20th Century Practice

Lecture Three:
Symbolism

RECAP: THE CRISIS OF MODERNITY

Time of incredible change due to the growth of Capitalism and

subsequent urbanisation.

Culturally this led to conservatism by the growing bourgeois

because a) their taste placed value on tradition, b) ironically the
speed of change frightened them - hold on to old values.

In theatre innovative work was difficult due to the commercial

stranglehold.

However, the seed for change was sown with the Romantic
movement which rejected the neoclassical tradition, explored new
subject matters and placed themselves outside the mainstream
society.They also placed the artist at the centre of the work of art.

INEVITABLY, the process of modernisation entered into a state of

crisis and a new consciousness evolved out of this experience Modernism became an artistic expression of this mental state.
Symbolism is the link between Romanticism and Modernism Originally it began as a Mystical search - before it transformed into
truly the first Modernist movement.

THE SYMBOLIST AGENDA

Symbolism was a reaction against the
scientific age, against determinism, against
realism, and against the bourgeois
complacency.
The Symbolists:
Wanted

to look beyond the (scientific) surface of

things to find truth - their response to the crisis of
Modernity (Darwin, the Industrial and scientific
revolutions, sudden changes in lifestyles etc..) was to
look back into the far distant past - to the ancient
signs and symbols of recently discovered ancient
(like Egypt) and beyond and to imagine that they
contained a mystical / spiritual truth - that had been
lost in the modern godless world.
However

the content of these signs could not just be

spelled out. Language is an unfit carrier of meaning
for such truths. Therefore, the symbol must be used
to activate some deeper knowledge within us.

THE (MYSTICAL) ART: developing from ROMANTICISM

Symbolists aspired To seize through the relativity of
existence the essence of the universe... to transcend the
individual poetic act and attain a higher reality. Guy Michaud

Helena Petrova Blavatsky, leader of the

Theosophists, a mystical religion that
was very popular at the time wrote a
large volume called, The Secret
Doctrine, that spoke of a belief in the
existence of ancient truths - hidden
under glyph and symbol, and hitherto left
unnoticed because of this veil

It was the poets task to look for

patterns and interrelationships in the
external world (called
correspondences) that intimated a
superior ideal world.

Redon - Mystical Conversation

RICHARD WAGNER - and the GESAMTKUNSTWERK

The highest work of art must put itself in the place of real life, it
must dissolve this Reality in an illusion, by means of which Reality
itself appears to us to be longer anything but an illusion.

In the productions of his operas he:

Created
Kept

a single steeply raked auditorium (audience closer to action)

the auditorium in darkness during the performance.

Placed

illusion)
Used

the orchestra pit and prompt box beneath the stage (so as not to destroy the

overhead lighting and no footlights

Promoted

the idea an audience of initiates - thought of the operas as a direct

communion between the audience and the experience enacted on the stage to
restore the shared ritual of the ancient Greeks
Unfortunately, these truly innovating steps were overshadowed by the
unoriginality of his material and the unimaginative staging of the works.
Tales of chivalry (Knights in shining armour, damsels in distress)
Fake and tacky sets (grassy banks, swams pulling boats, swords in trees, dragons
heads...etc...

NIETZSCHES THE BIRTH OF TRAGEDY

Wagner himself was inspired by Nietzsche's concept of the Dionysian from
The Birth of Tragedy.
This short philosophy book sets out an intellectual dichotomy between the
Dionysian and Apollonian - (reality undifferentiated by forms versus reality
as differentiated by forms.)

Dionysian:
Free
Intoxicated
Connected
Chaotic
Emotional

Apollonian:
Bound
Individuated
Harmonious
Ordered
Neurotic
Rational

Irrational

The external reality / world as we perceive it is subordinate to the inner truths of the soul.

MAURICE MAETERLINCK
In his early plays (published between 1889 and 1894), found a way to
express the symbolist agenda in play-text form:
He created a new style of dialogue, extremely lean and spare, where
what is suggested, is more important than what is said.
The characters have no foresight, and only a limited understanding of
themselves or the world around them. (Victims of external forces)
He downgraded ego and consciousness - opening the way for poetic
interpretations from the audience. (characters as puppets)
They were philosophic, poetic, elitist, with many obscure esoteric
symbols.

Maeterlinck had written that from a Symbolist point of view:

The majority of the great poems of humanity are not stageable... The day we see Hamlet die in the theatre, something
of him dies for us. He is dethroned by the spectre of an actor, and we shall never be able to keep the usurper out of our
dreams. .. Every masterpiece is a symbol and a symbol will not tolerate the active presence of man...

MAURICE MAETERLINCK
The puppet demonstates that there is no need of outer truth of external
appearance in order to convince the spectator of the inner, spiritual truth.
From this, he gradually developed his notion of the "static drama."
It is the artist's responsibility to create something that does not express human
emotions but rather the external forces that compel people.
The artist, by whatever means, must be able to trigger the spectators power of
association and imagination - and therefore, the spectator is placed in an active
role, whereas in the theatre of illusion, he is no more than a passive recipient.

THE SYMBOLIST THEATRES: Theatre dArt

The characters on stage declaimed in melodious verse and at times sang in chorus.
They were seperated from the audience by a gauze and moved slowly and
rythmically in soft lighting against a backdrop of gleaming gold decorated with the
stylised figures of angels and framed with red drapes. On the forestage there was a
narrator in a long blue tunic standing on a lecturn, who described in heightened
prose the action, the locations, and the inner thoughts of the characters.

Paul Gaugiun - The Yellow Christ 1889

Paul Gauguin - Jacob Wrestling with an Angel

Maurice Denis - Psyches Parents Abandon Her on the Top of a Mountain

THE SYMBOLIST THEATRES: Theatre de LOeuvre

...by distancing himself as far as possible from reality, by lending every line,
however banal, an undertone of mystery. These were phantoms moving about
the stage (though as little as possible), whilst the real characters were in the
wings. Few gestures, a flat and plaintive tone of voice, weak yet impressive.

Edouard Vuillard (French, 1868-1940), Les coulisses du Thtre de l'Oeuvre

Edouard Vuillard - Program for Theatre de LOeuvre

RECAP

Once symbolism had let go of its mystical pretentions, it became a kind of de-cluttering of the theatrical canvas.

It is in this shift that Symbolism becomes the initiatory Modernist movement.

An invitation to the poet to use the space created for mystical elements for his own poetic symbols.
This had built into it an invitation to the audience to actively participate in the reading and perceiving of the work of
art.

EDWARD GORDON CRAIG

Ellen Terry - by Gordon Craig

James Pryde - The Red Bed

James Pryde - The Unknown Corner

Gordon Craig as Hamlet - by William Nicholson

EDWARD GORDON CRAIG

He created an ideal country where everything was possible, even speaking in

verse, or speaking to music, or the expression of the whole of life in a dance, and
I would like to see Stratford-upon-Avon decorate its Shakespeare with like
scenery.

EDWARD GORDON CRAIG

When Craig talks about lines, designs, compositions, and even lighting, I feel that this
is Craig, but when the question concerns directing, then I dont trust him: be he
absolutely right, he is too uninterested in acting.