary works. Orpheus crops up often, as do various monsters, women who gaze skyward, and the Italian Renaissance.
Fernand Khnopff, I Lock My Door upon Myself, 1891. Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Neue Pinakothek, Munich. Photo: bkp Bildagentur, Berlin/Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Neue Pinakothek, Munich/Art Resource, NY
In the late nineteenth century, the Salon de la Rose + Croix was held in Paris to further the tenets of the Rosicrucian order started by French author and critic Josephin Peladan; the religious order focused on mystical and spiritual ideas. The literary and artistic Symbolist movement influenced Peladan heavily. Gone was the focus in the scientific and realistic; in came the emphasis on the dreamlike and mystical.
The exhibit—the first ever museum show on these salons—is set up somewhat like a salon, with blue velvet couches and poufs scattered around the main gallery, as well as music by Erik Satie floating through the galleries.
The exhibit has a dreamy, surreal quality—symbolism is, in fact, sometimes referred to as the forerunner of Surrealism. The approximately 40 works in the exhibit include paintings, works on paper, and even sculptures. Artists such as Jean Delville, Ferdinand Hodler, and Antoine Bordelle are represented.
The works are characterized by long, curving lines and ethereal female figures, flattened forms, and mystical and religious symbols. Jean Delville’s The Death of Orpheus, for example, shows a mostly submerged torso with a dreamlike expression in jewel-bedecked clothing, floating in brilliant green water. Many of the figures seem to look yearningly at something we can’t see, as though hidden wonders are just out of view.
Installation View: Mystical Symbolism: The Salon de la Rose+Croix in Paris, 1892–1897. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. Photo: David Heald © Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, 2017
Richard Wagner became a seminal figure in the movement, showcasing the combination of different mediums, from musical performances to lectures and theater. Women are often pure and nun-like (Alphonse Osbert’s Vision shows a woman with a heavenly halo, looking skyward, with a sheep at her side.) A number of the works have this mix of the ethereal and the eccentric, and capitalize heavily on female stereotypes, from the chaste to the femme fatale, a theme that runs throughout the show.
Installation View: Mystical Symbolism: The Salon de la Rose+Croix in Paris, 1892–1897. Photo: David Heald © Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, 2017
What to make of the exhibit overall? It offers a look at a specific moment in time that garnered enormous attention during its heyday, and then largely faded away. It paved the way in some part, however, for artists such as Vasily Kandinsky and Piet Mondrian, and shows that the use of symbols and imagery to highlight a cause is always an effective means of expression. Best to take it as a fascinating look at a fleeting moment in time and a fresh draw for a museum that’s always worth experiencing.
For more information, visit guggenheim.org.
