In 1890 a schism occurred in the ranks of the French Kabbalists.
The leader of the dissident element was Joséphin Peledan, self-styled Sar Merodack. After reading Pleledan’s novel Le Vice Supreme in 1884, Guaita had written an enthusiastic letter and invited him to join the group. Initially Peledan was happy to act as mentor to the marquis but eventually he decided to break away and form his own order, He said he found Guaita’s approach ‘too eclectic’ and, as he was to write in L’Initiation, he refused to ‘rub shoulders with spiritualism, masonry and Buddhism.’ His new group was given the title of the Order of the Catholic Rose Cross, the Temple and the Grail. This name indicating a desire to conform to an eccentric conception of Catholic orthodoxy, and, by reference to the images of ‘temple’ and ‘grail’, create an association with esoteric Christianity, perhaps hinting at an ancient monarchist Legitimism and the Merovingian mysteries.
Peledan’s style proved successful and he soon came to rival Papus as a new impresario of the occult. He drew upon aristocratic circles for support and his new order included Comte Antoine de la Rochefoucauld, Comte Leonce de Larmadie (Peledan’s uncle) and Gary de Lacroze. Literary members included Elemir Bourges (1852-1925), the poet Paul Roux and many others. Elemir Bourges wrote ambitious anti-Naturalist historical novels of pathological degeneracy such as Le Crepescule des Dieux (1884), a kaleidoscope of excess based on the semi-legendary foibles of Ludwig II, the ‘mad king’ of Bavaria and patron of Richard Wagner. Paul Roux was known as Saint-Pol-Roux or Saint-Pol-le-Magnifique, the hermit-poet of Camaret (Britanny). He was later held in great esteem by the Surrealists and he evolved his own magical aesthetic called Magnificisme, embodied in his collected works, Les Resposoirs de la Procession (1893-1907). He was killed by the Nazis in 1940.
Either in spite of, or indeed, because of, a frenzied orchestration of Decadent themes and images, Peledan gathered around himself a large group of committed followers, and by 1892 he had launched a campaign to organize public art exhibitions. It was the Sar’s ambition to revolutionize the sensibilities of his contemporaries and lead them into the Rosicrucian fold via the arts.
The first of these Rosicrucian Salons opened in March 1892 at the Galeries Durand-Ruel – it was an immediate success and exhibitions were held regularly until 1897.
Despite the fact that Gustave Moreau, Peledan’s idol, held himself aloof, the Salons managed to attract a number of highly talented Symbolist/Idealist painters. These included Gorges de Feure, Charles Filliger, the Belgians Khnopff and Delville and the Swiss artist Hodler whose monumental painting ‘Night’ had caused a minor scandal in 1891. Jean Delville’s Portrait of Mrs Stuart Merrill (wife of expatriate American poet Stuart Merrill) gained renown as an iconic image of the period. According to Phillippe Jullian, the portrait known as Mysteriosa, infused with spiritualistic symbolism, ‘became the Giaconda of the Nineties’.
Magisme, the Rosicrucian doctrine of esoteric aesthetic idealism was a complex popularization of Rimbaud’s Theorie du Voyant in that it reaffirmed the role of the artist as intercessor and priest-shaman. Peledan’s declared objective was ‘to restore the cult of the ideal in all its splendour’ – as he wrote in his Salon de la Rose-Croix, Regle et Monitoire of 1891. To this end he denounced all forms of realism including Naturalism and Impressionism. He anathematized landscapes, still-lifes and genre scenes. Instead he advocated themes derived from dreams, ‘oriental theoginies’, Catholic dogma, mysticism and myth – especially the myths of Orpheus, Prometheus and the Sphinx. The artists who most closely embodied these doctrines were, apart from those already mentioned, Alphonse Osbert, Armand Point and Alexandre Seon. In hindsight their works appear stilted and derivative, suffused at times with a saccharine piety, as in, for example, Osbert’s ‘The Vision’ of 1892.
The Rosicrucian influence spread beyond France to Belgium where a number of painters rallied to the call of l’esthetique ideal and fulfilled the bar’s requirements almost to the letter. Apart from Khnopff – the supreme master of oneiric, introverted Symbolism, the most significant Belgian practitioners were Leon Frederic, Constant Montald, Emile Fabry and Auguste Leveque. Their works were mannerist and highly finished. They approached a form of proto-Surrealism through a unique form of erotic speculative idealism. For example – in the triptych by Leon Frederic entitled ‘Tout est Mort’ (1897/8), swans glide between the bodies of children and babies. The bodies are languorously intertwined in an image that mixes innocence and perversity. The whole picture is dominated be a ‘titanic’ landscape background derived (perhaps) from Wiertz or the paradisiacal vistas of John Martin.
The leading exponent of Belgian esoterisme was Jean Delville. Having participated in the first Rosicrucian Salon of 1892 he co-founded a similar group in Belgium called the Pour l’Art group. Salons were held regularly until 1895. He then helped to start another similar group – Salons de l’Art Idealiste (1896) in which the French Rosicrucians Seon and Point also participated. Delville himself, steeped in the thought of Eliphas Levi and the Theosophists, blended a mannerist technique with the doctrine of the astral light to produce grandiose paintings of evocative power. His most famous works are ‘The Portrait of Madame Stuart Merrill’ (1892), ‘Orphee Mort’ (1893), ‘L’Ange des Splendeurs’ (1894) and ‘Les Tresors de Satan’ (1895). He was also a writer, producing poetry, such as ‘Le Frisson du Sphinx’ (1897) and a number of tracts on art and the occult, including L’Inspiration idealiste dans l’art (1935). He took for his motto Wagner’s dictum: ‘Art begins where life ends.’
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A C Evans
Illustration: Delville: Mysteriosa – Portrait of Mrs Stuart Merrill (1892)
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