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Fin De Siecle: Art and Society in an Age of Uncertainty
Book by Shearer, West
160 pages, Hardcover
First published October 15, 1993
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
February 14, 2021
great survey of the european decadent movement, with focus on economics, social 'degeneration', women and androgyny, apocalypse and regeneration. a few quibbles:
• there are 60 full color, small sized plates but with hundreds of individual paintings mentioned in her book, it seems really sparse. looking things up on my phone took time so i eventually stopped doing it, missing out on some things i'm sure
• this is visual art only, mostly paintings. poetry and literature are mentioned but only briefly, and its pretty much all Wilde, whose style of 'decadence' would differ drastically from someone like Huysmans, who is mentioned, once or twice
i'd love a sequel or sideboard to this book that focuses on lit, but what we do get is really great. west is entirely thorough, unbiased and with conclusions that spotlight new areas of the 19th c. and ring true. the opening chapter dealing with the previous 'decadent' eras she's chosen (15th and 18th centuries) tie in perfectly to her subject's abstract, but did slow the proceedings down a bit (this book is only 140 pages but laid out like an art book wide-format (so it took me a couple weeks to get through it)).
i used this as a nonfictional sideboard to my current research on the fin de siecle for music that i'm writing and i'd rec it for anyone interested in 19th c. politics or religion as well. 'dated' material is what i see people criticizing it for, but in these Inside Times we're living in, doesn't feel dated at all. maybe an updated digital version with links to all cited visual works would be better, but as it stands i've not found any better info on the topic.
• there are 60 full color, small sized plates but with hundreds of individual paintings mentioned in her book, it seems really sparse. looking things up on my phone took time so i eventually stopped doing it, missing out on some things i'm sure
• this is visual art only, mostly paintings. poetry and literature are mentioned but only briefly, and its pretty much all Wilde, whose style of 'decadence' would differ drastically from someone like Huysmans, who is mentioned, once or twice
i'd love a sequel or sideboard to this book that focuses on lit, but what we do get is really great. west is entirely thorough, unbiased and with conclusions that spotlight new areas of the 19th c. and ring true. the opening chapter dealing with the previous 'decadent' eras she's chosen (15th and 18th centuries) tie in perfectly to her subject's abstract, but did slow the proceedings down a bit (this book is only 140 pages but laid out like an art book wide-format (so it took me a couple weeks to get through it)).
i used this as a nonfictional sideboard to my current research on the fin de siecle for music that i'm writing and i'd rec it for anyone interested in 19th c. politics or religion as well. 'dated' material is what i see people criticizing it for, but in these Inside Times we're living in, doesn't feel dated at all. maybe an updated digital version with links to all cited visual works would be better, but as it stands i've not found any better info on the topic.
i-get-the-picture
April 22, 2013This short book looks rather eccentric, from a glance. There is a somewhat useful bibliography (though it is already dated) at the end. Not likely to read it now.
October 1, 2015
Good information but so much repetition that I was constantly wondering where on earth the editor had been.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews