Fin de siècle

aesthetic c. 1880-1900 Europe

Fin de siècle - 'end of the century' - names the sensibility of European culture around 1900: a weariness with bourgeois certainty braided with fascination for decadence, the erotic and the occult. It is a mood rather than a style, shared across painting, illustration and literature - Huysmans' cult novel À rebours (1884), the mythic dream-worlds of Gustave Moreau, Aubrey Beardsley's perverse black-and-white line - and it fed directly into Symbolism and Art Nouveau. Against progress and industry, the fin de siècle cultivated artificiality, dandyism and the beautiful corpse. Its images keep returning to the femme fatale, the mask and the ornamental surface concealing rot - the emblematic atmosphere of a century about to turn.

« End of the century review! Promising and keeping are two”, anti-republican caricature by Achille Lemot, newspaper “Le Pèlerin”.
« End of the century review! Promising and keeping are two”, anti-republican caricature by Achille Lemot, newspaper “Le Pèlerin”.Public domain (credit: Achille Lemot) · source

Defining characteristics

  • Decadent, world-weary sensibility: beauty laced with ennui and dread
  • Eroticism and morbidity intertwined (femme fatale, mask, artificial paradise)
  • Ornamental, sinuous decoration anticipating Art Nouveau
  • Dream, symbol and myth favored over naturalistic description
  • Theatricality, dandyism and artificiality prized against bourgeois realism

Key figures

  • Gustave Moreau (1826-1898) — Painter of jewel-like mythic visions central to the Symbolist mood
  • Aubrey Beardsley (1872-1898) — Illustrator whose perverse black line defined the Decadent look
  • Joris-Karl Huysmans (1848-1907) — Writer whose À rebours became the movement's cult text

Example works

  • À rebours — Joris-Karl Huysmans (1884)
  • Jupiter and Semele — Gustave Moreau (1895)

Sources

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