When I was researching possible topics for my PhD thesis, due to my own background as an artist I wanted to explore the intersection between art and esotericism, and had already concluded that I wanted to focus on the Symbolists since I have an enduring interest in the use of artistic symbolism to encapsulate and communicate esoteric concepts; particularly the notion of manifesting an ideal in visual form. I already knew of Péladan, but based on the literature available I had initially thought him an eccentric oddity. As I looked into the background of some of the Symbolist artists, his name kept coming up, and I realised that there was no in-depth study of his work available. I searched a little further and discovered that there was a major dissonance between the stereotypical impressions of him, and the quality of some of his work, and further research revealed that there was a lot more to him than met the eye – in fact he had been sorely misread by a number of his biographers. I also felt an affinity for much that he had to say, particularly his insistence on the sacrality of artistic expression and the notion of the artist-initiate. Therefore, not only was this a practically untouched subject which was an ideal research topic, but it represented an opportunity to review Péladan’s life and work from a fresh perspective, allowing it to speak for itself.

2. -Péladan´s group of artists wished for a sacred art. With your own words “art presented as…an intermediary aspect of religion between the physical and the metaphysical”. Or as you also put it “the synthesis of Matter and Ideal”. In a similiar and rather typical saying on symbolism, the Russian symbolist Akym Volynsky defines symbolism as “the fusion of the phenomenal and the divine worlds”. But more exactly, how did Péladan expect the sacred to incarnate into the material, how is art made holy? 

In his own words:

Art is man’s effort to realize the Ideal, to form and represent the supreme idea, the idea par excellence, the abstract idea, and great artists are religious, because to materialize the idea of God, the idea of an angel, the idea of the Virgin Mother, requires an incomparable psychic effort and procedure. Making the invisible visible: that is the true purpose of art and its only reason for existence.” (Péladan, ‘L’esthetique au salon de 1883,’ L’Artiste, vol. 1 (Paris : May 1883)

For Péladan, art represents the manifestation of man’s creative impulse which is in itself, according to him, the ultimate demonstration of man’s most sacred faculty. In his view, art has to have a deeper meaning – he had no respect for realistic representations but felt that art should be the act of giving form to an idea. He did not consider that art could be “made” holy; rather he believed that as long as artistic expression was engaged in a process of giving form to an ideal, then it was holy by definition. In a sense, a painting (or a poem, or a novel, or a play) could encapsulate a myth, in almost talismanic form, and in turn, that myth was a symbolic key with which to make sense of reality; through which to perceive deeper “truths” not ordinarily visible in linear history or mundane reality. So to understand why Péladan perceived symbolic art as sacred, we have to look to ideas concerning symbolic thinking and the role of myth in culture. His own books, plays, and characters, were themselves both artistic and occult ‘signs’ for esoteric meaning, drawing on several centuries of universalist esoteric thought, and the perceived power of the written word as well as the image imbued with ideals that can manifest change in the material world.

3. -When one regards Art as holy, and as Péladan also does, you tell us, as a representation of myth, how should we from his standing point think about the art work itself? I here have in mind German Idealism and Friedrich Schiller who seems to be stating that the blending of spirit and nature in Art never becomes real in a true sense, but remains “Schein”. If that is giving enough merit to the world of the senses one can question Péladans predecessor in symbolism, Stephane Mallarmé, although he definitively viewed poetry as culture- and myth-based codification, would also emphasize books and paintings as an object.

4. -The idea of perfection of art is no longer a natural concept in contemporary art. Would the obvious Platonic or Neoplatonic influences be the explanation of the importance of perfect art, “ideal” art, to the French Symbolists of the Rose+Croix? Or how should we best understand how Péladan emphasize perfection? 

As noted in the previous question, for Péladan, artistic perfection was not a matter of technique or realistic depiction, but of the process of giving form to an ideal. He explains this as follows in his book Les Idées et les Formes: Antiquité Orientale (1907),

What is Art? Human creation. God made the universe (macrocosm), man made the temple (microcosm), from where arts emerged…. What is a monument, if not a calculation of lines and volumes for the expression of spiritual will? From the forest path and from the cavern to the cathedral, human work appears colossal. What is a figure such as the sphinx or the winged bull with a human face, if not a philosophical combination of natural motifs for the manifestation of an idea? From the cat to the sphinx, from the savage bull to the genius that guards the temple threshold, through quasi-divine operations the artist raises himself to the level of creator.

Péladan adapted Antoine Fabre d’Olivet’s (1767-1825) notion of philosophical, or allegorical history for the understanding of the history of enduring human ideas (in turn based on an older tradition of “universalist history” deriving from the Renaissance and eventually forming a current within the Counter-Enlightenment). However, rather than applying it piecemeal he states quite clearly that while it is not appropriate for historical accuracy, the notion of symbolic thinking is a necessity for aesthetic gnosis.

Péladan reached back to the art of ancient civilizations, seeking motifs with which to clothe his philosophy, and demonstrated a considerable understanding of the “true” history of these civilizations, but takes artistic license when using them in his work. He did not appear to perceive Egyptian art as a process of giving idea to form, but more of a direct representation of divine attributes that became the reality of the afterlife, something he believed to have been understood by initiates, and expressed in naturalistic imagery for the lay population. In Péladan’s view, the step from Egyptian to Chaldean art is the step from cat to sphinx, from bull to chimeric temple guardian, and the process of taking that step is what he considers the exaltation of mankind. It is theurgy in reverse; rather than invoking a deity in order to animate a statue, the statue is created to demonstrate man’s ability to conceive and to clothe the Idea. This is why Chaldean art represented a break from the direct depiction of deities and the ‘language of the dead’ that Péladan perceived in Egyptian civilisation, and a step in the direction of human creativity. For Péladan, Chaldean (Assyrian) art was a process of giving material form to ideas, whereby statuary and reliefs came to take on the nature of three-dimensional hieroglyphs representing concepts rather than entities – and it would appear that this is the most significant differentiation; Egypt codified the ideas, Chaldea gave them form clothed by the human imagination:

The bull with a human face, an admirable creation… A combination of the flanks and hooves of a bull with the mane of a lion, that signify the two types of courage and animal strength; this type is amplified by the mitred face and the wings signifying supernatural being. He thinks with the head, he can rise to the sky with the wings, and by the organic characteristics he can rule the earth. The sphinx is an androgynous cat, it dreams; the bull is alert and in motion.1

This is one of the best examples of what Péladan meant by “a perfect work” – one in which the ideal was given symbolic form that could take on a life of its own in the human imagination and communicate these notions to the viewer, taking on an almost talismanic role within the mythology of a given civilisation. This is what he meant by the ensoulment of a work of art – from the moment that a form was created in order to represent an ideal, it was perfect in the sense that Péladan meant it. Hence we find motifs such as that of Orpheus, the Sphinx, and the androgyne repeated in the works of many of the artists who worked with him, as well as within his own novels, all of which were styled as “éthopées” ( NB. The term éthopée is a figure of speech stemming from the Greek ethologia or ethopoiia, literally meaning study or creation of ethos (understood as customs or mores).

5. -You quote Péladan´s saying “Artist…if you create a perfect work, a soul will come to inhabit it”. The Gnostic Manichean Bogomils, as the radical iconoclasts they also were, destroyed icons and crucifixes, and believed that a demon (daimon) did inhabit and hid behind each icon. Their historic successors, the Cathars of southern France, regarded their “perfects” as living icons, embodying the Holy Spirit. What would be Péladan´s view on the relation between the perfection of art and the perfection of man? 

To answer fully I would need to explain Péladan’s cosmology, which is quite complex and difficult to present succinctly, so I’ll do my best to give an overview, but please keep in mind that this is something of a simplification.

Péladan strongly believed in the notion of daimons (intermediary beings between heaven and earth), that were not inherently evil, but that were somehow “imperfect”, but still forces of nature engaged in an effort towards reunification with the Divine. He also believed that some daimons took human form, and were descended from angels: he considered these to be a separate, gifted race of men, who were also burdened with the knowledge of their heavenly origins and whose responsibility it was to attempt to redeem both themselves and the world around them. In his own words: “I believe, along with Pythagoras and Plato, that the genius is never a man, but a d[a]emon, that is to say, an intermediary being between the spiritual and the earthly hierarchy” (Comment on Devient Artiste). In his novel Istar he wrote: “The enchanters, the egregores of all times, of all lands, mages, saints, artists, poets, aristes, mystagogues, are all the obscured or shining offspring of angelic descent.”

There is a strong Orphic element to Péladan’s perspective, according to which he perceived humanity as combining both an earthly, as well as a daemonic nature, and at the heart of his teachings – and his own life – was the notion of “kaloprosopia” (a term he invented, derived from the Greek “Kalos=Good” and “Prosopo=Face”). He stated that ‘the law of kaloprosopia is to realize the exteriorisation of the character one claims for oneself.’ This was essentially an ‘ art of personality,’ perceived as an art of self-initiation.

Péladan saw self-initiation as a profound act of inner transformation. In his handbook for neophytes, Comment on Devient Mage, he explains: ‘If one imagines that magic teaches the secrets of omnipotence, that it offers the possibility of the transmutation of metals, the secret of making gold, talismans and charms, this is a simplistic and disastrous notion… For those who have come to me asking them to complete within them the confusing work… I offer this practical method of self-magification.”

The essence of his teaching is a process of self-knowledge and spiritual development, based on the cultivation of one’s intellectual and spiritual faculties. He accompanies each teaching with advice on all aspects of life, and argues forcefully in favour of conscious individualism. Péladan reminds the reader:

“Seek no other measure of magical power than that of your internal power: nor should you judge another being, except by the light they emit. To perfect yourself by becoming luminous, and like the sun, to warm the latent ideal life around you, there is the whole mystery of the highest initiation.”

If for Péladan perfect art was that which most effectively reflected a given Ideal, then human perfection was a life lived according to these ideals, whereby they were given form, not in a two-dimensional painting, but in a life lived as a work of art.

6. -“Do not present the thing itself but its atmosphere,” is  often quoted advice Stéphane Mallarmé gives for poetry. His symbolist poetic ideal was not to show but to evoke the memory of something. For pre-abstract Art this must have had its special complication. Even if when we look at Rose+Croix painters like Alexandré Séon or – perhaps less great – Alphonse Osbert, it seems obvious that what they are showing is not what they are saying. So we have this belief in the spirituality of the material figurative in the art work. But how does Péladan consider that its sacredness comes in: with its creator, as incarnated in an Object of art or in ritualistic communication with the viewer? I´m thinking about the difference between an icon and a piece of art, where the icon is through adoration and tradition not really a piece of art. 

As noted earlier, for Péladan the sacrality of a painting depended on its depiction of an ideal. In this sense, all Symbolist paintings were, in fact, more icons, or visual talismans, than simple pieces of art. One of my favourite examples illustrating this is that of Orpheus – or more specifically, the depiction of his decapitated head on his lyre – as a central theme of many Symbolist paintings. The majority of Symbolist depictions of Orpheus focus on the head and the lyre – the dead Orpheus in other words – who continues to sing, even in death. In the painting by Gustave Moreau (Young Thracian Woman with head of Orpheus, 1875) we see a young woman holding the head and the lyre, while paintings by Redon, Séon and Delville all follow precisely the same motif: the head and lyre in the foreground, and the sea or beach where, according to legend, Orpheus’ remains were washed up, forming the background.

In his greatly influential work The Great Initiates (1889), Edouard Schuré discusses the notion of initiation in depth, and writes: “Initiation… was, then, the creation of a soul out of itself, its evolution on a higher level, and its flowering on the divine plane.” According to Schuré it was Orpheus who transmitted this Dionysian, theurgic impulse, throughout Greece, and then Europe. Orpheus himself stands for creative genius, initiatory tradition, and his lyre symbolises human existence itself, whereby, according to Schuré, “every chord corresponds to a mood of the human soul and contains the laws of one science and one art,” thus ‘proving’ Orpheus to be “the great mystagogue, ancestor of poetry and music, which reveal eternal truths.”

This “religion” of initiatory and creative genius was the motive force of the Symbolists, for whom Orpheus was the archetypal Artist-priest. In Péladan’s vision, it was these artist-initiates who would collectively initiate society through their exposure to the mysteries hidden within symbolic artwork. Therefore, these works in which we see the repeated motif of Orpheus’ head and lyre, are no less than sacred icons, talismans encapsulating their whole raison-d’etre. And Orpheus is their patron saint.

One might rightly question why the Symbolists preferred the decapitated form as opposed to a more Dionysian, triumphal figure such as that preferred in Renaissance depictions. The simple answer is ideologically based: the head and lyre are symbols, and as such, offer more compositional and interpretative freedom to the artist than a full human form complete with background and props, where focus on the symbol will necessarily be diluted. By isolating the complex symbol of the head-and-lyre, the artist is free to make it his own and to use all his skill so as to communicate the symbolic message, just as is the case with stylized icons in various religious traditions.

7. -In Russian symbolism, again, the World Soul in the female image of Sophia is a focus of intention, and also emphasizing the feminine sides of creativity in general, as can be seen also in the Rose+Croix imagery. But the Rose+Croix exhibitions where, very strictly and negatively in the manifesto, closed to female artists. Is this a contradiction inside the symbolist movement, and what would be your perspective on this mental drama of androgyne idealization contra misogynist attitude?