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- Title
The Spectacle Within: Symbolist Painting and Minimalist Mise-en-Scène.
- Authors
Taroff, Kurt
- Abstract
Symbolism's rejection of spectacle has frequently been seen as the harbinger of a modernist anti-theatricality. Suspicious of the idea that the stage could ever represent 'objective reality' and contemptuous of audiences that prized pageantry over poetry, the symbolists were indeed opposed to the theatre of the late nineteenth century as an art-form incompatible with their worldview. At the same time, the influence of Wagner and the potential for communion with a present audience were among multiple incentives driving the symbolists towards theatrical production. As many symbolists clamoured for a 'renewal' of the theatre, calling for the integration of poetry, music and painting on stage, in many cases, the mise-en-sce`ne was constituted by the prominent display of a painting by a symbolist artist as a backdrop. This essay will explore the relationship between symbolist painting and drama, as well as that between symbolist mise-en-sce`ne and that of the other contemporaneous genres. Ultimately, I propose that the symbolist engagement with the visual in the theatre was primarily concerned with establishing an alternative positionality for the spectator, one not of aesthetic appreciation, magical absorption or critical distance, but rather an active participation in the creation of the dramatic world.
- Subjects
SYMBOLISM (Literary movement); SPECTACULAR, The; THEATER history; 19TH century drama; MELODRAMA; 19TH century painting; MISE en scene (Motion pictures); NINETEENTH century; HISTORY
- Publication
Nineteenth Century Theatre & Film, 2015, Vol 42, Issue 2, p211
- ISSN
1748-3727
- Publication type
Essay
- DOI
10.1177/1748372716643336