The Soul of Wine

Still in the framework of its centenary, the Museum of Art and History pays tribute to this German artist born in 1866, naturalized Switzerland and died in France in 1926.

What could we say about Carlos Schwabe? It was attached to the Symbolism, said precursor of Art Nouveau.

It is true that he was close to many artists, he made the subjects of his paintings: Baudelaire, Zola … It is true that has been compared to Klimt.

For symbolism, The paint serves the idea, instead of being used to describe a scene.

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The Dream by Emile Zola

When attached to a work of Schwabe, we see that the idea is central, indeed. But it‘s not quite true. For example, The Wave, which is in Geneva, so famous we will not see here, the physical manifestation of nature, wild par excellence, takes all the space but is composed of human beings fused into bone, subversion of this idea.

To continue, we see that in the Death and the Gravedigger, a morbid subject, it is a calm and serene escape from the scene, Death is treated with delicacy and sweetness, and the man seems as if the wait was already in full paradise and not in a cemetery.

Death and the Gravedigger

There is never any belief in his paintings, just a digression, a world where fantasy and dreamlike subjects or serious magicians are never what they seem.

We talked also of Art Nouveau, as Gustave Moreau or sisters Mac Donald.
Of course we can see a similarity.The representations of Nature are there. At times, the line is guaranteed even if the abstraction of the dream eventually rub the sharpness of the arabesque.

Spleen and Ideal

It can be as simplistic. The inspiration of the artist is of course also drawn mythological pagan or sacred, but a dark place of her imagination still haunts his subjects, something unspeakable, infinite universe inside, like a stranger or an HP Lovecraft Lautreamont in literature. The Fantaisy is never far from fantastic, like a Stravinsky music.

And it is in the modern sense that we can use it here. In my opinion, it prefigures a Dali in cinematography, a Kronenberg or Tim Burton, even the masters of manga, who knows them well.

The flowers of evils

Carlos Schwabe is an iconoclast, a transgressor, it receives one of his paintings as an emotion that you slap in the head, a strong mark, a face-to-face with his own dreams and his reality.

That‘s why the title: From Drawing as Design(Du dessin comme Dessein), well justified and will of the Museum of decline in four exhibition includes the album, it might get lost in a general retrospective of the artist without savor full potential.

Bells

To see absolutely an audience for non-restricted, not just for lovers but for those who love the upheavals and changes in our world since the late nineteenth century, and all new artistic expressions that Schwabe, among others, has helped make hatch.

Hours Tuesday to Sunday 10h-18h

Images for illustration, to discover the contents of the room, you’d better get there, the visual is not comparable to a reproduction.