strange_tears's Journal

The idea behind this community is to take the Symbolist Movement of the 19th century, both in painting and literature, as the starting point. From there I hope we will branch out into areas such as other movements that influenced Symbolism (like the Pre-Raphaelites), and movements that were in turn influenced by Symbolism (like surrealism), and follow trails of influence that will take us to areas like art nouveau, the gothic revival, spiritualism, the Egyptology craze, Rosicrucianism, magick societies like the Golden Dawn, the Celtic Twilight, Wilde, aestheticism, the Decadence, etc.

There is no need for discussions to be limited to painting and literature – music, interior design, costume, jewellery, architecture are all perfectly acceptable subjects for discussion. If you can show some link between Symbolism and the subject of your post, then your post is on-topic. I want this to be a community that doesn’t mind leaving the main read and heading off interesting looking side roads from time to time.

Other subjects that may well be discussed are Victorian attitudes towards homosexuality, the position of women in Victorian society, the clash between science and religion that developed over the course of the 19th century, dandyism, attitudes towards sexuality, etc.

For our purposes the 19th century really means the period from Waterloo in 1815 to the outbreak of the Great War in 1914.



RULES
We have very few rules, mostly just the obvious ones - don't post spam or inappropriate material, feel free to express strong opinions both positive and negative about works of art but don't make personal attacks on members of the community.

This is not the place for posting your own art works or writing.

If you want to post an add for another community that's no problem at all as long as it's a community that has some vague relevance to what this community is about - so promoting an anime group or another genre fiction group would be fine, promoting an ice hockey group wouldn't be.

SUBJECT MATTER
Anything that can be connected to Symbolism is on-topic. The best guide to what’s on-topic is the list of topics you’ll find in the “interests” list. If you can think of anything else that should be added to the interests list let me know.

There's only one real rule here - no political discussions of any kind. Politics has killed too many online groups.

This community is maintained by dfordoom



darkvictoria - the dark side of the Victorian era
gothic_lit - gothic literature
darkling_tales - horror, with an emphasis on the horror of the past and on horror that doesn't rely on gore
talkbooks - general book discussions

I also run these communities -
fantasywithbite - fantasy literature, including magic realism
sf_with_bite - the sister list to this one, for science fiction that gets away from cliches like space battles and laser cannons
movie_greats - discussion of both Hollywood and non-Hollywood movies up to the end of the 1970s
cult_tv_lounge Cult TV shows of the 60s and 70s
anti21stcentury - If you hate the 21st century here's your chance to tell us why!

Some webites and blogs relating to Symbolism and related topics -
The Deacdent Handbook - http://decadenthandbook.wordpress.com/