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This is a highly idiosyncratic study, by turns appealing and informative or equally annoying and frustrating--but in general quite engaging. The author is at his best and clearest when addressing specific matters like the differences between and interrelationships among the various Symbolist groups--Les XX, La Libre Esthétique, the Munich Secession, Vienna Secession, etc.--and discussing individual artists and their works. But when he tries to relate such practical matters to their philosophical antecedents in Nietzsche, Schopenhauer and others or tries to draw syntheses from abstract concepts, his prose can become impenetrable to the point of opacity. This is annoying, because it is clear that he is as intimately acquainted with the general intellectual currents of the time as with the persons and works of the artists themselves. This is as it should be, because if there is one thing he is most keen to demonstrate, it is that Symbolism was far less a "school" or "movement" than it was an intellectual/artistic tendency, state of mind, or Zeitgeist. Mr. Delevoy has very suggestive things to say about the Symbolists' reception of figures like Wagner and Freud and their use of mythology and earlier painting, especially that of the Pre-Raphaelites. He is quite adept at using the words of his subjects--in journals, diaries, critical writings, and especially in their letters to one another--to underscore his points, and he quotes them generously, but -- and this is a major frustration -- there is not a single annotation in the entire volume. Coupled with the absence of any selected bibliography, the reader's potential quest for more information is unfortunately stymied. There is a general index combined with a "dictionary" of Symbolism so that one can get a capsule summary of an index entry along with the page references. One of the main merits of the volume is the copious illustration; the jacket text informs us that there are 228 black-and-white and eighty-three full-color illustrations, which run the range from easel paintings to photographs to many graphics from the periodicals.

The organizational principle of his book is a combination of theme and chronology, from the first chapter, entitled "The Unreality of the Image, 1870-1876," to Chapter 8, "The Space of Dream, 1900 . . .," in which we move gradually from Arnold Böcklin and Gustave Moreau to Gustav Klimt. Exactly why we start and end there and take the route we do is not determined by any inexorable logic, but by the author's eclectic view; this is probably dictated by the nature of the subject. The opening sentence of Chapter 6, "Signs in Their Proper Place, 1894-1896," is fairly indicative of his procedure: "Another account of our subject which cannot be omitted by anyone who wishes to cover the main evidence was . . ." (141). There follows discussion of the lectures on Symbolist poetry given by Ferdinand Brunetière at the Sorbonne in 1893, but what I would emphasize is that Symbolism was such a divergent, internationally widespread and encompassing tendency (that, we should remember, generally took the "Gesamtkunstwerk" as an ideal) that perhaps any study of it can do no more than hope to "cover the main evidence." There is a great deal of material here, and I learned quite a lot from this book, although I do think it could have been more informative if it had been more straightforward and less willfully eccentric. But it is unquestionably one of the more important studies of its subject and one that anyone seriously interested in Symbolism should have. As irksome as it occasionally is, I am sure that I will be returning to it from time to time, not only for its excellent illustrations but also to reconsider some of its provocative judgments and conclusions.

The illustrations are clear and well-chosen. The text includes literary and musical contributions to the movement. Many artists were introduced to me in this book, along with the usual representatives of Symbolist art.