Composing the decorative: Maurice Denis, music and the search for French cultural identity

我的项目旨在调查视觉艺术和音乐之间感知的亲和力，为Fin-de-siècle和20世纪初的法国的艺术生产和理论提供信息。它的重点是画家莫里斯·丹尼斯(1870-1943)的装饰作品，他是被称为纳比派的画家圈中的领军人物，在法国天主教复兴时期也是突出的。近年来，学术界对艺术和音乐之间相互作用的兴趣大大增加(见Shephard and Leonard(2013))。但跨学科研究中最常被考虑的作品是“现代主义的”，从某种意义上说，它的特征是自觉地追求实验、前卫或走向“抽象”(例如，参见Shaw-Miller(2002)和Albright(2000))。无论是Denis和其他Nabis的作品，还是它与音乐的关系，都不属于现代主义的范畴，尽管它具有艺术史意义：新郎(2001)和昆兹利(2010)坚持认为Nabis的装饰是Fin-de-siècle文化的中心。在他的绘画中，丹尼斯与包括欧内斯特·乔森、文森特·印第和克劳德·德彪西在内的作曲家的密切参与是一个被忽视的研究领域：关于这个主题，只有一个主要是传记的描述(Grivel(2011))。丹尼斯早期的理论文本吸引了艺术史的关注，而忽视了他的绘画。但这幅画是Fin-de-siècle某些文化潮流的中心，在那些倾向于历史线性的现代主义叙事中，这些文化潮流多少有些偏向(参见Thomson(2004))。我的研究将重新评估丹尼斯的艺术史意义，考虑到他的装饰作品和作品处于美学理论的同时代背景下，特别是在人们普遍渴望复兴法国古典传统的时候，人们对失去所谓的法国人的秩序和清晰度感到焦虑-这一渴望将丹尼斯与特定的音乐家圈子联系在一起。他们目的的统一是否反映了对文化整体性的渴望，并加强了绘画和音乐之间感知到的亲和力的重要性？如果是这样的话，丹尼斯的装饰作品的特点可能被理解为反映了对维持法国文化连续性的追求，这是受到与他的音乐朋友们分享的雄心的启发。艺术史和音乐学研究，包括肖(2002)和帕斯勒(2009)，描述了在世纪之交，这两种艺术形式是如何被吸收来努力促进某些意识形态的。尤其是公共装饰艺术，人们用政治两极分化的术语进行讨论，往往被理解为反映当代社会价值观。对丹尼斯作品的艺术史欣赏可能与反动作家的修辞过于简单地联系在一起。但是Bouillon(2006)指出，丹尼斯自己的政治态度仍然服从于他的审美诚意。研究的一个主题是在同时代关于丹尼斯的批评作品中通过隐喻将艺术和音乐融合在一起。进一步的研究领域将是特定的表演时刻，例如1920年丹尼斯与作曲家莫里斯·伊曼纽尔在美术学院国家艺术沙龙主持的格里高利圣歌音乐会。这种“当下”艺术与音乐融合的体验，可以追溯到瓦格纳尔的格萨姆昆斯特维克(Gesamtkunstwerk，“全部艺术作品”)的影响，这是一种渗透在Fin-de-siècle文化思想中的理想。丹尼斯认为，他的艺术可以与音乐相提并论，因为它有可能引发祈祷般的幻想。他在瓦格纳派的文森特·德·印第的雄心中找到了他“保守的现代主义”(Marlais(1992))的一种表现，即重建宗教传统，将其作为现代音乐的核心灵感。比较印第的肖拉·坎托勒姆和丹尼斯的艺术大师的活动，将有助于理解画家和音乐家之间的共性。

My project aims to investigate perceived affinities between the visual arts and music, as informing artistic production and theory in fin-de-siècle and early 20th-century France. It focuses on the decorative works of the painter Maurice Denis (1870-1943), a leading figure in the circle of painters known as the Nabis, and prominent in the French Catholic revival. Scholarly interest in the interaction between art and music has greatly increased in recent years (see Shephard and Leonard (2013)). But the work most considered in interdisciplinary studies has been 'modernist', in the sense of being characterized by such features as the self-conscious pursuit of experimentation, avant-gardisme or movement towards 'abstraction' (see, for example, Shaw-Miller (2002) and Albright (2000)). Neither the work of Denis and other Nabis nor its relationship to music fall comfortably within this scope of modernism, despite its art historical significance: Groom (2001) and Kuenzli (2010) insist on the centrality of the Nabis' decorations to fin-de-siècle culture. The importance for his painting of Denis's close involvement with composers, including Ernest Chausson, Vincent d'Indy and Claude Debussy, is a neglected area of research: only one largely biographical account exists on the subject (Grivel (2011)). Denis's early theoretical texts have absorbed art-historical attention to the neglect of his painting. But this painting was central to certain cultural currents at the fin-de-siècle, which have been somewhat side-lined within those narratives of 'modernism' that tend to historical linearity (see Thomson (2004)). My study will reassess Denis's art-historical significance, considering his decorative oeuvre and writings in their contemporaneous contexts of aesthetic theory and, specifically, of the widespread aspiration to renew the French classical tradition, at a time of anxiety over the loss of purportedly 'French' qualities of order and clarity- an aspiration which united Denis with a particular circle of musicians. Did their unity of purpose reflect a desire for cultural wholeness, and strengthen the importance of perceived affinities between painting and music? If so, the character of Denis's decorative oeuvre might be understood to reflect the quest to sustain French cultural continuity, informed by ambitions shared with his musical friends. Art historical and musicological studies, including Shaw (2002) and Pasler (2009) have described how, around the turn of the century, both art forms were co-opted in efforts to promote certain ideologies. Public decorative art in particular was discussed in politically polarized terms, and often understood as reflecting contemporary social values. Art historical appreciation of Denis's work may have suffered from simplistic association with the rhetoric of reactionary writers. But Bouillon (2006) suggests that Denis's own political attitude remained subordinate to his aesthetic sincerity.One topic of investigation will be the convergence of art and music through metaphors in contemporaneous critical writings on Denis. A further area of research will be specific moments of performance, such as the concert of Gregorian chant that Denis hosted with the composer Maurice Emmanuel, at the Salon de la Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts in 1920. This experience of synthesis of art and music 'in the moment' can be traced to the influence of the Wagnerian Gesamtkunstwerk ('total work of art'), an ideal which permeated fin-de-siècle cultural thought. Denis understood his art as being comparable to music, in its potential to induce prayerful reverie. He found a manifestation of his 'conservative modernism' (Marlais (1992)) in the Wagnerite Vincent d'Indy's ambition to re-establish religious tradition as a central inspiration for modern music. Comparing the activities of d'Indy's Schola Cantorum and Denis's Ateliers d'Art Sacré will be a useful way to understand commonalities between painter and musician.