Concerning painting and poetry, Schelling expressed his views, saying 'Poetry and painting are the same.' On this view, it is possible to study interaction, by connecting literary elements in Redon's painting with Baudelaire's work.
In opposition to ...
Concerning painting and poetry, Schelling expressed his views, saying 'Poetry and painting are the same.' On this view, it is possible to study interaction, by connecting literary elements in Redon's painting with Baudelaire's work.
In opposition to positivism and materialism dominated in his time, Redon sought to understand spiritual and internal reality. Themes in his work were fantastic masks, monsters, cut neck, weird sea creatures, and animals in classical myths, which were re-created by him through a new way of interpretation. Moreover, he expressed the literary world with unique formativeness, maintaining spiritual exchanges with symbolist literary circle.
Considering the above facts, the study examined what the origin and spiritual background of his fantastic expressions were and what types of painting he created with the inspirations from Baudelaire's poems to investigate close connection between art and literature.
Redon presented inner world of human beings reacting to fantastic beings or mysteries of the universe in a symbolic manner and created fantastic world in hidden colors inside.
This study compared and analyzed Redon's paintings arousing feelings more than satisfying appreciating eyes (sight) and Baudelaire's Sympathy to understand interaction between symbolist literature and art.
In the poetry of Baudelaire, the nature is like a symbol and a sign, beyond universal reality perceived by eyes. Namely, it can be said hieroglyphic characters, which are presented as butterflies, trees, flowers, and black color in Redon's paintings. It is easy to know Redon's themes are not the realization of myths only. In this sense, Redon is an artist who expressed Baudelaire's theory of 'correspondence' by means of paintings. Both artists Baudelaire and Redon tell us that symbolist art is a collective movement covering literature and art.
Results of comparative analysis of works of Baudelaire and Redon are asfollows: both of them had the deepest understanding and sympathy of human beings and sought for non-material world and sensory liberation of intuition and emotion. In addition, it is found that symbolist literature and art have in common in that 'human feelings and imagination' are at the center, despite different genre and expression methods.