Nature’s Experiments and The Search for Symbolist Form

Illustrations in this book were funded in part or in whole by a grant from the Meiss/Mellon Author’s Book Award of the College Art Association.

An earlier version of chapter 2 appeared as “Defending Deformation: Maurice Denis’s Positivist Modernism,” in Art History 38, no. 5 (2015): 890–915, and I am grateful to the Association of Art Historians for granting me permission to reproduce this material here.

Chapter 5 includes revised excerpts from “‘Are There Bacteria in the Rooms of Monte Carlo?’ The Roulette Paintings, 1891–93,” in Munch Becoming “Munch”: Artistic Strategies, 1880–1892, exh. cat., edited by Ingebjørg Ydstie and Mai Britt Guleng (Oslo: Munch Museum, 2008), 120–36; “The Musée de la folie: Collecting and Exhibiting chez les fous,” Journal of the History of Collections 23, no. 1 (2011): 101–26; and, with Elizabeth Otto, “Representation in the Age of Mediumistic Reproduction, from Symbolism to the Bauhaus,” in The Symbolist Roots of Modernist Art, edited by Michelle Facos and Thor J. Mednick (Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate, 2015), 155–68.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Morehead, Allison, author.

Title: Nature’s experiments and the search for symbolist form / Allison Morehead.

Other titles: Refiguring modernism.

Description: University Park, Pennsylvania : The Pennsylvania State University Press, [2017] | Series: Refiguring modernism | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Summary: “Examines the influence of experimental science, concerned with the workings of the body, the mind, and their various pathologies, on the works of late nineteenth-century artists Maurice Denis, Édouard Vuillard, August Strindberg, and Edvard Munch”—Provided by publisher.

Identifiers: LCCN 2016025159 | ISBN 9780271076744 (cloth : alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH: Symbolism (Art movement) | Art and science—History—19th century. | Denis, Maurice, 1870–1943—Criticism and interpretation. | Vuillard, Édouard, 1868–1940—Criticism and interpretation. | Strindberg, August, 1849–1912—Criticism and interpretation. | Munch, Edvard, 1863–1944—Criticism and interpretation.

Classification: LCC N6465.S9 M67 2017 | DDC 704.9/46—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016025159

The Pennsylvania State University Press is a member of the Association of American University Presses.

It is the policy of The Pennsylvania State University Press to use acid-free paper. Publications on uncoated stock satisfy the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Material, ansi z39.48–1992.

Additional credits: Pages ii–iii, clockwise from upper left: details of Maurice Denis, study for Décor, ca. 1890–91 (fig. 3); Edvard Munch, The Scream, 1893 (fig. 6); Édouard Vuillard, Woman Sleeping, 1892 (fig. 43), and August Strindberg, Night of Jealousy, 1893 (fig. 5). Pages vi–vii, detail of Edvard Munch, The Scream, 1893 (fig. 6). Page 24: detail of advertisement for Émile Zola, Nana and “Le roman expérimental,” Le Voltaire, no. 467 (15 October 1879): 4 (fig. 13). Page 46: detail of Maurice Denis, study for Décor, ca. 1890–91 (fig. 21). Page 78: detail of Édouard Vuillard, Woman Sleeping, 1892 (fig. 43). Page 110: detail of August Strindberg, Wonderland, 1894 (fig. 72). Page 136: detail of Edvard Munch, Women in Hospital, 1897 (fig. 96).