G.-Albert Aurier, critic and theorist of Symbolist art

Abstract

This is a study of all the published writings on art by the Symbolist poet-critic G.-Albert Aurier, intending to elucidate the systematic theory of art that underlies all his criticism. It includes a brief biographical account of Aurier's career as an art critic as well as a Symbolist poet and publisher, with emphasis on his involvement in the Decadent phase of literary Symbolism, as it relates to the development of his particular tastes in art. While Aurier's theory is Symbolist, and therefore self-consciously modern, it is here analyzed from a traditional point of view, in order to place Aurier and Symbolism in the context of the preceding tradition of Frerch art theory. The major themes explored include: the possibility of a definition of Beauty in art; the relationship of art to nature and the question of representation; the discovery of the Ideal and its expression in art; the aesthetic emotion, its character, sources, and means of expression in art; the meaning of artistic "genius"; art considered as a "language" and the implications for style.