{"id":14938,"date":"2014-02-25T02:21:21","date_gmt":"2014-02-25T02:21:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/?p=14938"},"modified":"2014-02-25T02:25:05","modified_gmt":"2014-02-25T02:25:05","slug":"the-chimeras-of-dimitrie-paciurea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/2014\/02\/25\/the-chimeras-of-dimitrie-paciurea\/","title":{"rendered":"The chimeras of Dimitrie Paciurea"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"paciurea2.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/paciurea2.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p><em>Chimera (1923).<\/em><\/p>\n<p>One of the many commendable things about <em>Dreamers of Decadence<\/em> (1971) by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/2010\/12\/13\/philippe-jullian-connoisseur-of-the-exotic\/\">Philippe Jullian<\/a> is the use of the figure of the chimera to describe the impulse that drove the development of Symbolist art in the late 19th century. A chimera is a fabulous, hybrid creature which is also a metaphor for an unfounded conception or mental phantasm, and chimeras happen to be as popular in Symbolist art as the more familiar sphinx. Both creatures had been given a heady promotion in the <em>fin de si\u00e8cle<\/em> imagination thanks to Gustave Flaubert&#8217;s extravagant <em>Temptation of Saint Anthony<\/em> whose final version appeared in 1874; the fluid and metaphoric nature of the chimera, however, makes for a more useful image in art.<\/p>\n<p>Romanian sculptor Dimitrie Paciurea was born around 1874 (his birthdate is uncertain), and is one of those artists who perpetuated Symbolist themes in the 20th century by which time they were rapidly losing the little grace they once possessed. In addition to the profusion of chimeras seen here\u00a0Paciurea was also sculpting fauns and Pan figures, further hybrids from the Symbolist menagerie. These photos are from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wikipaintings.org\/en\/dimitrie-paciurea\" target=\"_blank\">WikiPaintings<\/a> where the artist is rather fatuously categorised as an Impressionist.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"paciurea7.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/paciurea7.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p><em>Chimera of the Earth.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"paciurea3.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/paciurea3.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p><em>Chimera of the Sky.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"paciurea1.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/paciurea1.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p><em>Chimera with Wings.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"paciurea4.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/paciurea4.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p><em>Chimera of the Water.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"paciurea5.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/paciurea5.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p><em>Chimera of the Night.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"paciurea6.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/paciurea6.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p><em>Chimera.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Previously on { feuilleton }<br \/>\n\u2022 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/2010\/12\/13\/philippe-jullian-connoisseur-of-the-exotic\/\">Philippe Jullian, connoisseur of the exotic<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Chimera (1923). One of the many commendable things about Dreamers of Decadence (1971) by Philippe Jullian is the use of the figure of the chimera to describe the impulse that drove the development of Symbolist art in the late 19th century. A chimera is a fabulous, hybrid creature which is also a metaphor for an &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/2014\/02\/25\/the-chimeras-of-dimitrie-paciurea\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;The chimeras of Dimitrie Paciurea&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2,21,41,45],"tags":[5825,136,158],"class_list":["post-14938","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art","category-fantasy","category-sculpture","category-symbolists","tag-dimitrie-paciurea","tag-fin-de-siecle","tag-philippe-jullian"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pq7rV-3SW","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14938","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14938"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14938\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}