Martynova, Daria O. Development of the Iconography of the Mesmeric Seance in French Art of the Late 19th Century

Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://dx.doi.org/10.18688/aa2313-8-56
Title Development of the Iconography of the Mesmeric Seance in French Art of the Late 19th Century
Author email d.martynova@spbu.ru
About author Martynova, Daria O. — Ph. D., head lecturer. Saint-Petersburg State University, Universitetskaia nab., 7/9, 199034 St. Petersburg, Russian Federation; SPIN-code: 4307-6629; ORCID: 0000-0003-0426-6458
In the section Art Theory DOI10.18688/aa2313-8-56
Year 2023 Volume 13 Pages 702–713
Type of article RAR Index UDK 7.011 Index BBK 85.143(3)
Abstract

At the end of the 19th century, a large number of critical and theoretical texts on art appeared in France, which were based on the paranientific theory of mesmerism: for example, in the journal ’New Iconography of Salpetriere’ dedicated to the representations of pathologies in art, a group of physicians wrote a series of art criticism articles on engravings with mesmeric session. In a theoretical paper on hysteria, Paul Richer and Henri Meige formulated the idea of a proforma that anticipated Aby Warburg’s “pathos formula”. Doctors believed that certain visual images migrate in the history of art and become “emphatic”. As a result of these publications, the visualization of pathologies entered and found its place in the art of the second half of the 19th century. The symptom turned into a sign that needs to be read; thereby, the visual became the main thing in interpretation, which allowed us to bring gestures and poses from the field of fine art into the spatial: emphatic gestures formed protoperformative practices played out in the theater, cabaret, and café-concerts. The topic opens up the prospects for the analysis and revision of a number of themes and images in art and culture, whether it would be a trickster hypnotist or a magician and hypnotic sessions.

This research has been completed with the support of the Russian Science Foundation (RSF), project no. 23-28-01577.
Keywords
Reference Martynova, Daria O. Development of the Iconography of the Mesmeric Seance in French Art of the Late 19th Century. Actual Problems of Theory and History of Art: Collection of articles. Vol. 13. Eds A. V. Zakharova, S. V. Maltseva, E. Iu. Staniukovich-Denisova. — Lomonosov Moscow State University / St. Petersburg: NP-Print, 2023, pp. 702–713. ISSN 2312-2129. http://dx.doi.org/10.18688/aa2313-8-56
Publication Article language russian
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