Salon de la Rose + Croix

The Salon de la Rose + Croix was a series of six art and music salons hosted in 1890s Paris by the novelist and Rosicrucian Joséphin Péladan, who styled himself Sâr of his Mystic Order of the Rose + Croix. The salons, held between 1892 and 1897, were the Order's main project: a forum for artists of esoteric and idealist bent, meant to overcome European materialism and to stand apart from both academic art and Impressionism. Roughly 230 artists exhibited. Subjects had to touch religion, mysticism, myth, dream, and allegory; naturalist landscapes, realism, and modern-life scenes were refused. Symbolist painters such as Khnopff, Delville, Toorop, Schwabe, and Hodler showed there, with music by Erik Satie, and the salons did much to promote Symbolism across Europe.

Defining characteristics

• Mystic and idealist subjects: religion, myth, legend, dream, and allegory
• Idealized, often androgynous figures and femmes fatales in ornate settings
• Deliberate rejection of naturalism, realism, and modern-life subjects
• Ornamental, medievalizing surfaces echoing Renaissance and Gothic art
• Music and visual art presented together as one esoteric program
• Symbolist posters and prints as the salons' public face

Key figures

• Joséphin Péladan (1858-1918) — Novelist and Rosicrucian founder who staged all six salons as High Priest of the Order
• Fernand Khnopff (1858-1921) — Belgian Symbolist painter whose enigmatic, idealized visions epitomized the salon's art
• Jean Delville (1867-1953) — Belgian painter of idealist, esoteric subjects, among the salons' most faithful exhibitors
• Erik Satie (1866-1925) — Composer whose music was featured among the salons' influential works

Example works

• Poster for the fifth Salon de la Rose + Croix (Perseus with the head of Zola) — Armand Point and Léonard Sarluis (1896)
• Caress of the Sphinx — Fernand Khnopff (1896)

Sources

• Salon de la Rose + Croix - Wikipedia encyclopedia

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