This book explores the responses of leading European avant-garde painters to the operas of Richard Wagner, the most influential composer of the late nineteenth century. The term avant-garde represents a twenty-first century evaluation of certain nineteenth-century artists working in a variety of advanced styles, rather than a phrase the artists applied to themselves. Chapters are on individual artists or groups, rather than an attempt to survey all of nineteenth-century Wagnerian visual art. They deal with paintings and drawings inspired by Wagner and his operas, not with the composer’s larger cultural influence through his writings and personal example. Thus artists such as Vincent Van Gogh and Paul Gauguin, who knew of Wagner’s music and writings but did not depict scenes from his operas, are not discussed in detail. The emphasis is on the diverse effects Wagner had on the works of leading avant-garde artists, varying according to their personalities and stylistic interests. The period beginning in the 1880s, often associated with post-Impressionism, was characterized by a movement away from realist subject matter to more personal or imaginary themes, a general intellectual trend of the fin-de-siècle. Wagner’s remote quasi-historical or mythological subjects fit well with this escapist tendency in the art and culture of the time, in part a return to the Romantic sensibility that was dominant in Wagner’s youth. Wagner’s influence peaked in the period between his death in 1883 and 1900, though a few long-lived artists continued their Wagnerian explorations from this era well into the early twentieth century. There is no “Wagner style” in art, yet Wagner’s pervasive influence is immediately evident in these works. Artists whose works are discussed include Eugène Delacroix, Henri Fantin-Latour, Odilon Redon, Max Klinger, James Ensor, Fernand Khnopff, John Singer Sargent and Aubrey Beardsley, among others. The book features 60 art reproductions, half of them in color.

Poor, frustrated, and angered by the ?fashion-mongers and mode-purveyors? of art, Richard Wagner published The Art-Work of the Future in 1849. It marked a turning point in his life: an appraisal of the revolutionary passions of mid-century Europe, his farewell to symphonic music, and his vision of the music to come. ø Beethoven?s Ninth Symphony was unsurpassable, he wrote. Henceforth "The Folk must of necessity be the Artist of the Future," and only artists who were in harmony with the Folk could know what harmony was for. The essay became a touchstone for Wagner, his family, friends, and followers, as he sought to produce works that thoroughly combined music, dance, drama, and national saga. ø In addition to Wagner?s epoch-defining essay, this volume includes his "Autobiographical Sketch," "Art and Climate"; his libretto for an opera, "Wieland the Smith"; and his notorious "Art and Revolution." The concluding piece, "A Communication to My Friends (1851), explains his views on his first successes?The Flying Dutchman, Lohengrin, and TannhÜuser?and defines his agenda for later works. ø As spokesman for the future, Wagner spoke most of himself. In these works he set forth his ambitions, identified his enemies, and began a campaign for public attention that made him a legend in his own time and in ours.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1875.

This volume brings our story down to 1843, an important era in Richard Wagner’s Life, with his entry, as composer, of two successful operas, upon a so-called "practical" career at one of the principal German theatres.