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Many modernist and avant-garde artists and authors were fascinated by the occult movements of their day. This volume explores how Occultism came to shape modernist art, literature, and film. Individual chapters examine the presence and role of Occultism in the work of such modernist luminaries as Rainer Maria Rilke, August Strindberg, W.B. Yeats, Joséphin Péladan and the artist Jan Svankmaier, as well as in avant-garde film, post-war Greek Surrealism, and Scandinavian Retrogardism. Combining the theoretical and methodological foundations of the field of Esotericism Studies with those of Literary Studies, Art History, and Cinema Studies, this volume provides in-depth and nuanced perspectives upon the relationship between Occultism and Modernism in the Western arts from the nineteenth century to the present day.
List of contents
1. Introduction: Conceptualizing Occult Modernism.- 2. A History of Research into Occult Modernist Literature.- Part I Artistic Practices.- 3. Visionary Mimesis and Occult Modernism in Literature and Art Around 1900.- 4. August Strindberg's Art in Modernist and Occult Context.- 5. 'Only Poets and Occultists Believe in Them Just Now': Fairies and the Modernist Crisis of Authorship.- Part II Aesthetics.- 6. Return from Oblivion: Joséphin Péladan's Literary Esotericism.- 7. Ghosts Before Breakfast: The Appetite for the Beyond in Early Avant-Garde Film.- 8. Marie Wilson and Nanos Valaoritis in Conversation: Surrealism, Imagetext, and Occult Aesthetics in Terre de Diamant.- Part III Occulture.- 9. Magic Art Between the Primitive and the Occult: Animal Sacrifice in Jan Svankmajer's Drawer Fetishes.- 10. Retrogardism and Occulture in Håkan Sandell's Poetry.
About the author
Tessel M. Bauduin is Postdoctoral Research Associate in Art History at the University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Henrik Johnsson is Associate Professor of Scandinavian literature at the University of Tromsø, Norway.
Summary
Many modernist and avant-garde artists and authors were fascinated by the occult movements of their day. This volume explores how Occultism came to shape modernist art, literature, and film. Individual chapters examine the presence and role of Occultism in the work of such modernist luminaries as Rainer Maria Rilke, August Strindberg, W.B. Yeats, Joséphin Péladan and the artist Jan Švankmaier, as well as in avant-garde film, post-war Greek Surrealism, and Scandinavian Retrogardism. Combining the theoretical and methodological foundations of the field of Esotericism Studies with those of Literary Studies, Art History, and Cinema Studies, this volume provides in-depth and nuanced perspectives upon the relationship between Occultism and Modernism in the Western arts from the nineteenth century to the present day.
