Symbolism and Modern Urban Society - Softcover

"...The best book on symbolism in ages. Essential." CHOICE July 2005

"Art historian Sharon L. Hirsh has provided students of modern European history with a new study of symbolism in an effort to "retrieve" symbolists from the intellectual wasteland of esoteric mysticism to which scholars have relegated them"
Patricia Tilburg, Journal of Modern History

Symbolism and Modern Urban Society is the first social history of the Symbolist movement. Sharon Hirsh adopts a variety of methods, including gender theory, biography, visual analysis, and medical and literary history, in order to investigate this esoteric movement and ground it firmly in fin-de-siècle issues of modernity and the metropolis. Hirsh argues that Symbolism, often associated with notions of individualism, nostalgia, and visual reverie, offers an engaging critique of urbanity. Providing new definitions and theories for Symbolism and Decadence, she also addresses issues such as spatial/street confrontations with the crowd, the diseased city, the New Woman as 'should-be-mother', as well as the ideal city of Bruges and its social upheaval in the 1890s. Focusing on works by artists such as Van Gogh, Munch and Ensor, Hirsh also considers the works of artists who contributed in important ways to the Symbolist movement and the cities in which they worked.