Myths and Mysteries: Symbolism and Swiss Artists, 26.04. – 18.08.2013
Fascination for the Mysterious and the Enigmatic
Myths and Mysteries: Symbolism and Swiss Artists is the first exhibition ever to throw light on the pivotal role played by Swiss artists in the international context of symbolism, showing some 200 works, many of which are key masterpieces of the epoch. Great Swiss painters, sculptors, draftsmen, and photographers will be viewed in relation to symbolist artists from neighboring countries. One third of the exhibits are from the Kunstmuseum Bern Collection. They have been supplemented with loans from Swiss museums and eminent international collections. Thus the exhibition is able to offer a seldom and multi-faceted overview of symbolism.
Symbolism in the visual arts was born in Paris around 1890, with Swiss artists such as Ferdinand Hodler, Carlos Schwabe, and Félix Vallotton playing a highly influential role. Symbolist art comprises artworks that do not comply with notions of everyday reality. Rather, the realities they show cannot be scrutinized scientifically and exist in the mind. Besides key works by Ferdinand Hodler, Félix Vallotton, Arnold Böcklin, Carlos Schwabe, and Giovanni Segantini, the show is featuring masterpieces by Gustav Klimt, Fernand Khnopff, Franz von Stuck, Gaetano Previati, William Degouve de Nuncques, and Hans Thoma among others. Structured according to subject matter, the exhibition comprises paintings, drawings, photographs, prints, books, posters, and sculptures.
Places of yearning and
spheres of our intuition
Symbolism is not a style but a mind-set. The goal of the international movement
around 1890 was to turn its back on the profane reality of industrialization marked
by technology, urbanization, and the anonymity of mass society. The symbolists exposed
the rational side of the industrial age as a cold, callous, and superficial
world. Under this surface they found real life where the mysterious and miraculous
call out, but also where the uncanny and our instinctual nature lurk. Artists took
on the task of making what was lost, the arcane, the beautiful, and truth
visually palpable. Symbolism assimilated
a wide variety of artistic movements and combined them into something new. It
is permeated with the melancholy of the end of an era and the hopes for a fresh
start. In this way it is closely affiliated to the present. Not only the
boundaries separating the arts were in dissolution, but humankind’s attitude to
nature was changing too. After the great turbulence of the Romantic era,
humankind became again more concerned about spiritual values, although it now sought
cosmic rather than religious spirituality.
The existential issues
of our times
The exhibition bears the title Myths
and Mysteries because the symbolists, in a demystified world, strived
to illustrate that society cannot exist without ideals, dreams, and the promise
of happiness. Today’s unbelievably widespread and popular fantasy genre is
nothing more than a late offshoot of symbolism. Therefore, the exhibition not
only makes it possible for us to intensively study the great classics of fin-de-siècle
art—it likewise provides answers to the existential issues presently engaging
our attention.
